Alan Blumlein
| Alan Dower Blumlein | |
|---|---|
| Born |
29 June 1903 Hampstead, London, England |
| Died | 7 June 1942 (aged 38) Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire, England |
| Education |
Highgate School Imperial College London |
| Spouse(s) | Doreen Lane |
| Children | Simon Blumlein David Blumlein |
| Parent(s) | Semmy Blumlein Jessie Dower |
| Engineering career | |
| Employer(s) | EMI |
| Projects | H2S radar |
| Significant design | Ultra–Linear amplifier |
| Significant advance | Stereophonic sound television |
Alan Dower Blumlein (29 June 1903 – 7 June 1942) was an English electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereophonic sound, television and radar. He received 128 patents and was considered as one of the most significant engineers and inventors of his time.
He died during World War II on 7 June 1942, aged 38, during the secret trial of an H2S airborne radar system then under development, when all on board the Halifax bomber he was flying in were killed when it crashed at Welsh Bicknor in Herefordshire.
Alan Dower Blumlein was born on 29 June 1903 in Hampstead, London, to Semmy Blumlein, a German-born naturalised British subject. Semmy was born to Joseph Blumlein, a German of Jewish descent, and Phillippine Hellmann, a French woman of German descent. Alan's mother, Jessie Dower, was Scottish, daughter of a missionary. He was christened as a Presbyterian, though he later married in a Church of England parish. His future career seems to have been determined by the age of seven, when he presented his father with an invoice for repairing the doorbell, signed "Alan Blumlein, Electrical Engineer" (with "paid" scrawled in pencil). His sister claimed that he could not read proficiently until he was 12. He replied "no, but I knew a lot of quadratic equations!"
After leaving Highgate School in 1921, he studied at City and Guilds College (part of Imperial College). He won a Governors' scholarship and joined the second year of the course. He graduated with a First-Class Honours BSc two years later.
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