Robin Farquharson, a prize-winning game theorist, anti-apartheid activist, and countercultural chaos merchant, died at age 42 in a squat fire on April Fools' Day 1973. His life is the subject of a new biography, International Freak by M Syd Rosen, which portrays him as a British Timothy Leary.
Early Life and Academic Brilliance
Farquharson was born in South Africa to a privileged family; his father founded a distinguished law firm in Pretoria. He attended elite private schools alongside future novelist Wilbur Smith and Elon Musk, earning a pilot's licence before age 16. At Oxford, he studied PPE, befriended Bertrand Russell and Rupert Murdoch (then a self-declared Marxist), and shared digs with future chancellor Nigel Lawson. Despite intellectual brilliance, he sabotaged a fellowship at All Souls College by phoning the warden to share a message from God.
Contributions to Game Theory and Voting Systems
Like Lewis Carroll, Farquharson was fascinated by mathematics and voting systems, advocating for direct electorate input over parliamentary control. His work earned praise from philosophers John Searle, Michael Dummett, and Amartya Sen, and a major prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He appeared on BBC election night coverage in 1955 and collaborated with experts in economics, holography, computer science, and artificial intelligence.
Anti-Apartheid Activism and Countercultural Exploits
In the 1960s, Farquharson returned to South Africa as a "race traitor," leading the Liberal party, publishing novelist Bessie Head, and conspiring with poet-activist Dennis Brutus to ban South Africa from international sports. He refused to hide his homosexuality and was harassed by police. In London, he squandered his inheritance attempting to fund a guerrilla army against apartheid, duped by drinkers at a local Irish pub who promised grenades and dynamite.
Mental Health and Decline
Farquharson's mental health deteriorated; he claimed to be king of Zembla, a fictional nation from Nabokov's Pale Fire, was arrested naked at Didcot station, and punched policemen and friends while stoned. His 1968 memoir Drop Out! recounts being attacked by teenagers, writing: "Now I was a Negro. Now I was a Jew. At last, at last." According to anti-psychiatrist RD Laing, he was "very intelligent and totally out of his fucking mind."
Rosen, who co-founded Jargon, first learned of Farquharson from a random drinker in a London pub. Despite Cambridge College withholding material as "too distressing," Rosen reconstructs the life of a "crazed scholar" who channeled the era's energies. International Freak is published by Strange Attractor (£21).
