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Henry Tizard
Sir Henry Thomas Tizard GCB AFC FRS (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the first serious studies of UFOs.
Tizard was born in Gillingham, Kent in 1885, the only son of Thomas Henry Tizard (1839–1924), naval officer and hydrographer, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Churchward. His ambition to join the navy was thwarted by poor eyesight, and he instead studied at Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he concentrated on mathematics and chemistry, doing work on indicators and the motions of ions in gases. Tizard graduated in 1908 and at his tutor's suggestion, he spent time in Berlin, where he met and formed a close friendship with Frederick Alexander Lindemann, later an influential scientific advisor of Winston Churchill. In 1909, he became a researcher in the Davy–Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution, working on colour change indicators. In 1911, Tizard returned to Oxford as a tutorial fellow at Oriel College and to work as a demonstrator in the electrical laboratory. On 25 July 1942, Tizard was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford. He resigned this position in 1946.
Tizard was married on 24 April 1915 to Kathleen Eleanor (d. 1968), daughter of Arthur Prangley Wilson, a mining engineer. They had three sons: Sir (John) Peter Mills Tizard, who became a professor of paediatrics at the University of London and Regius Professor of Physic at Oxford (1916-1993); Richard Henry Tizard (1917–2005), an engineer and senior tutor at Churchill College, Cambridge; and David (b. 1922), a general practitioner in London.
On the first of July 1914 Henry Tizard left UK on the SS Euripides. He was accompanied by New Zealander Sir Ernest Rutherford, and many other scientists including the German physicist Peter Pringsheim. They were travelling to Australia for the 84th annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (B.A.A.S.) which spent about 6 to 8 weeks visiting the cities of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Unfortunately a trip to New Zealand was cancelled when World War 1 broke out on July 28th. Lectures were open to the public and were very popular.
There is an album of private photographs taken by Winifred van Praagh who was travelling first class on this voyage and it includes several photos of these scientists. The caption on one of the photos says “Admiralty tug 7th August 1914 announced by megaphone war declared and saying “Germans had been wiped out on sea, land and in the air” great cheers from Euripides. The ship arrived in New Zealand on the 15th September 1914, after a journey of 2.5 months. Peter Pringsheim was interred in Melborne until after the war in 1919.
"The secret of science", Tizard once said, "is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world".[citation needed] His chosen problem became aeronautics. At the outbreak of World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Garrison Artillery on 17 October 1914, in which his training methods were famously bizarre. He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, where he became an experimental equipment officer and learned to fly planes after his eyesight improved. He acted as his own test pilot for making aerodynamic observations. When his superior Bertram Hopkinson was moved to the Ministry of Munitions, Tizard went with him. When Hopkinson died in 1918, Tizard took over his post. Tizard served in the Royal Air Force from 1918 to 1919, ending the war at the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel
After the end of the war, he was made Reader in Chemical Thermodynamics at Oxford University, where he experimented in the composition of fuel trying to find compounds which were resistant to freezing and less volatile, devising the concept of "toluene numbers", now referred to as octane ratings. After that work (largely for Shell), he took up again a government post in 1920 as Assistant Secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. His successes in that post (and after promotion to permanent secretary on 1 June 1927) included the establishment of the post of the Chemical Research Laboratory in Teddington, the appointment of Harry Wimperis as Director of Scientific Research to the Air Force and finally the decision to leave to become the President and Rector of Imperial College London in 1929, a position he held until 1942, when he was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford.
In 1935, the development of radar in the United Kingdom was started by Tizard's Aeronautical Research Committee (and Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence, which he chaired since 1933) doing the first experimental work at Orfordness, near Ipswich, before moving to the nearby Bawdsey Research Station (BRS) in 1936. In 1938, Tizard persuaded Mark Oliphant at Birmingham University to drop some of his nuclear research and concentrate on development of an improved source of short-wave radiation. This led to the invention by John Turton Randall and Harry Boot of the cavity magnetron, a major advance in radar technology, which in turn provided the basis for airborne interceptors using radar.
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Henry Tizard
Sir Henry Thomas Tizard GCB AFC FRS (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the first serious studies of UFOs.
Tizard was born in Gillingham, Kent in 1885, the only son of Thomas Henry Tizard (1839–1924), naval officer and hydrographer, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Churchward. His ambition to join the navy was thwarted by poor eyesight, and he instead studied at Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he concentrated on mathematics and chemistry, doing work on indicators and the motions of ions in gases. Tizard graduated in 1908 and at his tutor's suggestion, he spent time in Berlin, where he met and formed a close friendship with Frederick Alexander Lindemann, later an influential scientific advisor of Winston Churchill. In 1909, he became a researcher in the Davy–Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution, working on colour change indicators. In 1911, Tizard returned to Oxford as a tutorial fellow at Oriel College and to work as a demonstrator in the electrical laboratory. On 25 July 1942, Tizard was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford. He resigned this position in 1946.
Tizard was married on 24 April 1915 to Kathleen Eleanor (d. 1968), daughter of Arthur Prangley Wilson, a mining engineer. They had three sons: Sir (John) Peter Mills Tizard, who became a professor of paediatrics at the University of London and Regius Professor of Physic at Oxford (1916-1993); Richard Henry Tizard (1917–2005), an engineer and senior tutor at Churchill College, Cambridge; and David (b. 1922), a general practitioner in London.
On the first of July 1914 Henry Tizard left UK on the SS Euripides. He was accompanied by New Zealander Sir Ernest Rutherford, and many other scientists including the German physicist Peter Pringsheim. They were travelling to Australia for the 84th annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (B.A.A.S.) which spent about 6 to 8 weeks visiting the cities of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Unfortunately a trip to New Zealand was cancelled when World War 1 broke out on July 28th. Lectures were open to the public and were very popular.
There is an album of private photographs taken by Winifred van Praagh who was travelling first class on this voyage and it includes several photos of these scientists. The caption on one of the photos says “Admiralty tug 7th August 1914 announced by megaphone war declared and saying “Germans had been wiped out on sea, land and in the air” great cheers from Euripides. The ship arrived in New Zealand on the 15th September 1914, after a journey of 2.5 months. Peter Pringsheim was interred in Melborne until after the war in 1919.
"The secret of science", Tizard once said, "is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world".[citation needed] His chosen problem became aeronautics. At the outbreak of World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Garrison Artillery on 17 October 1914, in which his training methods were famously bizarre. He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, where he became an experimental equipment officer and learned to fly planes after his eyesight improved. He acted as his own test pilot for making aerodynamic observations. When his superior Bertram Hopkinson was moved to the Ministry of Munitions, Tizard went with him. When Hopkinson died in 1918, Tizard took over his post. Tizard served in the Royal Air Force from 1918 to 1919, ending the war at the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel
After the end of the war, he was made Reader in Chemical Thermodynamics at Oxford University, where he experimented in the composition of fuel trying to find compounds which were resistant to freezing and less volatile, devising the concept of "toluene numbers", now referred to as octane ratings. After that work (largely for Shell), he took up again a government post in 1920 as Assistant Secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. His successes in that post (and after promotion to permanent secretary on 1 June 1927) included the establishment of the post of the Chemical Research Laboratory in Teddington, the appointment of Harry Wimperis as Director of Scientific Research to the Air Force and finally the decision to leave to become the President and Rector of Imperial College London in 1929, a position he held until 1942, when he was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford.
In 1935, the development of radar in the United Kingdom was started by Tizard's Aeronautical Research Committee (and Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence, which he chaired since 1933) doing the first experimental work at Orfordness, near Ipswich, before moving to the nearby Bawdsey Research Station (BRS) in 1936. In 1938, Tizard persuaded Mark Oliphant at Birmingham University to drop some of his nuclear research and concentrate on development of an improved source of short-wave radiation. This led to the invention by John Turton Randall and Harry Boot of the cavity magnetron, a major advance in radar technology, which in turn provided the basis for airborne interceptors using radar.