INAUGURAL PLENARY SESSION 
19 
The Secretary-General: 
“The Brock Gold Medal of the International Society for Photogrammetry is 
awarded on the occasion of the Ninth International Congress in London in 
England in 1960 to Professor Dr Ir W. Schermerhorn. This award is made to 
Professor Schermerhorn on account of his work in founding and directing the 
International Training Centre for Aerial Survey which has proved itself to be a 
unique and notable Centre of research and teaching, serving the practical and 
scientific advancement of photogrammetry, and a valuable institution for the 
encouragement of orderly and economical development of the land and its 
natural resources.” 
The President: I will now ask Professor Schermerhorn to come to the front of 
the platform to receive the Medal. 
(The Brock Gold Medal was then presented by the President of the Society, 
Major-General Brown, to Professor Dr Ir W. Schermerhorn, of the International 
Training Centre at Delft). 
Prof W. Schermerhorn: On an occasion like this, it is normal that the recipient 
of such a high award expresses his gratitude to all those who have agreed upon this. I 
do this today wholeheartedly. Although I know he does not wish to be connected with 
this too closely, I should like to express my gratitude in particular to my old friend, 
Virgil Kaufmann. It is a good habit in photogrammetry and in science in general to do 
what he did: to create some token which shows that we realise ourselves that we are 
standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. That was what was behind the 
act of Kaufmann creating this Brock Gold Medal. I was surprised some time ago — and 
I do not know exactly when — when one of my friends abroad got the strange idea in 
his head that this time I should get the Brock Gold Medal. I considered this, more or 
less, only as a proof of what the President has said already when he raised the point of 
how difficult it is to choose one man every four years. There was some talk of dividing 
the Brock Gold Medal into a number of pieces, into ten small medals. May I express 
then now my desire to divide my Brock Gold Medal virtually into a number of very 
small pieces and award them to all my scientific staff members, because it is those 
fellows with whom I am working every day who really created the ITC and who have 
made it into what it is today. After some time a certain silence fell around me concern 
ing the Brock Gold Medal story. Comparing this with my personal activity before the 
1956 Congress in the discussion around the Brock Medal, I got the impression that I 
was in the battle for it; otherwise I would have heard of it again. Without knowing the 
result, two weeks ago I got a letter from one of our former Portuguese students from the 
United States, where he is at present, congratulating me about the Brock Medal. 
Talking in the United States seems sometimes to be quite easy! Now I am here. Later 
on, naturally, our honoured President informed me in a better way. 
May I just add a few remarks about our work? The idea for this Institute was 
launched in 1949 at the United Nations Conference of Cartographic Experts by some 
of the United Nations officials. I took it up and discussed it with the Netherlands 
Government. They accepted the proposal and were willing to supply me with the money 
necessary to carry out this job. I feel that this Gold Medal is a source of satisfaction to 
those officials in the Netherlands Government who from the early beginnings up until 
today have been willing to give us financial support. There is a story behind it and it 
is an easy one because the original intention, as it was put forward by the Government, 
was that this business should pay for itself. Our Minister of Finance was a little more 
knowing, and I can assure you that he was right. It did not work out like that, to be 
self-supporting; the contrary is true. 
Therefore, I appreciate this award also for the spirit of those in our Government