Thomas Edward Allibone

Thomas Edward Allibone (1903–2003), physicist and electrical engineer

1903 born on 11 November at 10 Melbourne Road, Nether Hallam, Sheffield, the son of Henry James Allibone, schoolteacher, and his wife, Eliza, née Kidger, a farmer's daughter.

Educated at the Central School, Sheffield, and Sheffield University

c.1923 Straight after graduation Metropolitan-Vickers sponsored him to conduct research in metallurgy

1926 PhD at Sheffield in 1926. Moved to Cambridge as Wollaston research scholar at the Cavendish Laboratory.

Used high voltages to produce fast electrons for studying, from their scattering, a variety of materials.

1930 Returned to Metropolitan-Vickers to take charge of the firm's new high-voltage research laboratory

1931 he married Dorothy Margery Ward (1903/4–2001), daughter of Frederick Boulden. They had two daughters.

WWII As part of the Tube Alloys directorate, he played a part in the Manhattan project which produced the first atomic bombs.

1946 Research director at Associated Electrical Industries, running a laboratory at Aldermaston Court in Berkshire. Here Dennis Gabor laid the foundations of holography, work for which he later won the Nobel prize.

1963 Left AEI to become chief scientist at the Central Electricity Generating Board

1970 retired.

2003 Died

See Also

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Sources of Information

• Biography, ODNB [1]