Kenneth Gordon McIntyre OBE, ComIH (22 August 191020 May 2004) was an Australian lawyer and historian.

Career

McIntyre was born in Geelong in 1910 and graduated from Geelong College as Dux of the School in 1926. He went on to study Arts and Law at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

and on graduation taught at the University from 1931 to 1945. In 1945 he left his teaching position and took on a legal practice in Box Hill,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and stood for mayor. He won the election and took a special interest in housing cooperatives. For his work as Mayor of Box Hill he was appointed an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in the 1962 New Year's Day Honours. On retiring from public office in 1956, McIntyre returned to a passion for Portuguese history and undertook his main work on early Portuguese exploration of Australia. After its publication in 1977, ''The Secret Discovery of Australia'', which revived and expanded on earlier ideas about the possible Portuguese exploration and mapping of Australia in the sixteenth century, quickly became well known and contentious. The Portuguese Government awarded McIntyre the ''Commander of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator'' in 1983 for his work in researching and publicising Portuguese exploration. Following his death in 2004, McIntyre's family donated papers and documents, relating to the Portuguese voyages and the early mapping of the western Pacific, to the manuscript collection at the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

.;National Library of Australia MS Acc04/207 McIntyre's interest in mathematics led him to develop a mathematical system for managing the

playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

in what was then known as the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(VFL). The

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

developed by McIntyre determined which teams would compete in the Grand Final. Known as the

McIntyre System The McIntyre System, or systems as there have been five of them, is a playoff system that gives an advantage to teams or competitors qualifying higher. The systems were developed by Ken McIntyre, an Australian lawyer, historian and English lect ...

, it was first implemented in the 1931 VFL season and a version of this system was used by the AFL until

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

. The

McIntyre Final Eight System The McIntyre Final Eight System was devised by Ken McIntyre in addition to the McIntyre Four, Five and Six systems. It is a playoff system of the top 8 finishers in a competition to determine which two teams will play in the grand final. The tea ...

was used by the Australian

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

until 2011, after which it was scrapped by the Independent Commission and replaced with the current AFL finals system from the

2012 NRL season The 2012 NRL season was the 105th season of professional rugby league club competition in Australia, and the first run by the newly formed Australian Rugby League Commission. The main competition, called the 2012 NRL Telstra Premiership due to spon ...

onwards.

Bibliography

* ''The Secret Discovery of Australia : Portuguese ventures 200 years before Captain Cook'' (Souvenir Press, 1977) * ''The Rebello transcripts : Governor Phillip's Portuguese prelude'' (Souvenir Press, 1984)

Notes

References

* Obituary in ''The Age'' 15 June 2004

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McIntyre, Kenneth 1910 births 2004 deaths Mathematicians from Melbourne Officers of the Order of the British Empire University of Melbourne alumni People from Geelong European exploration of Australia People educated at Geelong College 20th-century Australian historians Pre-1606 contact with Australia Pseudohistorians

Career

Bibliography

See also

Notes

References

External links