A F Harvey (1910-2006)
Born in South Wales, Arthur Frank Harvey gained a BSc in Electrical Engineering subjects and was also awarded the Page Gold Medal for the best student in the Engineering Department at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff. In 1930 Harvey was awarded a prestigious three year Industrial Bursary from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. During this time, he worked as an engineering apprentice at the South Wales Power Company and then took up a college apprenticeship with Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company Ltd, Manchester. After his bursary ended in 1934, he worked as a Technical Assistant at Johnson and Phillips Ltd in Charlton, London, then from 1935-38 he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough.
Harvey was admitted to the degree of D.Phil in April 1940 at Jesus College, University of Oxford. During this time he began work on high-frequency thermionic tubes, later moving to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. He continued to work on radar and microwave applications, including the magnetron, during and after the Second World War.
In 1939 Harvey joined the Ministry of Supply as a Scientific Officer, becoming Senior Scientific Officer in 1946 and Principal Scientific Officer in 1950. In 1960 Harvey won the IEEE Microwave Prize for his paper on “Periodic and guiding structures at microwave frequencies". By the 1980s Harvey had moved to work for the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern. During this period his work included research and development on millimetre wavelengths, ferrite devices, quantum electronics and coherent-light techniques.
Harvey wrote several papers and published two books on microwaves and lasers.
The IET A F Harvey Research Prize
Following Harvey's death, a trust set up during his lifetime together with the residue of his estate were left as a legacy to the IET. The terms of the Trust specified that this money was to be used for the furtherance of scientific research into the fields of medical, microwave, radar or laser engineering. The Board of Trustees of the IET agreed that the available funds would be used to offer an annual research prize in one of these research fields each year, covering them all over a three-year cycle. The first award of the IET A F Harvey Research Prize was made in 2011.