Michael Perrin

Sir Michael Willcox Perrin (13 September 1905 – 18 August 1988) was a scientist who created the first practical polythene, directed the first British atomic bomb programme, and participated in the Allied intelligence of the Nazi atomic bomb. He has a large extended family including his great-granddaughters Rachel and Rebecca Field.

Born 13 September 1905 in Victoria, British Columbia, he moved to England in 1911 with his British parents, who sent him to Twyford School and Winchester College, and from there to study chemistry at New College, Oxford and the University of Toronto.

Joining Imperial Chemical Industries, Perrin led a small team that investigated high-pressure polymerization and patented the first practical industrial method for producing polythene in 1935.

Perrin was promoted to assist ICI's research director, Wallace Akers. With the advent of World War II, between 1940 and 1941 they participated in the Government's MAUD Committee which concluded it was feasibile to build an atomic bomb. Both then moved into the secret team that would design a British atomic bomb, and they ran the key committees of Tube Alloys, as it was called. After a fact-finding visit to the United States in 1942, Perrin realised that its government had, at last, recognised the significance of the atomic bomb, and saw the potential of that country now that it had properly mobilised. On arriving home he worked to persuade the government of the importance of combining with America. This was accepted; about sixty Tube Alloys scientists were sent to America in the British Mission and subsumed into the Manhattan Project. Perrin remained as co-ordinator for the British Government.

...
Wikipedia