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GNHounsfield.org

A site about Godfrey Hounsfield

LINKS AND NOTES

GODFREY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

In 1983 Godfrey made a fascinating speech to pupils at his former school - click here to read it. You can also read about his inspirational physics teacher, ‘Guffer’ Ashton.

In 1979 the Nobel organisation asked Godfrey to write a short autobiography. It is available on the Nobel Prize website: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1979/hounsfield-autobio.html Godfrey made some minor mistakes in his autobiography. He says that “in a village there are few distractions and no pressures to join in at a ball game or go to the cinema.” In fact, Godfrey helped his friend Geoffrey Walton to set up and run a cinema in Sutton-on-Trent. Godfrey also said that “I joined the staff of EMI in Middlesex in 1951, where I worked for a while on radar”. His former colleague at EMI, Professor Roger Voles obtained the true date of 10 October 1949 from the administrators of EMI’s pension scheme. This 1949 date also matches a photograph of Godfrey receiving an award for 25 year’s service with EMI in November 1974 and his first patent for EMI in 1950.

THE MYTH ABOUT FUNDING FROM THE BEATLES, AND WHERE THE CREDIT REALLY BELONGS

The myth is that revenue from pop music, and specifically The Beatles, funded the development of CT by EMI. Ken Charles recalls this myth from about 1974 when he worked for EMI Medical in the USA: “Most people in the USA did not know EMI, and those who did only knew them as a record company, and the label The Beatles recorded on”. It is a fact that The Beatles were signed to EMI at the same time as Godfrey was working on the development of CT, but there was no link beyond that. The myth is false because:

EMI’s Music division preferred to use their profits to develop new music artists and repertoire. They did not volunteer such profits for blue-skies research in non-music business areas.
The small amount of seed-funding for CT development from EMI in 1968-69 was from within EMI’s technology division, partly from Research Labs profit from making outside broadcast television cameras.
The biography of Godfrey shows that in 1970-71 funding from the DHSS paid for the development of the first CT scanner for use in hospitals. EMI did not invest because market research showed no demand.
The myth takes credit away from where it really belongs, including from Cliff Gregory.

PATENTS: Godfrey’s first patent for EMI is at this link: GB 707450. The application arrived at the patent office on 27 September 1950, so Godfrey had already been working for EMI for long enough to make an invention and get the patent application drafted. Godfrey’s main CT scanner patent is at this link: US 3778614

NOTES ABOUT ROBERT S LEDLEY: Click here to read an extract from Eddie Gowler’s unpublished 80,000 word history of the early days of CT.

OTHER LINKS: Cyril Lee’s memoirs give relevant insights into EMI and UK armed forces around 1945: facsimile and searchable text. Discussion of the influence of CT on MRI is available at mrishistory.org.uk. The book text is searchable by academic researchers at this link.