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Why the Jewish Refugee Engineer, Ludwig Loewy was crucial to Britain

RAF planes for the Battle of Britain used new technology for aircraft construction and more powerful engines. But the light alloys used to build them were manufactured on German machinery. Dr Jonathan Aylen tells the compelling story of Ludwig Loewy, a refugee Jewish engineer who fled from the Nazis and brought the crucial light-metals technology needed for rearmament from Germany to Britain in 1936.

Loewy is a familiar name in Sheffield as the mill builder Davy-United changed their name to Davy-Loewy following merger with Loewy’s company based in Poole, Dorset. Less well known is the huge contribution of Ludwig Loewy to the development of the Chesterfield Tube Company, particularly their Heavy Tube Department which made boiler and condenser tubes for naval warships during the Second World War.

About the Speaker

Dr Jonathan Aylen is immediate Past-President of the Newcomen Society and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research within Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester. A former economist, he now specialises in innovation management and environmental management. For the past decade he has also undertaken historical research.

Dr Aylen has contributed papers to the Newcomen Society’s International Journal of the History of Engineering and Technology on the transfer of steel technology from the USA to Wales, on early process control computers and on weapons design and development, including the Bloodhound Guided missile and the Blue Danube bomb.

Dr Aylen has travelled widely throughout the world steel industry, given advice to international bodies and governments on steel issues and commented frequently on television and radio. He recently published a book with Ruggero Ranieri, Ribbon of Fire, on how the wide strip mill for steel came to Europe from the USA.

Jonathan’s current research focuses on Cold War technology and, in particular, the use of American TOPS computer software by British Rail in the 1970’s.