My friend and former colleague Reg Sell, who has died aged 93, devoted his life to championing worker wellbeing through his 60-year career as an ergonomist and human factors expert. He believed in “fitting the job to the person” – the opposite of the thinking that prevailed when he started his career in the 1950s.
Born in Twickenham, south-west London, to George Sell, the editor of BP magazine, and his wife Gladys (nee Francis), Reg attended Latymer school for boys in north London, before studying psychology at UCL, graduating in 1953. He returned to Birkbeck College, London, in 1955 to gain a diploma focusing on occupational psychology before embracing ergonomics and human factors – an approach that focuses on designing jobs and equipment around people. Reg met Peggy Bangay while they were both doing their national service, and they married in 1957.
