Alexander Poliakoff (russian: Алекса́ндр Ио́сифович Поляко́в; 20 August 1910 – 26 July 1996) was a Russian Empire-born British electronics engineer, inventor and businessman, and the chairman of

Multitone Electronics Multitone Electronics plc is a British company, founded in 1931. Initially a manufacturer of hearing aids, before becoming a pioneer in the development of pagers (bleepers). Multitone now makes wireless voice and messaging systems. Multitone Ele ...

for over 40 years. Poliakoff was born in 1910 at his parents' country house at Losino-Ostrovskaya, near Moscow, the only son of Joseph Poliakoff, a

Russian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

telephone and sound engineer and inventor, and Flora Shabbat, the granddaughter of a textile millionaire. He was of Jewish descent. In 1946, Poliakoff married Ina Montagu (died 1991), granddaughter of the British-Jewish banker

Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling (21 December 1832 – 12 January 1911), was a British banker who founded the bank of Samuel Montagu & Co. He was a philanthropist and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons of ...

. Their elder son is the chemist

Sir Martyn Poliakoff Sir Martyn Poliakoff (born 16 December 1947) is a British chemist, working on gaining insights into fundamental chemistry, and on developing environmentally acceptable processes and materials. The core themes of his work are supercritical fluid ...

, and their younger son is the playwright

Stephen Poliakoff Stephen Poliakoff (born 1 December 1952) is a British playwright, director and screenwriter. In 2006 Gerard Gilbert of ''The Independent'' described him as the UK's "pre-eminent TV dramatist" who had "inherited Dennis Potter's crown". Early ...

. He was appointed OBE in the

1982 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1982 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries ...

. His reminiscences were published in ''The Silver Samovar'' - Atlantida Press 1996 (ISBN 5-88011-013-3)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poliakoff, Alexander 1910 births 1996 deaths Officers of the Order of the British Empire

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United Kingdom British Jews British people of Russian-Jewish descent