Geoffrey Pyke
| Geoffrey Pyke | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 November 1893 |
| Died | 21 February 1948 (aged 54) |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Occupation | Journalist, educationalist and inventor |
| Spouse(s) | Margareth Amy Chubb |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Military technology |
| Known for | Pykrete, Project Habakkuk |
Geoffrey Nathaniel Joseph Pyke (9 November 1893 – 21 February 1948) was an English journalist, educationalist, and later an inventor whose clever, but , ideas could be difficult to implement. In lifestyle and appearance, he fitted the common stereotype of a scientist-engineer-inventor or in British slang, a "boffin".
Pyke came to public attention when he escaped from internment in Germany during World War I. He had travelled to Germany under a false passport, he was soon arrested and interned. Pyke is particularly remembered for his innovative proposals for weapons of war, most especially the material pykrete and the proposed construction of the ship Habakkuk from it.
Pyke's father, Lionel Edward Pyke, was a Jewish lawyer who died when Geoffrey was only five, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Pyke to Wellington, then a typical public school mainly for the sons of Army officers. At his mother's insistence, Pyke maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew. He became an atheist when he was thirteen. The persecution he suffered instilled in him a hatred of and contempt for The Establishment. After two years at Wellington, he was withdrawn, tutored privately and then admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge to study law.
When the First World War broke out, Pyke stopped his studies to become a war correspondent. He persuaded the editor of the Daily Chronicle to send him to Berlin using the passport obtained from an American sailor and by travelling via Denmark.
In Germany, he was able to converse with Germans and to see that civilian life there was nothing like as grim as had been portrayed in the British national press. He eavesdropped on other people's conversations and witnessed the mobilisation of Germans for war with Russia – seeing dozens of trains packed with soldiers travelling with clockwork precision.
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