| Authorised form of name | Paterson; Sir; Clifford Copland (1879 - 1948); engineer |
| Dates | 1879 - 1948 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Westfield, Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington, London, England |
| Date of birth | 17 October 1879 |
| Place of death | Peace Memorial Hospital, Watford, Hertfordshire, England |
| Date of death | 26/07/1948 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Place of marriage: Stamford Hill Congregational Church, London, England. |
| Occupation | engineer |
| Research field | Electrical engineering |
| Engineering |
| Activity | Education:
Private school (1892-1896); Mill Hill School; Finsbury Technical College
Career:
Undertook engineering apprenticeships with George Wailes & Co. London, and Mirrlees, Watson & Co. Glasgow (1897); special student assistant in the department under Alexander Russell (FRS 1924), Faraday House, London (1901); worked on the Jungfrau railway installation, Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, Switzerland (1902); assistant, later principal assistant, of the electrotechnical and photometric divisions of the National Physical Laboratory (1903); first secretary of the international commission on illumination (1913); Joint secretary of the Home Office committee on the lighting of factories and workshops (1915); member of the Board of Trade committee on ships' navigation lights, and chairman of the British Engineering Standards Association committee dealing with the lamps used by the Royal Flying Corps (1914-1918); approached to join Osram Lamps, eventually agreeing to do so once the War ended, by which time the Osram works became amalgamated with the General Electric Company (GEC) (1916-1918); built a large industrial research laboratory, General Electric Company (1919); responsible for development and expansion of laboratories, including their relocation to new premises in Wembley, London (1922); the Wembley laboratories were tasked with improving the cavity magnetron design and producing sets for practical use; director of GEC; founder and director of their Wembley Research Laboratories (1939-1945; became very ill on his return from a trip to Australia and New Zealand (1948).
Honours:
OBE ; Kt 1946
Memberships:
Institution of Electrical Engineers (President 1930)
Illuminating Engineering Society 1928
Electrical Research Association (President 1938)
Awards/Medals:
Faraday Medal 1945
James Alfred Ewing Medal 1946
Gold Medal of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America 1948 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 19/03/1942 |
| Age at election | 63 |
| Proposer | George Ingle Finch |
| Edward Neville da Costa Andrade |
| Edward Victor Appleton |
| Henry Thomas Tizard |
| James Swinburne |
| Robert Robertson |
| Miles Walker |
| Leonard Bairstow |
| Ralph Howard Fowler |
| William Lawrence Bragg |
| Alexander Russell |
| Alfred Fowler |
| RSActivity | The Clfford Paterson Lecture of the Royal Society, given biennally on engineering topics, is named after him. |
| Relationships | Parents: Frederick Paterson, tanner and leather merchant, and Janette, née May.
Spouse: (1905) Eleanor Daisy Ogden (1875–1962).
Children: One daughter and two sons. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 305 |
| OtherInfo | Shared responsibility for the development of the Paterson-Walsh electrical height-finder.
Created a centralised research establishment now regarded as a model of its kind. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | DNB; Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
Obituaries:
Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1948-1949 vol 6 pp 479-501, plate, by J W Ryde |
| Code | NA2229 |