PILLOW, Dr Albert Fenton (1921-2006) Wiki.jpg)
Dr A F Pillow (Pegasus June, 1965).
Professor of Mathematics and known as ‘Bert’, Albert Fenton Pillow was the son of
Dr Albert Earnest Pillow (1886-1960), a mining engineer. He entered Geelong College as a nine year old in 1930 attending until 1939, becoming a school prefect in 1939 and winning a scholarship to Ormond College. He was also a sergeant of the Cadet Corps and a member of the Swimming Committee.
He completed a BA with honours at Melbourne University in 1942 and commenced work during World War II at the Aeronautical Research Laboratory at Fisherman’s Bend, Port Melbourne. Five years later under an Australian Government Scholarship he studied at Cambridge. ‘Bert’ returned to Australia in 1950 and rejoined the Aeronautical Research Laboratory in charge of the theoretical fluid mechanics group. In about 1954 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Sydney University in a career change that was to shape his future life. After three years at Sydney and two years lecturing at Melbourne University he was appointed Associate Professor of Mathematics at Toronto University, Canada in 1959.
He had married Jill in 1957 after meeting her on the Australian ski fields and three children were born to the couple in Canada. A further two were to be born in Queensland. In 1964 he returned to Australia as Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Queensland where he remained for twenty-four years until his retirement in 1986. He was described by academic colleague Vincent Hart as a gregarious and popular figure with a deep and intense knowledge of mathematics particularly classical continuum mechanics. His father Albert Ernest Pillow and uncles, Henry Fenton Pillow (1893-1918) and Roy Nelson Pillow (1894-1918) all attended the School as did his brother,
Harry Vincent Pillow. The Fen and Roy Pillow Bursary was named in memory of these two uncles killed in World War I. A Collection of material about the Pillow Family donated by Jill Pillow is held in the School Archives.
Sources: Pegasu, June 1965; Pillow Collection; Eulogy by Vincent Hart 7 April 2006; Eulogy by Jane Pillow 7 April 2006.