Royal Radar Establishment

Administrative history

The Physics Division – some of the staff and their work

• Robert Allan Smith. He was Head of the Physics Division, with a staff of about 150. Having worked previously on aspects of radio and radar, his attention had become focused on solid state physics, because of the importance of semiconductors in the development of electronics and infra-red detectors. His early books had dealt with radionavigation, aerials for short wave radio, and thermodynamics. After the name change to RRE, his "most significant book, in historical terms", on the detection of infra-red radiation, was coauthored with F. E. Jones and R. P. Chasmar and published in 1968. The book "for which is best known" is on semiconductors. His other books dealt with wave mechanics of crystalline solids, and, as editor, very high resolution spectroscopy. He left RRE to become Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield in 1961, came to MIT as Director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering a year later, and became Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in 1968, retiring in 1974. He was an FRS, an FRSE, and received an OBE.
• George G. Macfarlane. He held a special appointment as Superintendent of the Physics Department, having been assigned to direct the work in theoretical physics. He had been trained as an electrical engineer, and had worked on theoretical aspects of radar prior to the name change of the establishment. One of the designers of the Royal Radar Establishment Automatic Computer. Later, he became Deputy Director of the National Physical Laboratory, then Director of RRE, then Controller of Research at the Ministry of Technology and then Defence. He was knighted for his work.
• R. P. Chasmar, Head of the infra-red group and co-author of the book mentioned above.
• Tom Elliott, physicist, at RRE from the late 1960s through transition to DERA. He invented the SPRITE detector, and contributed to the development of cadmium mercury telluride as an industrial semiconductor. The "Tom Elliott Conference Centre" at the site is named in his honour. He was made an FRS and CBE, received a Rank medal, and joined Heriot-Watt University. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
• Alan F. Gibson. Head of Transistor Group at RRE, then the first Professor of Physics at the University of Essex in 1963, and later Head of Laser Division of Rutherford Laboratory. He was named Fellow of the Royal Society in 1978.
• Cyril Hilsum, physicist. Work in industrial and government laboratories and in academe includes theoretical solid state physics and development of liquid crystals. Elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the Royal Society, recipient of Max Born Prize and Faraday Medal.
• Edward G. S. Paige. Worked on semiconductors, with Denis Maines turned to Surface acoustic wave devices, led team that received Wolfe Medal of MOD and earned RRE a Queen's Award, later Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Oxford, awarded Rayleigh Medal and Duddell Medal.
• Leo Pincherle. Head of the theoretical solid state physics group, and authority on band structure theory. His monograph on this topic was published in 1971. He also published a standard text on heat and thermodynamics, during his later appointment as Professor of Physics at Bedford College, London.
• Albert M. Uttley, mathematician, computer scientist and experimental psychologist. Designed AI trainer, the TREAC digital computer, and contributed to early discussions of cybernetics. Continued human factors work at National Physical Laboratory and then as Research Professor in the Experimental Psychology Laboratory of the University of Sussex.
• Philip Woodward had pioneered the application of probability theory to the filtering of radar signals, and wrote a monograph on the topic. His results included the Woodward Ambiguity Function, "the standard tool for waveform and matched filter analysis". He continued to direct theoretical work on radar after the establishment changed its name. Later, he led the group that developed the Coral 66 computer programming language. He was, at different times, Honorary Professor in Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham and visiting professor in Cybernetics at the University of Reading. In 2000, the Woodward Building named in his honour was opened on the site that had then become DERA by Sir John Chisholm. In 2005, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2009, he received the Dennis J. Picard Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, for Radar Technologies and Applications.

• William Bardsley, physicist. His work at Malvern on growing crystals was published in a series of papers that have been referenced over 200 times through the time of writing, in work on semiconductor devices and, in one instance, space science.
• Michael P. Barnett,. At Malvern he worked on theory of semiconductors, including organic materials. Later, he taught at MIT, the University of London, Columbia University and City University of New York. His earlier publications on several topics has been followed by more recent work on computational chemistry and symbolic calculation.
• Paul N. Butcher, theoretical solid state physics. After working at Malvern, he was appointed to a chair at the University of Warwick, and has published four books.
• Geoffrey V. Chester, theoretical physicist. At Malvern, he worked on mathematical problems of radar. Later, at Cornell University, he was Director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
• J. B. Gunn, solid state physicist. At Malvern he worked on the physics of electronic devices. Later, at the IBM Research Laboratories in the U.S., he discovered the Gunn effect used in the Gunn diode.
• Several staff members under the supervision of Cyril Hilsum, in conjunction with George Gray and Ken Harrison of the University of Hull, developed new, stable liquid crystals in 1972, which were an immediate success as the basis of display devices in the electronics and consumer products industries. This received the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1979. Patents from this development yielded royalties over £100 million, the largest of any MOD patent.
• William D. Lawson, co-recipient of Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976,
• Trevor Simpson Moss, solid state physicist, author of definitive monographs Photoconductivity of the elements and Optical Properties of semiconductors, and series editor of Handbook on Semiconductors of the North-Holland Publishing Company.
• S. Nielson, co-recipient of Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976,
• J. Michael Radcliffe, theoretical physicist. Later, he turned to academe at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in the U.S., and he was listed as coauthor in a revised edition of Born's Atomic Physics.
• Dennis Sciama, later cosmologist and FRS. At RRE he coauthored work on band structure calculations.
• A.S. Young, co-recipient of Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976.

Radar, Guided weapons and Engineering Divisions

• G.W.A (Geoffrey) Dummer, electronics engineer. His early work is described in the TRE article. His oversight of the large contingent of electronics contractors continued, and he was appointed Superintendent of Applied Physics. In 1964 he sponsored a symposium on Electronic Beam Techniques for Microelectronics at R.R.E. He published over 30 books, was responsible for much further publishing on electronics. He was awarded an MBE, the American Medal of Freedom, the Wakefield Gold Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Cledo Brunetti Award of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers
• W. H. Penley, physicist. Head of Guided Weapons at time of name change. Later Director of RRE, then Controller of Establishments and Research – responsible for the whole Defence research programme.
• John Robert Mills joined TRE in 1939 as a post grad physicist, working initially on radar development and later, as a member of the Airborne Radar Division, the development of infra-red and radar targeting and reconnaissance systems. He left RRE in 1960 and spent about a year at the Ministry of Defence, London followed by five years as head of Radio Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough before becoming Director of Signal Research and Development Establishment in Christchurch. He returned to RRE, which became the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, in 1976 as Deputy Director until his retirement in 1977.

Locations

• North Site:
• South Site: