Peter Mabey
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(March 21, 1926 – February 19, 2025)
Peter Hedley Mabey was a British fan from Cheltenham and later Surrey and then Harlow, active from the mid-1950s. He was one of the first members of the Cheltenham Circle and the BSFA, a founder member of the Order of St. Fantony and the first winner of the Doc Weir Award in 1963. He continued to be a regular convention attendee into his nineties.
Mabey began reading SF pulps at school in 1938, rapidly moving up to H. G. Wells. His first contact with fandom seems to have been through Ken Slater who put him in touch with fellow Cheltenham fan Eric Jones. He was a member of the West Country Science Fiction Group and then was one of the first to join the new Cheltenham Circle. Curiously, he is listed in Ron Bennett's Directory of Science Fiction Fandom for 1955 albeit tagged "XA", an "ex-active fan". His first convention was Loncon, the 1957 Worldcon.
He became member number 18 of the BSFA in 1958. According to Mabey in Vector 4 (Spring 1959), "it was agreed that the Cheltenham Circle would look after the library; not only because we already had a good collection which would form as a nucleus, but because we had a clubroom in which to store it." Mabey became one of the librarians and was soon inundated with donations, such that "it was not possible to erect shelving fast enough to keep space with the expansion". Ramsey Campbell later said, in Prolapse 6 (April 2004), that Mabey was arguably responsible for starting his writing career. He had noticed that Campbell and Pat Kearney both regularly borrowed copies of Weird Tales and put the two in touch with each other. Kearney would publish Campbell's first story in his fanzine Goudy. Mabey's work with the library would be acknowledged with the first presentation of the Doc Weir Award at Bullcon, the 1963 Eastercon, although he wasn't present to receive it.
Mabey moved to Surrey around 1961 and then Harlow around 1970. He was a member of the Science Fiction Club of London. A report in Skyhack 3 (May 1964) that he and Ted Forsyth had produced a fanzine called Computer in which a feature article "covers 17 pages with the first 32 million decimal places of the value of pi" shouldn't be taken too seriously. He did though at about this time become a committee member of Loncon II, the 1965 Worldcon, in charge of publications and so producing its Progress reports and Programme Book. At the convention itself he was "Master of the Rolls" at the Knights of St. Fantony induction ceremony, a position he has held for subsequent initiations. He was present for the final St. Fantony induction at Cytricon V in 2008 where he was guest of honour.
He continued his involvement with the BSFA after leaving Cheltenham and resigning as librarian. He continued to maintain the magazine chain for some years and was involved with the discussion that led to the creation of the Doc Weir Award. In May 1967, as reported in Vector 44, he was part of the select committee formed to investigate incorporating the BSFA.
In 2008 he was also made a life member of the BSFA. He was at the time the longest-established BSFA member still paying his annual sub. In 2014 he attended Loncon III making him one of a handful of people who had attended all nine European Worldcons up to that point. He continued to attend conventions regularly well into the 21st century and his nineties.
Professionally, he was an aircraft engineer, working on the development of the Meteor, the first British jet-fighter. He worked on Ferranti’s PEGASUS computer, the biggest in the world at the time, and eventually became department head in 1962 with the title of "Chief Stress-man". He then went on to the Hawker Advanced Projects Group and moved into computing full time in 1966.
See "Peter Mabey – one of the Backroom Boys" from the Cytricon V programme book (PDF)
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 1963 – Doc Weir Award
- 2008 – Cytricon V
| Person | 1926—2025 |
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