| Code | BPS/GB/63 |
| Thumbnail | 
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| Name | Vernon; Philip Ewart (1905-1987); Professor; HonFBPsS |
| Title | Professor |
| Forenames | Philip Ewart |
| Surname | Vernon |
| Dates | 1905-1987 |
| Epithet | HonFBPsS |
| Parallel Name | Philip Vernon |
| Other Names | P.E.Vernon |
| Gender | Male |
| Nationality | British |
| DatesAndPlaces | Born 6 June 1905 Oxford Died Alberta, Canada 28 July 1987
Oxford 1905- ?1922
Cambridge ?1922-1927
Yale & Harvard 1929-?1931
Cambridge 1931-1933
London 1933-1935
Glasgow 1935-1947
London ?1947-1968
Canada 1968-1987 |
| Address | London/Canada |
| Relationships | Vernon was the second of three children and the elder son of Horace Middleton Vernon (nd), physiologist and fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and his wife, Katherine Dorothea (nd), daughter of the Revd William Ewart (nd) of Bishop Cannings, Wiltshire. Brother of Magdalen Vernon (1901-1991) Professor of Psychology Reading University.
In 1938 Vernon married Annie Craig (died 1946) schoolteacher, daughter of Robert Gray (nd) solicitor.
According to the DNB after his first wife's death Vernon married Dorothy Lawson, a specialist in human intelligence in 1947, however according to L.S.Hearnshaw's obitiuary in The Psychologist (October (1987) Vernon married Dorothy Fairley. |
| Activity | Education:
Dragon School in Oxford, Oundle School, St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first class honours in physics, chemistry, and physiology in 1926 (natural sciences tripos, part one) and in 1927 with a first in psychology (moral sciences tripos, part two). He then completed a PhD on the psychology of musical appreciation.
In 1927, Vernon won a Rockefeller fellowship for study in America.
In 1929 he worked at Yale on personality assessment and spent a year at Harvard with Gordon Allport (1897-1967).
From 1931 to 1933 he was a research and teaching fellow at St John's, which he left to work as a child psychologist at the Maudsley Hospital, London.
In 1935 he was appointed head of the department of psychology in the Jordanhill Training Centre, Glasgow, which trained teachers.
In 1938 he became head of Glasgow University's department of psychology. He remained there until 1947, working also at the War Office and admiralty on personnel selection 'Psychological Research Adviser to the Service Departments and Civil Service Commission'.
July appointed Chair of Educational Psychology at the Institute of Education, University of London in succession to H R Hamley.
In 1949 he was appointed to the professorship of educational psychology in the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada from which he retired officially in 1975.
Vernon was made an Honorary DSc of the University of London and was a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
He was also made an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society of which he was previously President in 1954-1955, BPS Hon. Curator of Test Collection 1951-1954, Editor of the British Journal of Educational Psychology 1956 and first chairman of the BPS Standing Committee on Test Standards (1959-1961).
In 1980 Vernon received an honorary degree of LLD from the University of Calgary.
Sources: Paul Kline, Vernon, Philip Ewart (1905-1987), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004[accessed 11 Jan 2005: <available at>http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/39980.
Compiled by Mike Maskill, BPS Archivist for the History of Psychology Centre. |
| Related Name | BPS/GB/65 |
| PublishedWorks | Selected publications:
Intelligence and Cultural Environment (publishing details unknown), 1969
Intelligence: Heredity and Environment(publishing details unknown), 1979
Personnel Selection in the British Forces (London) London University Press, 1949
Personality Tests and Assessments (publishing details unknown), 1953
The Measurement of Abilities(London) London University Press, 1940
Secondary School Selection (ed.) Methuen (London), 1957
A Study of Values. A Scale for Measuring the Dominant Interests in Personality, Etc, Gordon Willard Allport, Philip Ewart Vernon, Publisher Boston, 1931
The structure of human abilities,Philip Ewart Vernon, Methuen, 1950
The training and teaching of adult workers,Philip Ewart Vernon, University of London Press Ltd., 1943
The assessment of psychological qualities by verbal methods: a survey of attitude tests, rating scales, and personality questionnaires
Issue 83 of Report (Great Britain. Industrial Health Research Board), Great Britain Industrial Health Research Board, Philip Ewart Vernon
Publisher H.M. Stationery Off., 1938
Cyril Lodowic Burt (1883-1971): A Biographical Memoir, Philip Ewart Vernon, National Academy of Education, 1972
Modern Educational Psychology as a Science, Philip Ewart Vernon, University of London Institute of Education, 1952
Current Trends in British Psychology. Edited by C. A. Mace ... and P. E. Vernon, Publisher London, 1953
Psychological Effects of Air-raids, Philip Ewart Vernon, Published 1941
Psychological Tests in the Royal Navy, Army and A.T.S., Philip Ewart Vernon,published 1946 |
| Source | Sources: Paul Kline, Vernon, Philip Ewart (1905-1987), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004[accessed 11 Jan 2005: <available at>http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/39980 |
| Conventions | International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN ISBN 0-9696035-3-3
National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 |