Douglas W. F. Mayer
(August 22, 1919 – October 12, 1976)
Douglas W. F. 'Doug' Mayer was a fan from Leeds active in the late 1930s.
Mayer was the founder, along with George Airey and Herbert Warnes, of Chapter 17 of the Science Fiction League (SFL), the first in the UK. Their first meeting was held in May 1935 and by the end of the year they had about 12 members. He was one of the prime movers behind the January 1937 Leeds Convention where he was appointed conference secretary. He subsequently edited the official souvenir report.[1] He was active in the business part of the convention, proposing several motions, and he was appointed founding secretary of the Science Fiction Association (SFA) in February 1937. Immediately after the convention Mayer proposed that the Leeds group should formally secede from the SFL and become the Leeds SFA. Not everybody welcomed this, notably J. Michael Rosenblum.
Mayer attended the Second British Convention in London in April 1938 and his speech there was published as The Purpose of Science-Fiction. Warnes writes "again due to the efforts of Douglas, two trips to the London HQ [i.e., a new centre of fandom life, to which even the SFA itself relocated] were arranged with great success. These, together with his other SF activities, have been fairly well documented, in the mag Tomorrow".
Mayer was the editor (although with the help of a "Selection Committee") of SFA's Amateur Science Stories, which gave him the distinction of publishing Arthur C. Clarke's first three short stories.
He published seven issues of the fanzine Tomorrow, and in 2014 was nominated for the 1939 Best Fanzine Retro Hugo. He compiled a very early bibliography, British Science-Fiction Bibliography, in 1937.
In addition, Mayer published articles in venues including Scientific American[2] and Discovery ("a short-lived science journal edited by C. P. Snow"). He had a real-life brush with stf. Herbert Warnes later remembered in an article cited below:
Douglas was reading Physics at Leeds University. During this period he also wrote a science column for the local paper, The Yorkshire Evening Post. From papers and information gathered at the university he deduced that the atomic bomb was now more than just a possibility (circa 1940). He mentioned this in his column and as a result the editor had no choice but to refer the matter to "higher authority", who promptly whisked him away to London, where he became one of the famous "backroom boys". From then on we had no contact with Douglas nor any news of him until after the war
This was quoted by Rob Hansen in the letter column of Relapse 17 (2010), with other details on Mayer's later career, and then in Then. Apparently Mayer's gafiation had been well underway when he went to the university.
In the 1945 Directory of Anglo-Fandom Mayer was one of the only two fans marked with an X, indicating that "his connection with fandom is known to be finally severed". This was a little premature as he did later attend the 1951 Festivention. He emigrated to Ottawa, Canada in 1956 and was no more involved in fanac, though he kept in touch with his old friends Airey and Warnes.
Links
- Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- Douglas W. F. Mayer in Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- "An Appreciation of Douglas E Mayer, Founder of S.F. Fandom in the U.K. by George A.Airey and Bert Warnes, Founder Members" with an introduction by Mal Ashworth. Crystal Ship #14 (February 1988), edited by John D. Owen
- Amateur Science Stories [1937–8]
- Tomorrow [1937–8]
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 2014 – 1939 Best Fanzine Retro Hugo nominee
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| Person | 1919—1976 |
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