Monty Finniston

Sir Harold Montague "Monty" Finniston FRSFRSE (1912–1991) was a British industrialist born in Glasgow, Scotland.

He was born on 15 August 1912 at 26 Aitkenhead Road in Govanhill, Glasgow the son of Robert Finniston. He attended Allan Glen's School.

Monty Finniston read metallurgical chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he gained his PhD and then lectured in metallurgy.

He spent the years of the Second World War in the Royal Naval Scientific Service, seconded to the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada working on the application of nuclear power to submarines. After the war he worked in Canada, and then was appointed Chief Metallurgist at the Atomic Energy Authority, Harwell. The years 1948-58 which he spent there were a time of rapid development of nuclear power. Finniston initiated and oversaw a wide-ranging research programme into the many metallurgical problems associated with nuclear reactor design, involving uranium fuel elements, their light alloy cladding, and reactor containment vessels. In 1958 he moved to north-east England to become Director of the Nuclear Research Centre newly founded by the Newcastle engineering firm C. A. Parsons. When enthusiasm for atomic power waned in the early 1960s, he persuaded Parsons' board to convert the Centre into International Research and Development Ltd. (IRD), a wide-ranging contract engineering research company.

He was Vice-President of the Royal Society, 1971-2. He became chairman of British Steel Corporation in 1973, and was knighted in the same year.

In 1975 he was awarded the A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize.

...
Wikipedia