12th February 1935 saw Robert Watson-Watt sent the Air Ministry a report entitled "The Detection of Aircraft by Radio Methods".
Two weeks later on February 26, Watson-Watt and his assistant Arnold Wilkins demonstrated a basic radar system to an observer from the Air Ministry Committee the Detection of Aircraft. The previous day they had set up receiving equipment in a field near Upper Stowe, Northamptonshire, and this was used to detect the presence of a Handley Page Heyford bomber at ranges up to 8 miles by means of the radio waves which it reflected from the nearby Daventry shortwave radio transmitter of the BBC, which operated at a wavelength of 49 m (6 MHz). This convincing demonstration, known as the Daventry Experiment, led immediately to development of radar.
Watson-Watt was subsequently named superintendent of a new division of the Air Ministry, the Bawdsey Research Station, in 1936. By the end of 1938 a secret system was in place along the East and South coast of England, just in time for the outbreak of war in 1939.
During the war, Watson-Wattâs invention proved invaluable in helping to defend against German aircraft. It helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain in 1940, and was instrumental in ending âThe Blitzâ in 1941. Eventually it was able to detect aircraft at up to 100 kilometers. Watson-Watt was knighted in 1942.
In 1939, Watson-Watt was named Scientific Advisor on Telecommunications (SAT) to the Air Ministry. He travelled to the United States to assist in setting up radar there as well. After World War II concluded he spent much of his time in Canada and the United States, and he published a book, âThree Steps to Victory,â in 1958. He returned to Scotland in the 1960s, where he died December 5, 1973.
A wee add on to this is that Watson-Watt's work would not have been possible without the work of another Scot, in my opinion our greatest ever scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, who developed equations governing the behaviour of electromagnetic waves in 1864.
The first pic shows Robert Watson-Watt beside the original Radar Apparatus made at Ditton Park in 1935. This equipment is now in the London Science Museum.
















