17
The GEC Laboratories 1939–1949
Wembley at war, John Augustin, ‘St. Helier’
and retirement.
… There is one point in which I failed this morning. I do not think I made clear to Megaw,
Gossling, Le Rossignol and company our appreciation of the wonderful contribution they
have made to our armoury by bringing these valves into being ….
Letter from Capt. Willet, H. M. Signal School, to Clifford Paterson, 18 August 1941,
concerning the NT98, NT100, and E1248 valves.
1
17.1 The Wembley Laboratories During
the War
The major contribution the Wembley Laboratories made to the war effort was
undoubtedly the range of valves developed and produced for the services,
particularly microwave triodes and the ‘magnetrons’.
2 With the outbreak of
war, all the research groups engaged on television, and transmitting or
receiving valves turned their attention to devices for radar, navigation and
communications, either in research and development or—as in Robert’s case
—taking charge of valve pre-production groups and the associated monitoring, testing and quality control activities. Throughout the war Robert Le
Rossignol was the senior man on the Laboratories’ staff concerned with the
design of valves,
3 and in all probability there was hardly a new valve developed during this time that did not benefit from his understanding and advice.
Few, if any of the UK research laboratories—industrial or otherwise—
could match the breadth of activity and the multidisciplinary approach built
up by the GEC in its two decades of existence, embracing as it did applications in mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials science and metallurgy,
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_17
405
The GEC Laboratories 1939–1949
Wembley at war, John Augustin, ‘St. Helier’
and retirement.
… There is one point in which I failed this morning. I do not think I made clear to Megaw,
Gossling, Le Rossignol and company our appreciation of the wonderful contribution they
have made to our armoury by bringing these valves into being ….
Letter from Capt. Willet, H. M. Signal School, to Clifford Paterson, 18 August 1941,
concerning the NT98, NT100, and E1248 valves.
1
17.1 The Wembley Laboratories During
the War
The major contribution the Wembley Laboratories made to the war effort was
undoubtedly the range of valves developed and produced for the services,
particularly microwave triodes and the ‘magnetrons’.
2 With the outbreak of
war, all the research groups engaged on television, and transmitting or
receiving valves turned their attention to devices for radar, navigation and
communications, either in research and development or—as in Robert’s case
—taking charge of valve pre-production groups and the associated monitoring, testing and quality control activities. Throughout the war Robert Le
Rossignol was the senior man on the Laboratories’ staff concerned with the
design of valves,
3 and in all probability there was hardly a new valve developed during this time that did not benefit from his understanding and advice.
Few, if any of the UK research laboratories—industrial or otherwise—
could match the breadth of activity and the multidisciplinary approach built
up by the GEC in its two decades of existence, embracing as it did applications in mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials science and metallurgy,
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_17
405