Edmund Harry Cooke-Yarborough (25 December 1918 – 10 January 2013) was the lead designer of the Harwell Dekatron, one of the world's early electronic computers and also a pioneer of

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

Life

Ted Cooke-Yarborough was born at

Campsall Campsall is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Norton, in the Doncaster district, in the county of South Yorkshire, England. It lies to the north-west of Doncaster, at an elevation of around 50 feet above sea level. The ...

in the Yorkshire West Riding, northern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, the only child of barrister George Eustace Cooke-Yarborough (1876-1938), JP, of Campsmount, Yorkshire, and his wife Daphne Isabel (died 1984), daughter of Henry Cordy Wrinch. The Cooke-Yarborough family were a branch of the family of Cooke baronets, of Wheatley Hall, Yorkshire. Cooke-Yarborough was educated at

Canford School Canford School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18). Situated in 300 acres of parkland near to the market town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, south west England, it is one of the largest ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, southern England, where he built his first

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

equipment, and studied

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

, where he was president of the

University A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

Physics Society. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he worked as part of the secret Air Ministry RDF radar project, initially in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

and then at

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the Unit ...

within the

Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...

(TRE). He led a team that produced an automatic airborne radar system, used to warn aircrews of aircraft approaching from behind. He continued his work in radar at Malvern and then on guided weapons in the United States. After WWII, he was sent on a Combined Intelligence mission to interview German scientists concerning their development work on radar and guided weapons and. In 1946, Cooke-Yarborough joined UK Atomic Energy programme to work on nuclear instrumentation. Soon after his transfer to the

Atomic Energy Research Establishment The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), also known as Harwell Laboratory, was the main Headquarters, centre for nuclear power, atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned ...

in Harwell (AERE Harwell) in 1948, he supervised the production of the

Harwell Dekatron Computer The Harwell computer, or Harwell Dekatron computer, later known as the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell (WITCH), is an early British computer of the 1950s based on valves and relays. From 2009 to 2012, it was restor ...

, working with fellow designers Dick Barnes and Gurney Thomas. All three visited the

EDSAC The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the Universit ...

computer in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

during the design stage. In 1951, Cooke-Yarborough attended the first

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

symposium on the

transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

. Afterwards he developed the

Harwell CADET The Harwell CADET was the first fully transistorised computer in Europe, and may have been the first fully transistorised computer in the world. The electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, UK built the H ...

computer, which was one of the first

digital computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', wh ...

s to use transistors. in 1957, Cooke-Yarborough was appointed as head of the Electronics Division at AERE Harwell, and published "''An Introduction to Transistor Circuits''". In 1980, Cooke-Yarborough was elected Fellow of the Fellowship of Engineering (later to become the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

) and was appointed chief research scientist at AERE until he retired in 1982. On 20 November 2012, Cooke-Yarborough attended the reboot of the Harwell Dekatron Computer at the

National Museum of Computing The National Museum of Computing is a UK-based museum that is dedicated to collecting and restoring History of computing hardware, historic computer systems, and is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers. The muse ...

, the last time that he appeared in public. In 1953, Cooke-Yarborough married Anthea Katherine (1928–2007), daughter of John Alexander Dixon, of Whirlow, Hook Heath,

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in north-west Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'', and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settleme ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. They had a son and daughter, and also grandchildren.Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 882

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke-Yarborough, Edmund 1918 births 2013 deaths People from Norton, Doncaster People educated at Canford School Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English physicists British electronics engineers Computer designers Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering