Frederic C. Williams
F.C. Williams | |
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Born | Frederic Calland Williams 26 June 1911 |
Died | 11 August 1977 | (aged 66)
Nationality | English |
Citizenship | British |
Education | Stockport Grammar School |
Alma mater |
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Known for | |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Problems of spontaneous oscillation in electrical circuits (1936) |
Doctoral students | Tom Kilburn[1] |
Sir Frederic Calland Williams, CBE FRS[2][3] (26 June 1911 – 11 August 1977),[2][4] known as F.C. Williams or Freddie Williams,[5] was an English engineer, a pioneer in radar and computer technology.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Education
Williams was born in Stockport, and educated at Stockport Grammar School. He went on to the Victoria University of Manchester where he was awarded Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1936[12] where he was a postgraduate student of Magdalen College, Oxford.[13]
Research and career
Working at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), he was a substantial contributor during World War II to the development of radar.[14]
In 1946 he was appointed as head of the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Manchester. There, with Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, he built the first electronic stored-program digital computer, the Manchester Baby.[14]
Williams is also recognised for his invention of the Williams tube, an early memory device.[14]
He died in Manchester, aged 66.
Awards and honours
Williams was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1950. His nomination reads
During the war F.C. Williams was the chief authority and the main source of ideas on the electrical circuits associated with many radar devices evolved at the Telecommunications Radio Establishment. Many of the extreme refinements of technique embodied in devices such as I.F.F., G.E.E. and Oboe, were due to him and were made possible by his deep knowledge of physical principles. Since the war he has developed successfully an electric storage tube for the proposed Manchester digital computing machine. The storage depends for its success on most delicate properties of wave form produced by electronic bombardment of a spot on a screen.[3]
References
- ^ Kilburn, Tom (1948). A storage system for use with binary digital computing machines. manchester.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Manchester. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.488439.
- ^ a b Kilburn, T.; Piggott, L. S. (1978). "Frederic Calland Williams. 26 June 1911-11 August 1977". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 24: 583. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1978.0020.
- ^ a b "EC/1950/25 Williams, Sir Frederic Calland: Library and Archive Catalogue". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 30 April 2014.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ "Corrigenda: Frederic Calland Williams. 26 June 1911-11 August 1977". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 25: 0–1. 1979. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1979.0001.
- ^ "Frederic Calland Williams (1911–1977)". Archived from the original on 7 January 2010.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ Williams, Frederic; Kilburn, Tom (1948). "Electronic Digital Computers". Nature. 162 (4117): 487. doi:10.1038/162487a0. Archived from the original on 6 April 2009.
{{cite journal}}
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suggested) (help) [dead link] - ^ Anderson David, Delve Janet (2007) Frederic Calland Williams: the Manchester Baby's chief engineer IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29 (4): 90-102
- ^ Williams, F.C.; Kilburn, T. (1949). "A storage system for use with binary-digital computing machines". Proceedings of the IEE – Part II: Power Engineering. doi:10.1049/pi-2.1949.0078.
- ^ Anderson, D. P. (2009). "Interview An interview with Maurice Wilkes". Communications of the ACM. 52 (9): 39. doi:10.1145/1562164.1562180.
- ^ Shelburne, B. J.; Burton, C. P. (1998). "Early programs on the Manchester Mark I Prototype". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 20 (3): 4. doi:10.1109/85.707570.
- ^ Burton, C. (1998). "The Manchester baby reborn". IEE Review. 44 (3): 113. doi:10.1049/ir:19980302.
- ^ Williams, Frederic Calland (1936). Problems of spontaneous oscillation in electrical circuits. solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.673482.
- ^ WILLIAMS. "WILLIAMS, Prof. Sir Frederic (Calland)". Who's Who & Who Was Who. Vol. 2017 (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: Unknown parameter|othernames=
ignored (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) (subscription required) - ^ a b c Napper, Brian (October 2000). "Frederic Calland Williams (1911–1977)". University of Manchester. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
- Use dmy dates from April 2012
- 1911 births
- 1977 deaths
- Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester
- Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
- Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- English electrical engineers
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- History of computing in the United Kingdom
- Knights Bachelor
- People educated at Stockport Grammar School
- People from Stockport
- School of Computer Science, University of Manchester
- English engineer stubs