Geoffrey H Henry, Chairman of the Australian College of Optometry Council, 1955-1967, honorary life member of the College

Historical Significance: Geoffrey Henry (1930-2010 ) was First Vice-President of the Australian (later Victorian) College of Optometry from 1955 to 1967 having served but one year previously as a Councillor in 1954. He had obtained his LOSc diploma from the Australian College of Optometry only three years earlier in 1951 and had set up practice in Camberwell. He had already completed a BSc degree with first class honours before starting his optometry course. He was a part-time lecturer in the College, teaching visual physiology from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. Under his chairmanship the College recovered from a financial crisis by obtaining recurrent government funding and a capital grant to buy land in Carlton and build the College's building in Cardigan St in 1960. The new financial security of the College enabled it to appoint its first full-time lecturer. He was a collaborator with John Nathan and Barry Cole in starting research in the College and an author on the publications arising from that research. He won a Chuchhill Fellowship in 1968 which enabled him to research overseas in Indiana University with Russell Devalois and in Cambridge with WAH Rushton. He returned to Australia to sell his practice and resign his positions in the College to take up a research fellowship in the John Curtin School of Medical Research working with Professor P O Bishop. His work at ANU on the visual neurophysiology earned him a DSc degree and a world reputation for his contributions to understanding the visual cortex. See his obituary published in Clincal and Experimental Optometry in 2010 on this web site under the tab 'People who made history'