Career
Mensa was founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware at Lincoln College, Oxford, England on 1 October 1946. They originally called it the "High intelligence quotient Club". Berrill was an unashamed elitist, who regretted the passing of an aristocratic tradition.
He regarded Mensa as "an aristocracy of the intellect".
He noticed with some disappointment that a majority of Mensans appeared to have come from humble homes. At an early Mensa organizational meeting, one of the people present proposed that black people be excluded from Mensa.
This was met by shocked silence. Then Berrill proposed that the motion be amended to exclude "green people with yellow stripes" instead.
This amended motion passed, with one vote against.
If the minutes of that meeting had not been lost, that statute might still be on the books of Mensa. Berrill died a few years later, having recruited in total around 400 people by self-administered intelligence quotient tests.