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John Gallop born 1910; Junior posts with the Bournemouth and Poole Electricity Supply Company, 1932-1936; Technical Assistant, Bournemouth and Poole Electricity Supply Company. Designed and installed the company's first multiple earthing scheme, 1936-1942; Technical Officer, Telecommunications Research Establishment, Malvern - Deputy Leader of team developing radar transmitters for the RAF, 1942-1946; Senior Scientific Officer, Ministry of Supply Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell - leader of team developing the synchrotron, 1946-1948; Senior Cyclotron Engineer, MRC - organising recruitment of the Radiotherapeutic Research Unit's cylotron team at Hammersmith Hospital, and supervising the design and construction of the first medical cyclotron, with accompanying laboratory buildings which also contained an 8 MeV linear acceleration, 1948-1958; Senior Executive Research Engineer in charge of Gas Discharge Physics at the Nelson Research Laboratories, English Electric Co., Stafford (part of the High Temperature Physics Team under Dr R Latham at Imperial College, London), 1958-1971.
Chronology of the Cyclotron Project: Dr Constance Wood's work at the Radium Institute on comparison of radium and 22 kV X-Rays indicated that higher voltages of radiation give the best dose distribution, c 1940; 2 MeV Van de Graaff generator designed and built at Hammersmith Hospital by J W Boag for the MRC's Radiotherapeutic Research Unit, directed by Constance Wood. By 1945 the machine was near completion, but design had been overtaken by new accelerators such as the linear accelerator, 1941; Dr L H ('Hal') Gray joined the Hammersmith Hospital team to include radiobiology in the Unit's programme. He discovered that X-radiation is less effective than neutron bombardment unless oxygen is present, and since tumours tend to be anoxic, a cyclotron was needed to produce neutrons, 1945; The MRC decided to install both a 10 MeV Linear Accelerator and a 60" or 65" cyclotron at Hammersmith, the latter to provide the facilities for research into neutron therapy, radiobiology and isotope production. JWG was appointed Senior Cyclotron Engineer, having worked on the team at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, Malvern, which produced the first synchrotron, 1948; Gallop put together a team to build the cyclotron themselves, with Derry Vonberg in charge of the vacuum system, Bill Powell of the magnetic field and ion source, and Peter Waterton to design the v.f. system, based at a former Prisoner of War camp on Scrubs Common next to the hospital; Gallop undertook tour of existing cyclotrons in the USA, 1950; Proposal to cancel the whole project due to excessive quotation for building led to redesign. Sir Harold Himsworth, MRC Secretary, convened an advisory committee chaired by Sir Ernest Rock Carling, which, under the guidance of Professor Mayneord, approved the building of a 45" cyclotron; After disagreement with L H Gray, Wood submitted a report discounting all purposes for the cyclotron other than neutron therapy. Gray and J W Boag resigned and Gallop continued with the original programme: to build a machine to be used primarily for radiobiology with isotope production as a possibility.