Radar & Robert Watson-Watt

This stamp is from the set issued in March 1991 celebrating Scientific Achievements. The 31p stamp shows a radar sweep across East Anglia, marking the importance of Robert Watson-Watt’s invention to the airbases of eastern England during World War 2.

Watson-Watt was a descendent of James Watt, inventor of the practical steam engine. Robert’s skills in the field of ‘wireless telegraphy’ or radio, saw him progress from the University of Dundee to heading the Radio Department of the National Physical Laboratory. 

In 1934 he was approached by the Air Ministry to produce a counter to the Nazis’ rumoured ‘death ray’. Watson-Watt demonstrated that such a device was impossible to construct, but at the same time provoked ministry interest in the possibility of long-range radio detection of aircraft.

From outlining the concept in a memo of February 1935, via practical testing at Orfordness in Suffolk, the operational range of the system was 100 kilometres by the end of 1935. By the end of the war over 50 radar stations had been built, and Watson-Watt had been knighted for his work.

The Scientific Achievements stamp set includes a Gloster Whittle jet plane flying over East Anglia, to mark 50 years since the first flight of Frank Whittle’s world-shrinking invention. 

The four-stamp set also includes images to commemorate the bicentenary of the births of Michael Faraday and Charles Babbage. Faraday is renowned for his work with electricity and his contemporary Babbage is regarded as the father of computing. The stamps were designed by J Harwood.

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