Sir Bennett Melvill Jones, FRS

Sir (Bennett) Melvill (1887-1975), university teacher and aeronautical engineer, was born in Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, Cheshire, on 28 January 1887, the elder son and eldest of three children of Benedict Jones of Birkenhead, a Liverpool barrister, and his wife, Henrietta Cornelia Melvill of South Africa,

• Professor Sir Bennett Melvill Jones (1887-1975) was Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Cambridge from 1919 to 1935. He demonstrated the importance of streamlining in aircraft design. He had been educated at Birkenhead School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

After completing the Mechanical Science Tripos in 1909 he was employed in aeronautical research at the National Physical Laboratory, Cambridge. In 1913, he joined W. Armstrong Whitworth and Company, and went on to the Royal Aircraft Establishment the following year. During World War I, Jones qualified as a pilot, serving as a gunner for some weeks in a Bristol Fighter with his brother as pilot and as an observer with No. 48 Squadron,Royal Air Force. After a stint with the Technical Department of the Air Ministry in 1918, he became the Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Cambridge University, a chair he held from 1919 to 1959. Jones served with the Ministry of Aircraft Production from 1939 to 1945 and was chairman of the Aeronautical Research Council from 1943 until 1947. Jones authored numerous papers and reports on aerodynamics. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1918, the CBE in 1938 and was knighted in 1942 for his work in aeronautics and service to England. He was elected the the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1939

Sir Bennett Melvill Jones, CBE AFC FRS (28 January 1887 – 31 October 1975) was Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Cambridge from 1919 to 1952. He demonstrated the importance of streamlining in aircraft design.[1] It had been known since the time of Aristotle, that a moving body passing through air or another fluid encounters resistance (aerodynamic drag), but Jones developed the ideas of Louis Charles Breguet into a refined theory to demonstrate emphatically the importance of drag to the performance of aircraft. http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roybiogmem/23/252.pd...