Thomas Lydwell Eckersley FRS (27 December 1886 – 15 February 1959) was an English theoretical physicist and
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
.
Biography
Eckersley was born in St John's Wood, London, the second of three sons of William Alfred, a civil engineer, and Rachel, fifth child of
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The storie ...
. After early years in Mexico, he attended
Bedales School
Bedales School is a co-educational, boarding and day independent school in the village of Steep, near the market town of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventio ...
from age 11, where he became very interested in mathematics. Then, at 15, he went to University College London, to read engineering. He discovered that the subject was not for him, and was awarded a second class degree. He joined the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), where he worked on the behaviour of iron under the influence of alternating magnetic fields.
He left the NPL in 1910 to read mathematics at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, and gained a BA degree in 1912. After a short time in the
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
he left to join the Egyptian Government Survey as an Inspector (1913-14). When war started he took a commission in the
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...
and worked on problems of wireless telegraphy. As a result, he developed a keen interest in the propagation of radio waves which was to remain with him for the rest of his life. In 1919 he joined Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd, as a theoretical research engineer, and remained with them until he retired in 1946. A key piece of work in which he was involved was the analysis of the findings of the research team sent to Australia by the Marconi company to study long-wave propagation. The results were published in a classic paper.
In 1940 Eckersley joined the staff of 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 ...
for secret work and in 1942 became Chief Scientific Adviser to the Interservice Ionosphere Bureau, established at the Marconi Research and Development Laboratories at
Great Baddow
Great Baddow is an urban village and civil parish in the Chelmsford borough of Essex, England. It is close to the city of Chelmsford, and, with a population of over 13,000,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 science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1938 and was awarded the
Faraday Medal
The Faraday Medal is a top international medal awarded by the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) (previously called the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE)). It is part of the IET Achievement Medals collection of awards. T ...
of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1951.
Family
Thomas Lydwell Eckersley married Eva Amelia Pain, daughter of Barry Pain, the author; on 14 April 1920 at All Saints Church, St John’s Wood. They had three children: Noel, Sylvia and Shirley.
Eckersley suffered from multiple sclerosis ever since his retirement. He died at Manor House, Danbury, Essex on 15 February 1959, of pneumonia contracted during an epidemic of influenza.