Meredith Wooldridge Thring, FREng, FIMechE, FIET, FInstP, FIChemE, FEI (17 December 1915 – 15 September 2006) was a British inventor, engineer, futurologist, professor and author.
Thring was born in Melbourne, Australia, but moved to England when he was four years old. His school was Malvern College. He obtained a double first class degree in Mathematics and Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1937. He then joined the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, becoming Head of its Combustion Research Laboratory. In 1940, he married Margaret Hooley (died 1986), and they had two sons and one daughter.
In 1946, Thring became Head of the newly formed Physics Research group of the British Iron and Steel Research Association. In 1950, he moved to the University of Sheffield, becoming Professor and Head of the Department of Fuel Technology and Chemical Engineering in 1953. In 1964, he took up the position of Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Queen Mary College of the University of London, where he remained until his retirement in 1981. He died in Exmouth, Devon.