JAMES DYSON .sx 10 December 1914 - 22 January 1990 .sx Elected F.R.S. 1968 .sx BY T.E. ALLIBONE , F.R.S. , F.ENG. JAMES DYSON always reckoned that he had been a lucky person , actually paid to do just what he wanted to do , work in optics .sx He recalled that as a very small boy in his cot he had noticed that he could see through the slats of the cot , could see objects behind these slats ( because , of course , of binocular vision ) ; had been surprised to see images of passing vehicles - seen on the wall of his bedroom - apparently moving in the wrong direction ; this was because a hole in the fan light acted as a pin-hole camera , and even at that age he worked out the reason for the strange movements .sx His father , a joiner and cabinet maker and artist with a strong flair for invention , had made a telescope for which he ground the mirrors ; watching the telescope grow set 'Jim' firmly on the track of optical instrumentation , a track that he travelled fast and with distinction .sx His interest in the telescope led him to astronomy ; at an early age he tried to calculate Jupiter's orbit and thus became interested in mathematics , all his life he was never at a loss to calculate all he needed for the development of the many instruments he invented .sx In the Research Laboratory of the Associated Electrical Industries ( AEI Ltd ) he was in great demand , helping scientists in other disciplines to solve their problems by one or other of the instruments he devised , and in moving to the Optics Division of the National Physical Laboratory ( NPL ) he continued in the same vein .sx He was extremely happy in all his scientific work and gave great satisfaction to his colleagues by the cheerful way he helped them .sx His father , George , and mother , Mary Grace ( n e e Bateson ) , were married in 1903 and lived at 15 Ellencroft Road , Horton , Bradford , where their first child Bessie was born in 1907 , followed by Jim seven years later , both children living to nearly the same age .sx Jim attended the Grange Road primary school in Bradford but when he was seven his parents went to live in his maternal grandmother's home in Burton-in-Lonsdale .sx Little is known of George's family but the Batesons owned several potteries in what was called 'Black Burton' , and here Jim went to the local village school , Thornton .sx He has written that the school did not inspire him but we know that the headmaster , Mr Mayell , plied Jim with questions he found he could always answer correctly , and he did so well that he won a County minor scholarship to the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Kirkby Lonsdale , Lancashire .sx He has recalled that as he walked from Burton into Kirkby Lonsdale through the country lanes he had several times seen the 'green flash' which occurs just as the sun appears above the horizon .sx He encountered an intelligence test before going to the Grammar School and he had been surprised to find that he could answer all the questions :sx but like so many children of that generation he had found a wealth of interest in the Children's encyclopaedia and of course this stood him in good stead in school tests .sx He kept these volumes all his life .sx There is little information as to his progress in the Grammar School except that he won several book prizes .sx A letter from one of his school masters , Mr J.S. Deane , dated December 1960 , congratulating Jim on his Cambridge Sc .sx D. is significant :sx " It is true to say that , although we have passed quite a number of bright boys on to Cambridge since your time I still regard you as my 'star' pupil ; you certainly taxed my somewhat limited resources to the extremity .sx " He owed some of that thirst for knowledge to his father who became very severely crippled by rheumatoid arthritis during Jim's school days yet pursued his technical interests and even learnt French and German , and later as deafness and blindness fell upon him , he constructed for himself optical and mechanical devices to overcome his physical difficulties :sx Jim wrote that his father's never-failing courage had always been an inspiration to him , and indeed , in the closing years of Jim's life he too showed great courage and he pursued , as best he was able , the optical interests of his life .sx In his last year at school , December 1932 , he won the Liversidge Scholarship to Christ's College , Cambridge , where , at the end of his first year he gained a second in Part 1 of the mathematical tripos on the strength of which success he was awarded the Wilson Exhibition backdated to the Michaelmas term of the first year ; then he moved over to mechanical engineering and in the first year of this course he won the College Prize and Bachelor Scholarship .sx He finished in 1936 with a first in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos , gaining a 'distinction' , a 'B' star , in electrical power ; again he won the College prize .sx In July 1936 he was awarded an Industrial Bursary by the Royal Commissioners ( I suspect of the Exhibition of 1851 ) but he had been interviewed by the British Thomson Houston Company of Rugby ( BTH ) and he accepted its offer of a three-year apprenticeship at the princely salary of " 8.93 d per working hour plus a cost of living bonus " , altogether about pounds2 per week .sx It was a widely based apprenticeship , design , manufacture , sales and eight months in research where he worked on television time-base circuits ; the final report on his apprenticeship reading " a very dependable worker with very good self-reliance and initiative " .sx On completion he was appointed to the staff of the Transformer Department , a post he held until 1942 , but it has been impossible to find any former employee of the company who can add to this information .sx Then he moved to the Research Department ; again there are difficulties for he never stated in the notes he left just what his duties were ; fortunately there are two of his published papers that deal with some of the work ( 1,2 ) primarily concerned with radio-frequency measurements , and five BTH reports that have come to light .sx In 1946 Jim went to Berlin in uniform with the rank of Group Captain to examine enemy equipment but I have found no details of his activities there , although at the 1946 I.E.E. Radiolocation Convention he did lecture on the radio-wave contour plotter ( 1) .sx It is , however , known that he was not very happy in the Research Department ; Dennis Gabor , F.R.S. , Nobel laureate , told me that Jim was dissatisfied with the research direction and was thinking of making a move when an offer from AEI Ltd was made to him .sx After the War AEI Ltd ( which held all the shares of the BTH Co. , Ediswan Ltd , Ferguson Pailin Ltd , Metropolitan-Vickers ( M-V ) and Siemens Bros .sx ) decided to try to stop the rivalry between BTH and M-V research departments by creating one laboratory for the longer-term research requirements of the company ; the other laboratories would continue to deal with the huge amount of day-to-day needs .sx I was offered the directorship of the former .sx I wanted to recruit at least a few members of staff from the two research departments to help maintain a good liaison with them and from Rubgy .sx Jim Dyson applied to join me .sx I clearly recall his story dealing with his interest in optics , astronomy , mathematics , etc. , and at once offered him an appointment to join me at Aldermaston Court , the site of the new laboratory .sx It had already been agreed that we should look into very advanced electron microscopy and also into the more intractable problems of friction and wear , such as arise from time to time in rotating and other machines , so a good specialist in optics would almost certainly be an asset , as indeed Jim was .sx It was in Aldermaston that Jim did his major work leading to his election to the Royal Society :sx he contributed some 40 papers to various learned bodies and in due course ( 1960 ) submitted them to Cambridge for his Sc .sx D. The external examiner was C.R. Burch , F.R.S. , a former colleague of mine in the Research Department of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. , and a frequent visitor to Aldermaston ; he recommended to me that we should put Jim's name forward for election to the Society .sx Specialists in optics gave support , including Sir Thomas Merton , Dennis Gabor , R.W. Ditchburn and E.W. Taylor .sx Jim had his own room in Aldermaston Court , moderately equipped with its own small workshop , and it was with the simplest of means that he made prototypes from which the main workshop could then produce the fine devices needed for our own research , and where appropriate , for commercial exploitation .sx He was indeed a very skilled craftsman as well as a fine theoretician ; in this he closely resembled C.R. Burch , and for Jim's dual qualities Burch had the highest degree of praise .sx The words of Samuel Johnson again come to mind :sx " The philosopher may be delighted with the extent of his views ; the artificer with the readiness of his hands ; but let one remember that without mechanical performance , profound speculation is but an idle dream , and the other that without theoretical prediction dexterity is little more than brute instinct .sx " .sx During his Rubgy period he married , in 1940 , Ena Lillian Turner and their daughter , Gaynor Jacqueline , born 10 March 1944 , can even remember seeing her father's telescope in the garden .sx Alas the marriage did not prosper well , and it was dissolved in 1948 .sx Further details are lost but we know that at times Jim was " deeply distressed sometimes to the point of illness by the break up of that marriage " .sx Ena died when Gay was about 12 , by which time Jim had married Marie Florence Chant - on 21 June 1948 - who had been an assistant in the research laboratory in Rugby .sx In 1945 she was a student at the Slade School of Fine Art , then evacuated to Oxford .sx She was an artist of considerable merit , and was engaged in printing , drawing , lithography and in textile design , for which branch of art she became widely known .sx Aldermaston is specially in her debt :sx in its 12th-century church were four ancient hatchments which were by then in very poor condition .sx There was also a very rare painting of a coat of arms of Charles I which had been stowed away secretly from Cromwellian eyes .sx Marie restored these fine specimens to their original glowing colours where they now enhance the walls of the nave .sx In the grounds of Aldermaston Court were many army buildings , relics of the war years , and at a time when there was a severe housing shortage , I got permission from the AEI Company to have these converted to resonably attractive dwellings , each suitable for a married couple .sx Here Jim and Marie started married life .sx They were - to their deep regret - childless , and here they entertained generously amid the glorious woods where nightingales flourished .sx She held art classes for wives and children , and played a full part in village life helping the Vicar and the W.I. in various ways until , in due course , they found a home in Reading .sx Several colleagues have written to me about the kindness of the Dyson home , of the way they helped others in time of illness and have stressed that Marie could not have done this without strong active support from Jim .sx When Gay lost her mother , Marie and Jim offered her their home but nothing came of this offer .sx They attended Gay's wedding to Anthony Wagstaff in 1965 , and later on Gay and her husband stayed with Jim , and attended his wedding to Rosamund Shuter ; they and their two children attended the funeral and memorial service in 1990 .sx Of the Aldermaston period I shall make just a few comments .sx The work of the laboratory was divided between five sections but Jim stood alone , almost as a consultant to anyone needing his help ; I shall be dealing with his work in the second part of this memoir .sx