Thomas Kilburn

Tom Kilburn

Born	(1921-08-11)11 August 1921 Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England
Died	17 January 2001(2001-01-17) (aged 79) Manchester, England
Nationality	English
Institutions	University of Manchester Telecommunications Research Establishment University of Cambridge
Alma mater	University of Manchester (PhD) University of Cambridge (BA)
Thesis	A storage system for use with binary digital computing machines (1948)
Doctoral advisor	Frederic Calland Williams
Known for	Williams-Kilburn tube Manchester Mark 1 Atlas (computer) MU5
Notable awards	Mountbatten Medal (1997) Royal Medal (1978) CBE (1973) FRS (1965)
Spouse	Irene Marsden
Website computer50.org/mark1/kilburn.html

Tom Kilburn CBE, FRS (11 August 1921 – 17 January 2001) was an English mathematician and computer scientist. Over the course of a productive 30-year career, he was involved in the development of five computers of great historical significance. With Freddie Williams he worked on the Williams–Kilburn Tube and the world's first stored-program computer, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), while working at the Victoria University of Manchester. His work propelled Manchester and Britain into the forefront of the emerging field of computer science.

A graduate of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Kilburn worked on radar at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) in Malvern under Frederic Calland Williams during the Second World War. After the war ended, he was recruited by Williams to work on the development of computers at Victoria University of Manchester. He led the development of a succession of innovative Manchester computers that incorporated a host of ground-breaking innovations and developments, including the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial computer, and the Atlas, one of the first time-sharing multiprocessing computers that incorporated job scheduling, spooling, interrupts, pipelining and paging.