Elliott, William Sydney, 1917-2000

Born 22 April 1917, educated at Deacon's School Peterborough; studied physics at St Catherine's College, Cambridge, began Ph.D at Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge studies halted to joined wartime Air Defence Research and Development Establishment at Christchurch, Hampshire, later Malvern, Worcestershire. During this period he worked on radar systems, developing an interest in pulse-type electronic techniques. Projects included the use of delay lines to cancel out interference of stationary 'clutter' in radar signals, to distinguish a moving target, and subsequently the use of binary digital transducers in electro-mechanical servo systems.

After a period with Powell Duffryn Research Laboratories, 1946-1947, as Chief Physicist Elliott joined Elliott Brothers research Laboratories as Head of the Computing Division. In his curriculum vitae he listed the achievements of this period as shaft-encoding systems, computer-controlled gunnery (axis conversion, data reduction, prediction), analogue and digital computing systems, storage in magnetostriction delay lines in the '401' computer. The '401' prototype was built with the support of the National Research Development Corporation. Completed in April 1953 it was exhibited the same month at the Physical Society Exhibition. It gave many years of good service at the Rothamstead Experimental Station and is now housed in the Science Museum London.

In 1953 Elliott moved to Ferranti Ltd. Here the listed achievements are the initiation of the Digital Systems Department (control systems on naval vessels) and the 'Pegasus' Computer. Interest in the original Pegasus computer in 1956 led to IBM making him an offer to set up and run a new research laboratory in Britain, Hursley Park, Winchester. For this period Elliott's curriculum vitae highlighted: participation in establishing research missions for European laboratories, collaboration with Nordic Laboratory n process control in paper and other industries, collaboration with parent US division on control projects and specification of 1720 control computer, introduction to IBM of microprogram control (used in 360 computers) and the provision of special computer instrumentation for Latina nuclear power station.

After his experience with three companies in the computer industry he returned to academia. He was appointed 1962 - 1965 in the Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory as Co-ordinator of the Titan (Atlas 2) Project. This was a joint project with Ferranti Ltd and was based in part on work at Manchester on the Atlas computer. Its object was to provide a computer service for the university, and under Elliot's guidance was brought in on schedule and within a tight budget. In January 1966 he was appointed Assistant Director of Research in the Cambridge University Engineering Department and the Mathematical Laboratory. In October 1966 he moved to Imperial College London as Professor of Computing. Here he promoted CAD work and became principal investigator of two Science Research Council grants and a Ministry of Technology contract, using common equipment for CAD work. Computer courses were an important part of Elliott's work in London, for example, a course for computer design to M.Sc. Control students at Imperial and a course on CAD and graphics as part of the London University B.Sc. (Eng) and M.Sc. in Computing Science The move to Imperial did not end Elliott's Cambridge connections and for the period 1972 - 1975 he was seconded part time as Visitor to Control Group, Cambridge University Engineering Department, to assist with their research. From the early 1970s Elliott, with a number of colleagues as Graphical Software Ltd, was increasing involved in consultancy work, for example, detailed software development and overall systems design of interactive graphic facilities for CAD in real-world use.

In recognition of his distinction in computer engineering he was elected to the Fellowship of Engineering (Royal Academy of Engineering) in 1979. He was also a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineering, of the Institute of Physics and of the British Computer Society. He died on 3 May 2003.

From the guide to the ELLIOT, William Sydney, 1935 - 2000, (Imperial College London)