Enid Mumford

Enid Mumford (March 6, 1924 – April 7, 2006) was a British social scientist, computer scientist and Professor Emerita of Manchester University and a Visiting Fellow at Manchester Business School, largely known for her work on human factors and socio-technical systems.

Enid Mumford was born in Merseyside in North West England, where her father Arthur McFarland was magistrate and her mother Dorothy Evans was teacher. She attended Wallasey high school, and received her BA in Social Science from Liverpool University in 1946.

After graduation Enid Mumford spent time working in industry, first as personnel manager for an aircraft factory and later as production manager for an alarm clock manufacturer. The first job was important for her career as an academic, since it involved looking after personnel policy and industrial relations strategy for a large number of women staff. The second job also proved invaluable, as she was running a production department, providing a level of practical experience that is unusual among academics.

Enid Mumford then joined the Faculty of Social Science at Liverpool University in 1956. Later she then spent a year at the University of Michigan, where she worked for the University Bureau of Public Health Economics and studied Michigan medical facilities while her husband took a higher degree in dental science. On returning to England, she joined the newly formed Manchester Business School (MBS), where she undertook many research contracts investigating the human and organisational impacts of computer based systems. During this time she became Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Director of the Computer and Work Design Research Unit (CAWDRU). She also directed the MBA programme for four years.

She was a companion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS), also an Honorary Fellow of the BCS in 1984, and also a founder member and ex-chairperson of the BCS Sociotechnical Group.

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