20 Facts About Tom Kilburn

Tom Kilburn was an English mathematician and computer scientist.

Tom Kilburn's work propelled Manchester and Britain into the forefront of the emerging field of computer science.

Tom Kilburn led the development of a succession of innovative Manchester computers that incorporated a host of ground-breaking innovations and developments, including the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial computer, and the Atlas, one of the first time-sharing multiprocessing computers that incorporated job scheduling, spooling, interrupts, instruction pipelining and paging.

Tom Kilburn was born in Earlseaton near Dewsbury, Yorkshire, on 11 August 1921, the only son of John William Kilburn, a wool mill clerk who later became a company secretary, and his wife, Ivy Mortimer.

In 1940, Tom Kilburn entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, with a state scholarship, a county major scholarship, and a minor open scholarship, where he studied mathematics.

Tom Kilburn was given a quick course in electronics, and was posted to the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Malvern, where he worked on radar in Group 19 under Frederic Calland Williams.

Tom Kilburn received the degree of PhD in 1948 for his work at Manchester, writing his thesis on A storage system for use with binary digital computing machines under Williams's supervision.

Tom Kilburn anticipated a return to Malvern but Williams persuaded him to stay to work on the university's collaborative project developing the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial computer.

Tom Kilburn was assisted by Alan Turing, who arrived at Manchester in 1948.

Tom Kilburn became a professor of computing engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Manchester in 1960.

Tom Kilburn was instrumental in forming the Department of Computer Science in 1964, becoming the first head of the department, and served as Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1970 to 1972, and pro-vice-chancellor of the university from 1976 to 1979.

Tom Kilburn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1965, a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1974 and a fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his contributions to early computer design including random access digital storage, virtual memory and multiprogramming" in 2000.

Tom Kilburn was created a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1973, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Bath in 1979.

Tom Kilburn was a pioneer in the engineering realisation of the general purpose electronic digital computer and has made major contributions to the rapid rate of development that has occurred in this field over the past 15 years.

Tom Kilburn's contributions cover the whole range from overall system design to the invention of high speed circuits to meet particular needs.

The Tom Kilburn Building at the University of Manchester was named in his honour in 2001.

Tom Kilburn married Irene Marsden in 1943 and had two children, one daughter and one son.

Tom Kilburn habitually holidayed with his family in Blackpool but was always back in time for Manchester United FC's first match of the football season.

Tom Kilburn claimed that watching Manchester United win the 1968 European Cup Final at Wembley stadium was the best day of his life.

Tom Kilburn died at Trafford General Hospital in Davyhulme of pneumonia following abdominal surgery on 17 January 2001.