John Pinkerton – 1919-1997 After doing research into radar systems and receiving a PhD at Cambridge recommended by Maurice Wilkes to Lyons as the Engineer to design and develop. He joined Lyons in January 1949 and started to build the small team of engineers which succeeded in building LEO I as a machine based on the EDSAC design but significantly modified for business data processing. In 1959 he was appointed a Director of LEO Computersx Limited, but resigned on the merger creating EELM. On the further creation of ICL he took charge of research into the product lines being developed by EELM. Subsequently he took a leading role in the development of International Standards and represented the UK in bodies such as the European Union’s ESPRIT project. He also became Chairman of the editorial Board of the ICL Technical Journal. As a tribute to his outstanding qualities the IET inaugurated an annual Pinkerton Lecture and the WCIT set up an annual Pinkerton Award to the years leading apprentice. A short biographical sketch can be found on page 208 of Peter Bird’s LEO: the World’s First Business Computer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (ODNB), published an obituary September 2004 both in print and online written by Martin Campbell-Kelly.
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res19.htm#g
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=707576
http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107600/oh149jmp.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://www.cliftoncollege.com/external/clifton-memories/john-pinkerton-and-the-first-business-computer/