THE MAN WHO CONSTRUCTED THE BRITISH DEFENCE RADAR SYSTEM!
Henry Tizard was born in Gillingham, Kent, 23rd August 1885, and died at Fareham, Hampshire, 9th October 1959. Physical chemist, best known for his leadership in bringing together scientists and serving officers to meet the threat of German air attack on Britain in World War II.
Tizard’s father was Assistant Hydrographer to the Royal Navy: he himself expected to become a naval officer, but this was precluded by an eye defect discovered whilst he was at preparatory school. Instead he became an Exhibitioner at Westminster School, and there developed a liking for science, especially chemistry. He went ot Magdalen College, Oxford, with a demyship (scholarship) in 1904, and took Mathematical Moderations in 1905. He graduated in chemistry in 1908, and went to Berlin to work with W H Nernst, in whose laboratory he met F A Lindemann (Lord Cherwell). He returned to Oxford in 1909, and stared to work on the sensitiveness of indicators. With a Fellowship of Oriel College from 1911 onwards, he appeared to be comfortably set; but his misgivings regarding too much comfort were confirmed by the outbreak of Word War I, most of which he spent as an experimental pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. By 1918 he was a lieutenant-colonel, and Controller (Research and Experiment) for Aircraft at the Ministry of Munitions.
After the war he returned to Oxford, and did notable work with D R Pye (1886 – 1960) on aircraft fuels, one result of which was the modern system of octane rating. He was made reader in thermodynamics in 1920, but left in the same year to be Assistant Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, with special responsibility for co-ordinating research for the three services. In 1927 he became Permanent Secretary, but left in 1929 to be Rector of Imperial College, London. At the same time he was chairman of the Aeronautical Research Committee. He pressed hard for more science to be taught in schools, and was President of the Education Section of the British Association in 1934.
When the Hitler threat crystallised after 1933, Tizard was invited to become chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence, and it was here that his greatest work was done. The committee fostered the development of radar and Tizard’s special and vital; contribution was to bring scientists and serving officers together in thinking about the many problems, and to insist that it was not enough to have good scientific equipment - you must also have a service educated to use it. Tizard had enough faith in radar to get the Royal Air Force to work out the organisation for using it before the equipment was actually available. The foresight may well have made the difference between victory and defeat at the Battle of Britain in 1940.
Tizard’s scientific mission to the United States in 1940 provided an intense stimulus to defence science in America. While he suffered in the second World War from Churchill’s preference for Cherwell, he nevertheless did much valuable work before he left Whitehall to be President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1942. He was recalled in 1946 to the Ministry of Defence as chairman of the Defence Policy Research Committee and of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, from which he retired in 1952.
His many honours included the Air Force Cross (1918); GCB (1949); the Medal for Merit – a direct award from the President of the United States (1947); the Gold Medals of the Royal Society of Arts (1944) and of the Franklin Institute (1946); the Messel Gold Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry (1952); and honorary Doctorates from ten universities. He was elected FRS in 1926, and was a vice-president of the Society on two occasions (1940-1 and 1944-5). He was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1948.
http://homepages.westminster.org.uk/sciences/tizard.htm
http://physicsweb.org/article/review/13/5/1
http://www.legionmagazine.com/featur...tory/95-11.asp
http://www.marconicalling.com/museum...-i=64-s=5.html
