| Authorised form of name | Eccles; William Henry (1875 - 1966); physicist and engineer |
| Dates | 1875 - 1966 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | 2 Buccluch St, Barrow in Furness, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 23 August 1875 |
| Place of death | Randolph Hotel, Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 29 April 1966 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Cremation: Oxford crematorium, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom (3 May 1966) |
| Occupation | Physicist and engineer |
| Research field | Chemistry |
| Metallurgy |
| Radio science |
| Engineering |
| Physics |
| Activity | Education:
Privately educated; Royal College of Science, South Kensington BSc 1894-1897; University College, London DSc 1901
Career:
Demonstrator in the Physics Department, Royal College of Science, South Kensington (1897); appointed as one of Guglielmo Marconi's assistants, working on his pioneering transatlantic wireless signalling, Marconi Company (1899-1900); Head of the mathematics and physics department of the South Western Polytechnic, Chelsea, London (1900); appointed to a readership in graphic statics, University Collge, London (1912); appointed professor of applied physics and electrical engineering at the City and Guilds College, Finsbury, on the death of Silvanus Phillips Thomson (FRS 1891) (1916); retired (1926).
Memberships:
Institution of Electrical Engineers (President 1926-7)
Physical Society (President 1928-1930)
Institute of Physics (President 1929) |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 12/05/1921 |
| Age at election | 46 |
| Proposer | Henry Jackson |
| Sydney Chapman |
| Ernest George Coker |
| John Allen Harker |
| Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton |
| A W Porter |
| Herbert Jackson |
| John William Nicholson |
| Louis Napoleon George Filon |
| William Henry Bragg |
| Frederick George Donnan |
| John Ambrose Fleming |
| Richard Threlfall |
| Oliver Joseph Lodge |
| Relationships | Parents: Charles Eccles, blacksmith, later an engineer, and Annabella Todd.
Spouse: Nellie Florence Paterson (b. 1894/5), the daughter of Robert Henry Paterson, railway clerk. |
| OtherInfo | For many years he was the leading (and almost the only) independent physicist working in the field of radio science, first at the universities and later as a consultant.
He came very near to establishing the present-day theory of the Heaviside layer.
He was chairman of the committee which examined the BBC's proposals for regional broadcasting in 1926 .
It is thought that his Quaker beliefs prevented him from patenting his inventions. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1971 vol 17 pp 195-214, plate, by J A Ratcliffe |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/65997540 |
| Code | NA1856 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| NLB/63/215 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 18 July 1922 |
| EC/1921/14 | Eccles, William Henry: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| RR/28/124 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on two papers 'The distribution of the magnetic field and return current round a submarine cable carrying alternating current.—Part 1' by Charles V Drysdale and 'The distribution of the magnetic field and return current round a submarine cable carrying alternating current. —Part 2' by S Butterworth | [August 1923] |
| RR/37/74 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The polarisation of radio waves' by J Hollingworth | April 1928 |
| NLB/52/637 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. William Henry Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 2 February 1916 |
| NLB/52/830 | Copy letter from [Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society]; to Dr. William Henry Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 29 February 1916 |
| NLB/52/645 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. William Henry Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 2 February 1916 |
| NLB/52/701 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. William Henry Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 17 February 1916 |
| NLB/53/318 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Willam Henry] Eccles, FRS | 10 July 1916 |
| RR/47/74 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Measurements in the Southern hemisphere of the ionized regions of the upper atmosphere' by A L Green | October 1932 |
| NLB/54/162 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 21 February 1917 |
| NLB/54/197 | Copy letter from [Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society]; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 28 February 1917 |
| NLB/54/55 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 29 January 1917 |
| NLB/54/443 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 16 May 1917 |
| NLB/56/107 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 22 February 1918 |
| NLB/56/281 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 6 January 1919 |
| NLB/54/541 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 12 June 1917 |
| RR/28/126 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The vale-maintained tuning-fork as a precision time-standard' by William David Dye | 25 January 1923 |
| NLB/53/66 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Wiliam Henry] Eccles, FRS | 3 April 1916 |
| NLB/53/254 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 15 June 1916 |
| NLB/52/692 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. William Henry Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 15 February 1916 |
| NLB/56/206 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society of London and FRS | 16 December 1918 |
| NLB/53/349 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William] Eccles, FRS | 19 July 1916 |
| NLB/60/874 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles; 2 Ryder Street, St. James's, S.W.l. | 20 April 1921 |
| RR/41/6 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'On some short-wave equivalent height measurements of the ionized regions of the upper atmosphere' by Edward Victor Appleton and A L Green | April 1930 |
| RR/38/64 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'On the measurement of the dielectric constants of liquids, with a determination of the dielectric constant of benzene' by L Hartshorn and D A Oliver | February 1929 |
| NLB/61/388 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 30 June 1921 |
| RR/46/109 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The electrical properties of soil for alternating currents at radio frequencies' by R L Smith-Rose | [January 1933] |
| RR/47/29 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Long wave transmission, treated by phase integral methods' by Thomas Lydwell Eckersley | February 1932 |
| RR/52/62 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Some general properties of the formulæ of the magneto-ionic theory' by H G Booker | August 1934 |
| RR/55/123 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Measurements of the absorption of wireless waves in the ionosphere' by F T Farmer and J A Ratcliffe | June 1935 |
| RR/50/112 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Supersonic dispersion in gases' by E G Richardson | March 1934 |
| RR/49/105 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The valve maintained tuning fork as a primary standard of frequency' by William David Dye and Louis Essen | [October 1933] |
| RR/59/82 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Radiation from rhombic antennae' by D D Foster | 2 October 1936 |
| RR/53/57 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'International frequency comparisons by means of standard radio frequency emissions' by Louis Essen | [February 1935] |
| RR/55/22 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The application of the magento ionic theory to the ionosphere' by H G Booker | February 1935 |
| RR/57/102 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Experimental investigations of very long waves reflected from the ionosphere' by J E Best, John Ashworth Ratcliffe and Maurice Vincent Wilkes | [May 1936] |
| NLB/55 | New Letter Book volume 55, copy letters sent from Royal Society administration | 5 November 1917-1 November 1918 |
| NLB/57/472 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to WH [William Henry] Eccles, FRS, SPS [Secretary of the Physical Society] | 12 November 1919 |
| NLB/64/704 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles FRS | 5 June 1923 |
| NLB/65/71 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 23 July 1923 |
| NLB/65/178 | Copy letter from [James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society]; to Lord Rayleigh [Robert John Strutt], FRS | 8 September 1923 |
| NLB/66/493 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Mrs. Eccles, Westminster, S.W.1 | 19 May 1924 |
| CD/3/7 | Copy letter from [James Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society], to [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 5 March 1925 |
| NLB/66/279 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Prof. [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 2 April 1924 |
| NLB/66/423 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Prof [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 6 May 1924 |
| NLB/67/845 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 23 March 1925 |
| NLB/69/414 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 30 March 1926 |
| NLB/71/54 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [William Henry] Eccles, FRS | 14 December 1927 |
| NLB/66/38 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to [Robert John Strutt] Lord Rayleigh, FRS | 12 February 1924 |
| RR/19/43 | Referee's report by Arthur Schuster, on a paper 'On the diurnal variations of the electric waves occurring in nature, and on the propagation of electric waves round the bend of the earth' by William Henry Eccles | [March 1912] |
| NLB/56/363 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [William Henry] Eccles, Secretary of the Physical Society and FRS | 22 January 1919 |
| RR/47/30 | Referee's report by Edward Victor Appleton, on a paper 'Musical atmospherics' by Thomas Lydwell Eckersley | April 1932 |
| RR/26/24 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Eddy-current losses in cylindrical conductors, with special applications to the alternating current resistances of short coils' by S Butterworth | nd [1921] |
| NLB/54 | New Letter Book volume 54, copy letters sent from Royal Society administration | 10 January 1917-2 November 1917 |
| RR/57/75 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'British radio observations during the Second International Polar Year 1932-33' by Edward Victor Appleton, R Naismith and L J Ingram | 3 August 1936 |
| RR/43/144 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'On the action of tuned rectangular frame aerials when receiving short waves' by L S Palmer | December 1931 |
| RR/64/1 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Propagation of wave-packets incident obliquely upon a stratified doubly refracting ionosphere' by H G Booker | [March 1938] |
| RR/41/7 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'Some simultaneous observations on downcoming wireless waves' by Edward Victor Appleton and John Ashworth Ratcliffe | April 1930 |
| RR/19/44 | Referee's report by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, on a paper 'On the diurnal variations of the electric waves occurring in nature, and on the propagation of electric waves round the bend of the earth' by William Henry Eccles | [April 1912] |
| ACS/1/2/1/226 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to [William Henry] Eccles, [Esquire], D. Sc. | 10 December 1920 |
| ACS/1/2/2/224 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to [William Henry] Eccles, F. R. S. | 15 March 1927 |
| ACS/1/2/2/350 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to [William Henry] Eccles [Esquire], F. R. S. | 22 April 1927 |
| ACS/1/2/3/199 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to [William Henry] Eccles [Esquire], F. R. S. | 22 March 1928 |
| ACS/1/2/3/223 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to [William Henry] Eccles [Esquire], F. R. S. | 28 March 1928 |
| ACS/1/2/3/229 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to Archibald Page [Esquire], Central Electricity Board, Trafalgar Buildings, 1 Charing Cross, S. W. 1. | 29 March 1928 |