Sir John Hill

Feb 28 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

SIR JOHN HILL, the son of a Chester schools inspector who became one of the early pioneers of the nuclear fuel industry, has died, aged 86.

Hill combined a steel trap brain for science with a natural ability for leadership, and was appointed chairman of the AEA by Tony Benn when he was minister of technology in 1967. Hill spearheaded a shift in the prime focus of the British nuclear industry from the creation of weapons to the commercialisation of nuclear power.

Born John McGregor Hill, in 1921, in Chester, he was the son of a schools inspector and from Richmond County Grammar School in Surrey he went to King’s College London where he gained a first in physics.

After the war, when he served in the RAF’s Radar Branch, he went on to gain a PhD at Cambridge for research on radioactive isotopes having short lifetimes.

In 1950, he began working for the Department of Atomic Energy of the Ministry of Supply, at the Windscale nuclear establishment, Cumbria. There, Hill was involved with the construction of Britain’s first two nuclear reactors, or “piles” as they were then called. Housed in large, concrete buildings a few hundred metres apart, the reactors were moderated with graphite, cooled by air and fuelled with natural uranium metal.

In 1954, the head- quarters of the industrial section of the establish- ment moved to Risley, near Warrington, and Hill became the manager of the production group.

The profitable fuels business was hived off in 1971 into British Nuclear Fuels, with Hill as its chairman. The smaller research arm was turned into a stand-alone busi- ness, Amersham Internat- ional, which Hill was also chairman of until 1988.

Hill defended his industry vehemently against those who opposed any harness- ing nuclear energy on grounds of safety. There were, he declared in 1979, “far too many ostriches” who believed Britain could continue to live on “a bur- ied treasure of fossil fuel”.

He was president of the British Nuclear Forum from 1984 to 1992 and knighted in 1969. A keen golfer, he was also captain and president of the Royal Mid-Surrey club.

He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.

Sir John Hill, nuclear expert; born February 21, 1921, died January 30, 2008