Hinton, Christopher

Christopher Hinton and William Penney. Each had extremely able assistants, but there is no doubt the programme would have not achieved anything near as much as it did, in the time that it did, without these three. (General Morgan referred to them as the bold bad barons .)... 

Christopher Hinton was born onl2Mayl901inthe school house of the village of Tisbury, Wiltshire, where his father was headmaster of the boys school. He attended the elementary school in Chippenham before moving on to the town secondary school in 1913. He left school in 1917, and unable to afford university, became an apprentice first in Kilmarnock, then the Great Western Railway Company in Swindon. 

Christopher Hinton (1976). Two Decades of Nuclear Confusion , Aew Scientist 72(1024), 200-202. 

TNA PRO AB 7/284. Factory planning for production pile. Christopher Hinton. TNA PRO AB 6/321. Production pile Siting and policy. Comparison between Gas and Water Cooled Piles. J Diamond, IV Dunworth, CA Rennie, 26 February 1946. See also TNA PRO AB 16/391. Atomic Energy Programme Aircooled production piles. 

Of course Sir Christopher Hinton would deny that he exercises this dictatorship and in a sense he would be right. His method is more subtle, but not so much more subtle. What he says is It is not for me to dictate to your company what it should do. That is your responsibility, not mine. AH I tell you is that unless this suggestion is adopted, your company is extremely unlikely to get an order from the Board. He has said that to me. My Lords, I believe that that is an abuse of power. 

TNA PRO AB 19/29. Industrial Collaboration — Pippa firms. Sir Claude Gibb to Sir Christopher Hinton, 7 January 1957. 

Even if someone rather than Sir Christopher Hinton were the chairman of the CEGB, the latter would always be likely to resent being compelled to buy only reactors of an AEA type in the development of which they had had no say and to pay whatever royalty the AEA might demand. In considering the construction of the Canadian CANDU, Sir Christopher Hinton is in effect giving notice that under these circumstances he is not witling to be solely dependent on the AEA and that he is looking for a competitive source of supply. 

TNA PRO AB 16/1822. Nuclear propulsion of ships policy. Nuclear Propulsion of Ships by Means of a Graphite Moderated Gas Cooled Reactor. Note by Sir Christopher Hinton, undated. 

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