17 Facts About Henry Tizard

In 1911, Henry Tizard returned to Oxford as a tutorial fellow at Oriel College and to work as a demonstrator in the electrical laboratory.

On 25 July 1942, Henry Tizard was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Henry Tizard later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, where he became an experimental equipment officer and learned to fly planes after his eyesight improved.

Henry Tizard acted as his own test pilot for making aerodynamic observations.

When his superior Bertram Hopkinson was moved to the Ministry of Munitions, Henry Tizard went with him.

When Hopkinson died in 1918, Henry Tizard took over his post.

Henry Tizard served in the Royal Air Force from 1918 to 1919, ending the war at the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel.

In 1938, Henry Tizard persuaded Mark Oliphant at Birmingham University to drop some of his nuclear research and concentrate on development of an improved source of short-wave radiation.

In 1946, Henry Tizard remained in the defence establishment, chairing the Defence Research Policy Committee.

Henry Tizard chaired the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy from 1947 to 1952.

In 1948, Henry Tizard returned to the Ministry of Defence as Chief Scientific Adviser, a post he held until 1952.

Henry Tizard had followed the official debate about ghost rockets with interest and was intrigued by the increasing media coverage of UFO sightings in the United Kingdom, America and other parts of the world.

One of the most controversial meetings that Henry Tizard had to attend in his capacity as chair of the Defence Research Policy Committee would emerge only many years later with the declassification of CIA documents: a meeting on 1 June 1951 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, between Henry Tizard, Omond Solandt and representatives of the CIA to discuss "brainwashing".

Henry Tizard was awarded the Air Force Cross on 2 November 1918 in recognition of his contribution to the war effort.

Henry Tizard was invested as a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1927, a Knight Commander in 1937 and a Knight Grand Cross in 1949.

Henry Tizard was awarded the 1946 Franklin Medal for his work in the field of engineering and presided over the 1948 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Dundee.

Henry Tizard's papers are kept at the Imperial War Museum, London.