Peter Clarricoats

British engineer (1932–2020)

Peter John Bell Clarricoats CBE, FREng,^[1] FRS^[2] (6 April 1932 – 17 January 2020) was a British engineer who was Professor of Electronic Engineering at Queen Mary, University of London.^[3]

Early life and education

Clarricoats was born in 1932 in Southgate, London, the youngest of the three children of John and Cecilia Clarricoats. His father was Secretary of the Radio Society of Great Britain. He was educated at Minchenden Grammar School and Imperial College London. He graduated BSc in 1953 and received his PhD from the University of London in 1958, with a thesis entitled "Properties of waveguides containing ferrites with special reference to waveguides of circular cross-section".^[4]

Academic career

Clarricoats began his academic career in 1959 as a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, followed by a move in 1961 to the University of Sheffield. He was appointed as a professor at the University of Leeds in 1963, which made him the youngest professor in his field at the time.^[4] He was then Professor of Electronic Engineering at Queen Mary, University of London from 1968 to 1997. He was head of the Department of Electronic Engineering between 1979 and 1995 and served as Dean of Engineering between 1977 and 1980.

Clarricoats was vice-president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, from 1989 to 1991.^[5] He was vice-president and treasurer of URSI (the International Union of Radio Science) from 1993 to 1999.^[6]

From 1995 to 1997 he was a director of Filtronic plc,^[7] and in 1998 became chair of the Technology Advisory board of Filtronic.^[4]

Honours

Clarricoats was appointed a Fellow^[1] at the Royal Academy of Engineering^[1] in 1983. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1990 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for "services to the Ministry of Defence" in the 1996 Birthday Honours.^[8]

In September 2015 Clarricoats was awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering, one of the academy's highest accolades.^[9]

Death

Clarricoats died on 17 January 2020 after a short illness at the age of 87.^[10]

Works

Microwave Ferrites, Wiley, 1961
Corrugated Horns for Microwave Antennas. IET. 1984. ISBN 978-0-86341-003-1.
Microwave Horns and Feeds (1994)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "List of Fellows - Royal Academy of Engineering".
^ Snowden, Sir Christopher; Hao, Yang (2021). "Peter John Bell Clarricoats. 6 April 1932—17 January 2020". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 71: 103–122. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2020.0045. S2CID 233412236.
^ "Electronic Engineering Department, Queen Mary, University of London". Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
^ ^a ^b ^c Snowden, Sir Christopher. "Professor Peter Clarricoats CBE FREng FRS" (PDF). Retrieved 26 June 2020.
^ "Prof Peter Clarricoats, CBE, FRS, FREng Authorised Biography – Debrett's People of Today, Prof Peter Clarricoats, CBE, FRS, FREng Profile". Archived from the original on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
^ "URSI Home". www.ursi.org.
^ "Find and update company information - GOV.UK". Companies House. HMRC. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
^ Royal Society, Peter John Bell Clarricoats 6 April 1932—17 January 2020, Christopher Snowden and Yang Hao, published 28 April 2021
^ "Microwave pioneer to receive Sir Frank Whittle medal". RAEng. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
^ IET, Professor Peter Clarricoats CBE FREng FRS FIEEE HonFIET, April 1932 – January 2020, published 4 February 2020