Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside

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Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside OM KBE (born May 12, 1901 in Tisbury , Wiltshire , † June 22, 1983 ) was a British nuclear energy engineer who became a life peer in the House of Lords in 1965 under the Life Peerages Act 1958 . Hinton was one of the fathers of the British nuclear program in the 1950s, which led to the construction of nuclear power plants such as the Calder Hall nuclear power plant .

Life

Studies, engineer at ICI and World War II

Hinton, the son of a school headmaster, worked after school from 1917 to 1923 when the railway company Great Western Railway in Swindon and then started with the financial support by a grant from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers studying engineering at the Institute of Charles Inglis at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge . After completing his studies, he returned to Great Western Railway as an engineer in 1926, but soon switched to the Brunner Mond Company , which a little later formed the alkaline division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) as a subsidiary .

During the Great Depression , Hinton became chief engineer at ICI in 1930, where he also dealt with the topics of standardization , management theory and other internal audit techniques . This contributed to the fact that the company made great strides in the mechanical handling of raw materials and in plant engineering .

Hinton's experience in business organization in large-scale industry played an important role in Britain's success during World War II . In 1941 he became deputy general director of British ammunition production ( Royal Filling Factories ), which included nine factories with over 20,000 employees.

Post-war era, 1950s nuclear program and 1957 Windscale fire

After the war ended, Hinton became head of the industrial nuclear power plant in Risley , which became one of the bases of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) founded in 1954 . Although early research reactors such as the British Experimental Pie (BEPO) provided important technical information, Hinton and his staff initially lacked the resources to build pilot plants.

In the following years, plants for uranium enrichment , fuel rod production , plutonium processing and finally nuclear reactors for electricity generation were built without prior pilot plants. During this time, under the direction of Hintons, who was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1951 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1954 , plants such as Windscale , Capenhurst, Springfields and the Dounreay nuclear power station were built , albeit using nuclear technology for power generation systems was subordinate to the government's program to produce nuclear weapons .

In 1956, the Calder Hall nuclear power plant opened, the first nuclear power plant built for commercial power generation. In 1957, Hinton Fellow of Trinity College and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire was beaten and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

In 1957 he also became chairman of the newly created Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), the supervisory authority for the British energy industry . In this capacity, he was instrumental with helping to date by coal -dependent energy supply to an energy mix of coal, oil and nuclear energy switch. Although his appointment as chairman of the CEGB was a sign in favor of the nuclear industry, he nonetheless demanded an assessment of the growing nuclear energy from an economic and engineering point of view.

Shortly after taking office, on October 10, 1957, the Windscale fire broke out at the Windscale power station. This put a cloud with significant amounts of radioactive material released, extending across the UK and mainland Europe distributed . On the seven-level international assessment scale for nuclear incidents (INES) that is currently in force , this accident is classified as a serious accident (level 5), i.e. an accident with effects outside the company premises and serious damage to the reactor core. Hinton held the position of chairman of the CEGB until 1964 and was also President of the International Executive Committee of the World Energy Conference between 1962 and 1968 .

Member of the House of Lords and University President

By a letters patent dated January 28, 1965, Hinton was raised to the nobility due to the Life Peerages Act 1958 as a life peer with the title Baron Hinton of Bankside , of Dulwich in the County of London, and thus belonged to the House of until his death Lords as a member. As such, he was deputy chairman of the Electricity Supply Council from 1965 to 1983 .

In the following years, Hinton, who was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) from 1966 to 1967 , was the first chancellor of the newly founded University of Bath , which in 1966 awarded him an honorary doctorate (D.Sc.) from the university. He held the office of Chancellor until he was replaced by Frank Kearton, Baron Kearton in 1980. He was also the first president of the committee for the selection of the MacRobert Award winners between 1969 and 1977 .

Baron Hinton, who was awarded the James Watt Medal by ImechE in 1973 for outstanding services in the field of mechanical engineering, became a member of the Order of Merit , which was limited to 24 members, in 1976 and was thus one of the most highly honored engineers of his time. He also served as founding president of the Royal Academy of Engineering between 1976 and 1983 .

Publications

  • The Future for Nuclear Power , Stockholm 1957
  • The ABC of Atomic Energy , co-authors Philip Daly and John Dixon, London, 1958
  • The Evolution of Nuclear Power Plant Design , Central Electricity Generating Board, 1960
  • The development of atomic energy and its industrial applications , 1960
  • Power production and transmission in the countryside , co-author William Holford , 1960
  • The lessons of the past seven years in atomic energy. An address given at the World Power Conference , 1960
  • The British electricity transmission system , 1961
  • Design and Research , 1963
  • The Potential Contribution to Electricity Generation of Hydro-electric Power and Nuclear Energy , 1965
  • Engineers and Engineering , 1970
  • World Sources of Energy in the Late Twentieth Century , Council of Engineering Institutions, 1972
  • Heavy Current Electricity in the United Kingdom: history and Development , 1979

literature

  • Jeannine Alton: Catalog of the papers and correspondence of Christopher Hinton, OM, KBE, FRS, FEng, Baron Hinton of Bankside (1901-1983) deposited at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London , 1986
  • Una McGovern (Ed.): Chambers Biographical Dictionary . Chambers, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 , p. 729
  • Sir Christopher Hinton , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 44/1962 of October 22, 1962, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Life

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of Bath: Honorary Graduates 1966 to 1988
personal data
SURNAME Hinton, Christopher, Baron Hinton of Bankside
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hinton, Christopher, Baron Hinton of Bankside (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British engineer
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Tisbury , Wiltshire
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1983