Roland Berrill

Roland Fabien Berrill (1897–1962) was a British-Australian who was the co-founder (with the English barrister Lancelot Ware) of Mensa, the international society for intellectually gifted people. The founding of Mensa Mensa was founded by Berrill and Lancelot Ware at Lincoln College, Oxford, England on 1 October 1946. They originally called it the "High IQ Club". Lance Ware had the initial idea for the society, but Berrill founded Mensa in the usual sense: he supplied the start-up cash, wrote some initial idiosyncratic pamphlets and became Mensa's first Secretary. Berrill was an unashamed elitist, who regretted the passing of an aristocratic tradition. He regarded Mensa as "an aristocracy of the intellect". He noticed with some disappointment that a majority of Mensans appeared to have come from humble homes. At an early Mensa organizational meeting, one of the people present proposed that black people be excluded from Mensa. This was met by shocked silence. Then Berrill proposed that the motion be amended to exclude "green people with yellow stripes" instead. This amended motion passed, with one vote against. If the minutes of that meeting had not been lost, that statute might still be on the books of Mensa.