Staff were affectionately known as
boffins. They included: •
Joe Airey MBE Joined radar radio research in 1924. Worked at various TRE locations. Responsible for masts and other equipment. Was Senior Technical Officer at the time he was awarded the MBE. Rose to Station Manager RSRE by the time of his retirement. •
James Atkinson. Worked, at Malvern, on Cathode-ray tubes,
Chain Home stations, radar, super-refraction and infra-red detectors; later, at the
University of Glasgow on nuclear photo-disintegration; and in administration at
UKAEA Dounreay, the British Ship Research Association and
Heriot-Watt University. • C. E. Bellinger was one of the people "all of whom achieved eminence in their respective fields". radio-physicist. From 1933 until World War II he worked in the radio-physics group at the
Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University with
J. A. Ratcliffe on magneto-ionic theory of radio wave propagation in the atmosphere. At Malvern, Booker was in charge of theoretical research, covering antennas, electromagnetic wave propagation, and radar systems. After World War II, he taught mathematics at the University of Cambridge, until joining
Cornell University in 1948. In 1965 he moved to the
University of California at San Diego. The International Union of Radio Science named a Fellowship in his honour. His publications include four books. •
B. V. Bowden, worked on radar. Later, he became Baron Bowden, of Chesterfield in the County of Derbyshire, Minister for Education and Science in 1964 and Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, •
E. G. ("Taffy") Bowen (later FRS, CBE) Member of team at
Orfordness who, by 1935, had developed the radar that first detected an aircraft. This led to the
Chain Home ground-based radar. At Bawdsey, he began development of airborne radar. In 1940 he went to the U.S. with the
Tizard Mission. In 1943 he joined the
CSIRO in Australia. • R. P. Chasmar, co-author of definitive text
The Detection and Measurement of Infra-red Radiation, Clarendon Press, 1960 and, for many years, Head of the infra-red group at RRE. describes this work as "a main contributor to the reduction of civilian [air raid]casualties ... and [bomber] losses". He is in a group photograph. He received the
Pioneer Award of the
IEEE in 1966 for hyperbolic radio navigation. •
G. W. A. Dummer, electronics engineer. He developed the
plan position indicator radar display. As head of Synthetic Trainer Design Group, he was responsible for the design, manufacture, installation and servicing of over 70 types of radar training equipment during World War II. In 1944, he became Divisional Leader of the Physical and Tropical Testing Laboratories and the Component Group, that had responsibility for outside contracts. Later, he was one of the innovators of
integrated circuits. For his further work see
Royal Radar Establishment and his personal article. • A. F. Gibson, Head of
Transistor Group at RRE, later Head of Laser Division of
Rutherford Laboratory. worked with
Alec Reeves at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment to design and develop the
Oboe blind bombing system, •
Tom Kilburn worked with
Freddy Williams on radar at TRE during the war. He then went to the
University of Manchester where he was a pioneer of computer hardware, both he and Williams being involved in the design of the
Manchester Baby. • Sir
Bernard Lovell, led the
H2S development team and was later responsible for the building of the radio telescope at
Jodrell Bank. • G. G. MacFarlane, later knighted • T. S. Moss, author of definitive monographs
Photoconductivity of the elements and
Optical Properties of semiconductors, • W H (Bill) Penley, compiler of archives on early history of radar •
John Pinkerton, later developed Leo computer at the
Lyons company, •
A. P. ("Jimmy") Rowe, physicist. He was a leader in the development of British radar from its inception, starting in 1934, when he was appointed secretary of the
Tizard Committee, He succeeded
Robert Watson-Watt as Superintendent of the Bawdsey Research Station, and directed the renamed Telecommunications Research Establishment when it moved to Malvern. After the war, he was appointed first scientific advisor to the government of Australia, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide. A pioneer of
Operational Research. •
Martin Ryle, physicist and radio astronomer. He worked at the Telecommunications Research Establishment on the design of antennas for airborne radar during the war. Later, he was knighted in 1966, was
Astronomer Royal 1978–1982, and shared the Nobel Prize Physics with
Antony Hewish in 1984. •
Joshua Sieger, electronics engineer. At Worth Matravers, he designed large-screen displays of radar signals, arranging further components to triangulate a target. At other times, he made many contributions to electronics and communications technology. •
Robert Allan Smith later Professor of Physics at
University of Sheffield, Director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at
MIT, and Vice-Chancellor of
Heriot-Watt University • Prof
Charles Holt Smith CBE, former BBC researcher, where he invented the logarithmic
peak programme meter (PPM) in the 1930s •
Albert Uttley did important research in radar, automatic tracking and early computing at TRE, including the design of an aircraft interception (AI) radar trainer for
night fighter crews He was a founder member of the
Ratio Club and became group leader at
RRE, with a distinctive approach to air defence cybernetics. Left to head the pioneering Autonomics Division at the
National Physical Laboratory where he did research on machine intelligence and brain modeling. However, he also became well known as a neuropsychologist, having made several important contributions to the field. Later Professor of Psychology at Sussex University. •
F. C. Williams (Freddy), engineer. He worked on radar and
servomechanisms at TRE during the war. He then moved to the University of Manchester, where he was a pioneer of computer hardware. He was knighted and became an
FRS. •
Philip Woodward, mathematician, pioneered the application of probability theory to the filtering of radar signals. After the name change to
RRE, he wrote a monograph on the topic. His early results included the
Woodward Ambiguity Function, "the standard tool for waveform and matched filter analysis". Member of the
Ratio Club. •
C. E. Wynn-Williams worked on navigational radar briefly, and was transferred to cryptographic work at Bletchley Park. •
Leslie Treloar, rheologist and expert on rubber, and
Maurice Wilkes, creator of the
EDSAC computer and inventor of
microprogramming, worked at TRE briefly during World War II. • Hundreds of other staff members made direct and support contributions to the projects that have been mentioned and to other work of TRE. Many are listed, under the respective group names, by Penley. ==References==