Professor Anthony Kelly ScD, FRS, FREng, PhD, CBE, DL

Anthony has spent his life investigating the strength of solid materials – metals, ceramics, plastics; which led him to pioneer composite materials.

His book Strong Solids (1965) was seminal in the field and as a result of it and his subsequent work, and editing activity, he has been referred to as "The father of composite materials". His group at Cambridge and later at the National Physical Laboratory established many of the principles of behaviour of fibre composites – particularly the toughness of those with carbon fibre, which materials now displace aluminium as the preferred structural material for advanced aircraft. He calculated the ideal strength of crystals and used this to quantify the difference between brittleness and ductility. Anthony is a founding Fellow of Churchill. He subsequently worked for the government at the NPL and then at ICI before becoming Vice-Chancellor of Surrey University, where he created that University's research park - to its great financial benefit.

List of all Churchill Fellows and By-Fellows