Sir Bennett Melvill Jones, (28 January 1887 – 31 October 1975) was
Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
from 1919 to 1952. He demonstrated the importance of streamlining in aircraft design.
It had been known since the time of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
, that a moving body passing through air or another fluid encounters resistance (
aerodynamic drag), but Jones developed the ideas of
Louis Charles Breguet
Louis Charles Breguet (2 January 1880 in Paris – 4 May 1955 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Île-de-France) was a French aircraft designer and builder, one of the early aviation pioneers.
Biography
Louis Charles Breguet was the grandson of L ...
into a refined theory to demonstrate emphatically the importance of drag to the performance of aircraft.
Origin and education
He was the eldest of the three children of Benedict Jones, a
barrister, and Henrietta Cornelia Melvill, the South African widow of George William Bennett. His father served as mayor of Birkenhead.
Jones was born in
Rock Ferry
Rock Ferry is an area of Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively it is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the county of Cheshire. At the ...
, a suburb of
Birkenhead
Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...
. After attending a preparatory school in Rock Ferry, he was educated at
Birkenhead School
Birkenhead School is an independent, academically-selective, co-educational day school located in Oxton, Wirral, in North West England. The school offers educational opportunities for girls and boys from three months to eighteen years of ag ...
from 1898–1906. He recalled having great admiration for the headmaster who allowed him to give up cricket to give him more time to work with his father on engineering projects. He graduated with a first class honours degree from
Emmanuel College, Cambridge in the mechanical sciences
tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
in 1909.
Early career and military service
After university he worked at the
Royal Arsenal, Woolwich in their workshop and was there until January 1911 when he joined in the Aerodynamics Department of the
National Physical Laboratory at
Teddington
Teddington is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. In 2021, Teddington was named as the best place to live in London by ''The Sunday Times''. Historically in Middlesex, Teddington is situated on a long me ...
and then at
Armstrong Whitworth
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth built armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and ...
s where he worked on the design of airships until the outbreak of war in 1914. He was then seconded to the Royal Aircraft Factory, later the
Royal Aircraft Establishment, where he worked on aerial gunnery until 1916 when he was transferred to the Air Armaments Experimental Station at
Orfordness
Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Weir Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the m ...
, which had established by Bertram Hopkinson who was then Head of the Engineering Department at Cambridge. Whilst there, Melvill learned to fly and served as a
gunner for about six weeks in 1918 in a
Bristol Fighter in
No. 48 Squadron RAF with his younger brother, Benedict Henry Melvill Jones, as pilot. He was awarded the Air Force Cross and promoted to
Lieutenant-Colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colo ...
(Benedict was killed in 1918 on an experimental flight.)
After First World War
In March 1919 Jones returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Emmanuel College and a member of staff of the Engineering Department. In October he was elected as the first Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering in which position he remained until his retirement in 1952.
At Cambridge the
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
provided aircraft and flying facilities to develop a very successful school of aviation research.
With characteristic modesty he said that he expected his small team, usually four, to work with him rather than for him. His work on
stalls led to a great understanding of the phenomenon and greatly reduced accidents.
From 1926 his work was principally connected with reducing
drag. In 1929 his paper ''The Streamline Airplane'' presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society was seminal. He proposed an ideal aircraft that would have minimal drag which led to the concepts of a 'clean' monoplane and retractable
undercarriage. The aspect of Jones's paper that most shocked the designers of the time was his plot of the horse power required versus velocity, for an actual and an ideal plane. By looking at a data point for a given aircraft and extrapolating it horizontally to the ideal curve, the velocity gain for the same power can be seen. When Jones finished his presentation, a member of the audience described the results as being of the same level of importance as the
Carnot cycle
A Carnot cycle is an ideal thermodynamic cycle proposed by French physicist Sadi Carnot in 1824 and expanded upon by others in the 1830s and 1840s. By Carnot's theorem, it provides an upper limit on the efficiency of any classical thermodynam ...
in thermodynamics.
Second World War
Before the Second World War, he was asked to return to his work on gunnery. His four years of work led to the development of the gyroscopic gunsight. In 1943 he moved to the
Ministry of Aircraft Production and became chairman of the
Aeronautical Research Committee
The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (ACA) was a UK agency founded on 30 April 1909, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. In 1919 it was renamed the Aeronautical Research Committee, later becoming the Aeronautical ...
(later Council) until 1946
In 1946 he resumed his work on drag. After retirement he became a consultant for the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
Honours
In the
King's Birthday Honours 1938 Jones was appointed a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
, and in the
New Year Honours 1942 was appointed a
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...
. Jones was elected
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
and awarded the
Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
by the US in 1947 for his work on aerial gunnery and he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society and became an honorary fellow of the society in 1951.
Personal
In 1916 he married Dorothy Laxton (née Jotham) (died 1955).
[Register of Births, Marriages & Deaths, Dec Qtr 1916] They had a daughter, Margaret (b 1917) and two sons, Warren (b 1920) and Geoffrey (b 1923). Warren was a pilot who was killed in action in 1940.
Geoffrey Melvill Jones is a vestibular physiologist, medical doctor, and a pioneer in aviation medical research. Sir Bennett Melvill Jones was a strong swimmer and keen rock climber. He was regarded as 'one of the kindest and friendliest of men'.
He died in Devon on 31 October 1975. -
See also
Images at the
National Portrait Gallery
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Melvill
1887 births
1975 deaths
People educated at Birkenhead School
Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
English aerospace engineers
Royal Air Force personnel of World War I
Engineering educators
Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)
Recipients of the Medal of Freedom
Fellows of the Royal Society
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Members of the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering
Engineering professors at the University of Cambridge