Editing Henry Tizard

{{Short description|English chemist, inventor, and defence adviser (1885–1959)}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Sir Henry Tizard
| caption = Henry Tizard
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1885|08|23}}
| birth_place = [[Gillingham, Kent|Gillingham]], [[Kent]], England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1959|10|09|1885|08|23}}
| death_place = [[Fareham]], [[Hampshire]], England
| father = [[Thomas Henry Tizard]]
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|GCB|AFC|FRS}}
| module = {{Infobox scientist
| embed = yes
| field = [[Chemistry]]
| prizes = {{plainlist|
*[[Albert Medal (Royal Society of Arts)|Albert Medal]] {{small|(1944)}}
*[[Fellow of the Royal Society]]}}
}}
}}
'''Sir Henry Thomas Tizard''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|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 [[Unidentified flying object|UFO]]s.

==Life==
Tizard was born in [[Gillingham, Kent|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: [[Peter Tizard|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]].

==Career==
===First World War===
"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|date=December 2018}} 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

===Interwar period===
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 rating]]s. After that work (largely for [[Royal Dutch Shell|Shell]]), he took up again a government post in 1920 as Assistant Secretary to the [[Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (United Kingdom)|Department of Scientific and Industrial Research]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=13630 |date=7 September 1920 |page=2003 |city=Edinburgh}}</ref> His successes in that post (and after promotion to permanent secretary on 1 June 1927)<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33260 |date=25 March 1927 |page=1959}}</ref> included the establishment of the post of the [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|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 [[Advisory Committee for Aeronautics|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 [[Telecommunications Research Establishment|Bawdsey Research Station]] (BRS) in 1936.<ref>{{cite news|last=Celinscak|first=Mark|title="Henry T. Tizard" in Philosophers of War: The Evolution of History's Greatest Military Thinkers|year=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara|page=487}}</ref> In 1938, Tizard persuaded [[Mark Oliphant]] at [[University of Birmingham|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.<ref name="GracesGuide">{{cite web|title=Henry Tizard|url=https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Henry_Tizard|website=Grace's Guide to British Industrial History|publisher=Andrew Ian Tweedie|access-date=23 August 2017}}</ref>

===Second World War===
In September 1940, after a top-secret landmark conference with [[Winston Churchill]]—at which his opposition to [[Reginald Victor Jones|R.V. Jones]]' view that the [[Nazi Germany|Germans]] had established a system of radio-beam bombing aids ([[Knickebein|Battle of the Beams]]) over the UK had been overruled—Tizard led what became known as the [[Tizard Mission]] to the United States. This introduced to the US—among other things—the newly invented resonant-[[cavity magnetron]] (and other British radar developments), the [[Frank Whittle|Whittle]] gas turbine, and the British [[Tube Alloys]] (nuclear weapons) project.<ref name="Evanson">{{cite web|last1=Evanson|first1=Deborah|title=The Tizard Mission: 75 years on|url=http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_2-12-2015-17-23-17#authorbox|website=Imperial College London|date=2 December 2015 |access-date=20 December 2016}}</ref>

===Postwar===
In 1946, Tizard remained in the defence establishment, chairing the [[Defence Research Policy Committee]]. He also chaired the [[Advisory Council on Scientific Policy]] from 1947 to 1952. In 1948, Tizard returned to the Ministry of Defence as [[MoD Chief Scientific Adviser|Chief Scientific Adviser]], a post he held until 1952. The [[Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Defence]]'s [[Nick Pope (journalist)|Nick Pope]] states that: <blockquote>The Ministry of Defence’s UFO Project has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD's then Chief Scientific Adviser, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard.  As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the department set up arguably the most marvellously-named committee in the history of the civil service, the [[Flying Saucer Working Party]] (FSWP).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nickpope.net/Selected_Documents.htm |title=Rendlesham Forest |access-date=12 March 2006 |archive-date=8 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108170538/http://www.nickpope.net/Selected_Documents.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref></blockquote>

Tizard had followed the official debate about ghost rockets with interest and was intrigued by the increasing media coverage of [[UFO sightings in the United Kingdom]], America and other parts of the world. Using his authority as Chief Scientific Adviser at the MOD he decided that the subject should not be dismissed without proper, official investigation. Accordingly, he agreed that a small Directorate of Scientific Intelligence/Joint Technical Intelligence Committee (DSI/JTIC) working party should be set up to investigate the phenomenon. This was dubbed the Flying Saucer Working Party. The DSI/JTIC minutes recording this historic development read as follows:

{{quote|The Chairman said that Sir Henry Tizard felt that reports of flying saucers ought not to be dismissed without some investigation and he had, therefore, agreed that a small DSI/JTIC Working Party should be set up under the chairmanship of Mr Turney to investigate future reports.}}

After discussion, it was agreed that the members of the Working Party should be representatives from DSI1, ADNI(Tech), MI10 and ADI(Tech). It was also agreed that it would probably be necessary at some time to consult the Meteorological Department and ORS Fighter Command, but that these two bodies should not at present be asked to nominate representatives.

One of the most controversial meetings that Tizard had to attend in his capacity as chair of the Defence Research Policy Committee would emerge only many years later with the declassification of [[CIA]] documents: a meeting on 1 June 1951 at the [[Ritz-Carlton Montreal|Ritz-Carlton Hotel]] in [[Montreal|Montreal, Quebec]], Canada, between Tizard, [[Omond Solandt]] (chairman of [[Defence Research and Development Canada]]) and representatives of the CIA to discuss "[[brainwashing]]".<ref>[[Naomi Klein]], ''[[The Shock Doctrine]]'', [[Penguin Books]], London, 2007, p.33</ref>

==Awards and honours==
Tizard was awarded the [[Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)|Air Force Cross]] on 2 November 1918 in recognition of his contribution to the war effort.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30989 |date=2 November 1918 |page=12958 |supp=y}}</ref> In May 1926, he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=R. V. |author-link1=Reginald Victor Jones |last2=Farren |first2=W. S. |doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1961.0024 |title=Henry Thomas Tizard. 1885–1959 |journal=[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] |volume=7 |pages=313–348 |year=1961|s2cid=72476304 }}</ref> Tizard was invested as a Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]] (CB) in 1927, a Knight Commander (KCB) in 1937 and a Knight Grand Cross (GCB) in 1949. Tizard was awarded the 1946 [[Franklin Medal]] for his work in the field of engineering and presided over the 1948 meeting of the [[British Science Association|British Association for the Advancement of Science]] in [[Dundee]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=British Association at Dundee |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |date=6 September 1947 |volume=160 |issue=4062 |page=324 |doi=10.1038/160324a0 |bibcode=1947Natur.160Q.324. |s2cid=4136818 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

{{Infobox COA wide
|motto = Silentium Stultorum Virtus<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/baz_manning/12652180533/in/album-72157641255806714/ |title=Goldsmiths Hall, 52 Tizard H |date=13 July 2009 |publisher=Baz Manning |access-date=18 December 2020}}</ref>}}

==Death==
Tizard died in [[Fareham]], [[Hampshire]] in 1959. His papers are kept at the [[Imperial War Museum]], London.

==See also==
* [[Dehousing]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
*{{cite book | first= Ronald | last=Clark | title=Tizard | place=London | date= 1965 | isbn=0-262-03010-1 }}. A biography written at the request of the subject's son.
*{{cite web|last=Poliakoff|first=Martyn|title=Following Henry Tizard|url=http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/tizard.htm|work=[[The Periodic Table of Videos]]|publisher=[[University of Nottingham]]|author-link=Martyn Poliakoff}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.radarmuseum.co.uk/ The Royal Air Force Air Defence Radar Museum] at [[RAF Neatishead]], [[Norfolk]]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/063281}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-aca}}
{{succession box
  | title = [[Rector of Imperial College London]]
  | years = 1929–1942
  | before = [[Thomas Henry Holland|Thomas Holland]]
  | after = [[Richard V. Southwell|Richard Southwell]]
}}
{{succession box |
  before=[[George Stuart Gordon]] |
  title=[[Magdalen College, Oxford|President of Magdalen College, Oxford]] |
  years=1942–1946|
  after=[[T. S. R. Boase]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tizard, Henry}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1959 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Gillingham, Kent]]
[[Category:People educated at Westminster School, London]]
[[Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford]]
[[Category:English chemists]]
[[Category:Royal Air Force officers]]
[[Category:Radar pioneers]]
[[Category:Rectors of Imperial College London]]
[[Category:Presidents of Magdalen College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Chief Scientific Advisers to the Ministry of Defence]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Presidents of the British Science Association]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)]]
[[Category:20th-century English inventors]]
[[Category:Royal Flying Corps officers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Royal Garrison Artillery officers]]
[[Category:Scientists of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)]]
[[Category:Recipients of Franklin Medal]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Kent]]