Charles Oatley


Sir Charles William Oatley OBE, FRS FREng was Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Cambridge, 1960–1971, and developer of one of the first commercial scanning electron microscopes. He was also a founder member of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Biography

He was born in Frome on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1904. A plaque has been placed on the house at the junction of Badcox Parade and Catherine Hill.
He was educated at Bedford Modern School and St. John's College, Cambridge. He lectured at King's College London for 12 years, until the war. He was a director of the English Electric Valve Company from 1966 to 1985.
In 1969 he was elected to the Royal Society.
Oatley also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1974. In that same year, he was knighted.
He received an Honorary Degree from the University of Bath in 1977.
He retired from the English Electric Valve Company in 1985.
He was awarded the Howard N. Potts Medal in 1989. He died on 11 March 1996.

Graduate students

Oatley and the graduate students he supervised made substantial contributions, particularly to the development of the scanning electron microscope.
His students included: