Frank Bott (1940-2023)

Frank Bott was a member of the Bibliographical Group from 2012 until his death on 16th June 2023.

Michael Francis Bott was born near Wolverhampton in December 1940.  He attended Wolverhampton Grammar School at the early age of ten and won a scholarship to study mathematics at Trinity College Cambridge when he was 16.  Because of his age, Trinity asked Frank to defer going up for a year, during which time he worked at a school where many of the teachers were Welsh.  Once at Trinity, Frank joined the Welsh Society so that he could learn the language.  There he met Mary, who became his wife.

After graduating in mathematics from Trinity, Frank worked for six years in the Computing Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where he became involved in language processing.  He then joined Software Programmers Limited (SPL) and became manager of their office in Milan before returning to the UK to manage SPL’s Nottingham office.

Frank then decided to follow an academic career, and he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri in St Louis for two years before being appointed to the Computer Science Department in Aberystwyth in 1979.  At that time, the Department was a small teaching department, but it changed over the next two decades into a large and very successful teaching and research department.  Frank played a major role in this development, establishing a very beneficial relationship between the Department and SPL.  He was Head of Department throughout the 1990s, and he never completely retired from the Department.

Frank was a remarkable polymath.  The breadth and depth of his knowledge never failed to amaze, and he had an incredible memory.  He could give fascinating talks on all sorts of topics, although he was particularly interested in linguistics and music.  He was fluent in many languages, but always keen to learn more, and he contributed regularly to the Aber Linguistics Forum established by the European Languages Department.  Frank’s knowledge of music was also immense, and he contributed an enormous amount to the Aberystwyth music scene, being very heavily involved in both MusicFest and the Music Club.

Frank contributed much to the Aberystwyth community, with groups such as the Bibliographical Group, Civic Society, 30 Club, MusicFest, and the Music Club benefiting from his immense knowledge and wise advice.  He really will be sadly missed.

[I am grateful to Professor Mike Tedd for much of the information in this obituary.]

Fred Long,
July 2023.