Personalia

Issue 4

Personalia

Rod Eddington (Lincoln) was given a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June, for "services to civil aviation". He has been Chief Executive of British Airways since 2000, following some years with Cathay Pacific Airways. He came from Australia to do a DPhil here with David Kenning in the late 1970s. He has announced his intention of leaving British Airways soon. In view of recent events, he is probably looking forward to it!

George Whitby (Wadham 1931-4) died on 16 April 2005, aged 92. He spent most of his career with ICI, apart from a secondment to the Ministry of Munitions during World War Two. One of his early contributions at ICI was as engineering manager for the construction of plants to make the polyester fibre Terylene. The first plant was built on Tees-side in 1951-4, but several others followed to satisfy the rapidly growing demand. They were built both here and in the US, the latter in cooperation with American Celanese.

He was made chairman of ICI Fibres Division in 1961, and by 1963 was on the main board. In the early 70s, before his retirement in 1974, he directed a substantial expansion of ICI in North America. For ten years after retirement he worked as a consultant.

His wartime work for the Ministry of Munitions was initially on the development and production of an effective new anti-tank shell, which came into use after D-Day, and then on the study of intelligence reports about the V2 rockets then being developed in Germany. For his war work he was awarded an OBE, and in 1982 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

[based on the Times obituary of 23 May 2005]

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