Frederic Calland Williams, 26 June 1911- 11 August 1977

Frederic Calland Williams was born on 26 June 1911, at Romiley, near Stockport, to F. Williams and E. A. Williams (née Smith). He was named ‘Freddie’ because the eldest son in the family had been called Freddie for several generations, and the tradition has been followed for two more generations. His father was a locomotive draughtsman with Beyer Peacock, and as Fred lived near a railway, he had from a very early age an interest in and a growing knowledge of engines. When he was nine or ten, an uncle had the first wireless set that Fred had seen; he studied this carefully and then went home and made one in a cigar box. In his Bakerian Lecture in 1964, Williams said: ‘My lecture is concerned with inventive research, a topic to which I have devoted my professional life since the age of ten.'