Bernard Lovell

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Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (born 31 August 1913) is a British radio astronomer, director (until 1981) of the Jodrell Bank Observatory.

Born in Oldland Common, Gloucestershire, he studied physics at the University of Bristol, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1936. He worked in the cosmic ray research team at the University of Manchester until the outbreak of World War II, during which he worked for the TRE developing radar systems to be installed in aircraft, for which he received an OBE in 1946.

He attempted to continue cosmic ray work with an ex-military radar unit and following interference from trams on Manchester's Oxford Road moved to Jodrell Bank, near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire, an outpost of the university's botany department. He was able to show that radar echoes could be obtained from daytime meteor showers. With university funding he constructed the then largest steerable radiotelescope in the world, which now bears his name. On completion in 1957 it was used to track the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I.

He was knighted in 1961 for his important contributions to the development of radio astronomy, and has a secondary school named after him in his home village of Oldland. A building on the QinetiQ site in Malvern is also named after him.

He won the Lorimer Medal of the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh in 1969, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1981.

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