(1910-1977), neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (also known as Grey Walter) was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 19 February 1910 to journalist parents Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880-1965) and Minerva (Margaret) Lucrezia Hardy (1879-1953). The Walter family moved from the United States to Britain in 1915, where William remained for the rest of his life. He was educated at Westminster School (1922-1928), before taking the Natural Science Tripos at King’s College, Cambridge (1928-1931). He went on to pursue postgraduate research on nerve physiology and conditioned reflexes, gaining his MA in 1935. After completing his MA, Walter was invited to work at the Central Pathological Laboratory of the Maudsley Hospital, London, under neuropsychiatrist Frederick Lucien Golla (1877-1968). Since the late 1920s, Golla had become increasingly interested in the clinical applications of the burgeoning field of electroencephalography (EEG), the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain via electrodes placed on the scalp. Noting his skill in technical matters, Golla encouraged Walter to develop increasingly sophisticated EEG devices, and supported his application for a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship to visit the Jena laboratory of German physiologist Hans Berger (1873-1941), widely credited as the founder of electroencephalography. Walter went on to achieve several key ‘firsts’ in electroencephalography, including the first detection of a cerebral tumour using the technique in 1936. Between 1936 and 1939, Walter expanded his research programme and took readings from hundreds of patients, focusing particularly on the electrical patterns of epilepsy. In 1939, Golla was invited to become director of the new Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, an independent research unit specialising in the investigation and treatment of neurological, psychological, and psychiatric disorders, and invited Walter to become director of the Institute’s Physiology Department. At the Burden, Walter further developed his EEG apparatus, developing the automatic frequency analyser and the toposcope in 1943 and 1950 respectively. His research programme also became increasingly ambitious, with investigations into the cerebral effects of stroboscopic light beginning in 1947 and, later, the discovery of ‘contingent negative variation’ (CNV, or the ‘expectancy wave’) in the 1960s. Walter also played a key role in the professionalization of electroencephalography during this period, co-founding the journal Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology and organising meetings of the EEG Society (1943-1989). Outside of his clinical work, Walter became a key figure in early British cybernetics, the study of feedback, control, and communication systems in humans and machines that synthesised approaches from engineering, biology, and mathematics. He co-founded the Ratio Club, an informal dining and discussion group which provided a key social outlet for cybernetic enthusiasts, which met between 1949 and 1955. He also built several cybernetic devices in his spare time, the most famous of which were his robotic tortoises, or Machina Speculatrix, designed to function as simple models of the adaptable human brain. These received national attention when they were exhibited on television in 1950 and at the Festival of Britain in 1951. He also became a prolific public intellectual, writing 170 scientific publications, serving as an expert witness in court courses, appearing frequently on the BBC, and writing an immensely popular non-specialist text on his neuroscientific work, The Living Brain (1953). His work also gained a surprising popularity among counter-cultural artists during the 1950s and 1960s, including Beat writers William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, who saw Walter’s research as part of a broader investigation of human consciousness. Walter was married twice, first to Katharine Monica Ratcliffe in 1934 and then to Vivian Joan Dovey (1915-1980) in 1947, with whom he had one son, Timothy Walter (1949-1976). Walter and Dovey separated in 1960 and divorced in 1973. After their separation, Walter lived with Lorraine Josephine Aldridge (née Donn) until 1972. In 1970, Walter suffered severe brain damage following a road accident, forcing him to retire from full-time research work. He died of a heart attack in 1977.

(1896-1978), neurologist Edward Arnold Carmichael was born in Edinburgh on 25 March 1896. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy before serving in the military during the First World War (1914-1918). On his return, he pursued a medical degree at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, qualifying in 1921. After a number of junior medical and surgical posts in Edinburgh, Carmichael decided to specialise in neurology and took up the post of medical officer at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in Queen Square, London, in 1923. After his residency, Carmichael became a registrar in neurology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, before returning to Queen Square as honorary assistant physician. He was soon promoted to Director of the Medical Research Council’s Neurological Research Unit at the hospital, where he remained until his retirement in 1961. After his retirement, Carmichael moved to the United States to pursue full-time research and teaching. He was elected an honorary alumnus of the Neurological Institute of New York in 1966. Carmichael died on 9 February 1978.

(1913-1982), Knight, psychiatrist Sir John Denis Nelson Hill was born in Orleton, Herefordshire on 5 October 1913. He was educated at Shewsbury School before pursuing a medical degree at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, qualifying in 1936. Interested in specialising in psychiatry, Hill then went to Maida Vale Hospital, London, to study neurology under Walter Russell Brain (1895-1966). While working at Maida Vale, Hill met neurophysiologist William Grey Walter (1910-1977), who first stoked Hill’s interest in the field of electroencephalography (EEG, the measurement of the electrical activity of the brain). In 1938, Hill returned to St Thomas’s to take up an assistant position within the Department of Psychiatry. Following the outbreak of the Second World War (1939-1945) a year later, Hill moved to work at the Emergency Hospital in Belmont, Surrey, where he set up an EEG laboratory to study various neurological and psychiatric conditions, including epilepsy. This work led to a collaboration with neurosurgeon Murray Falconer (1910-1977) on the development of the temporal lobectomy (the surgical removal of the temporal lobe) as a treatment for temporal lobe epilepsy. After the war, Hill was invited to set up an EEG laboratory at the Maudsley Hospital’s new Institute of Psychiatry. This was closely followed by his appointment as Lecturer in Psychological Medicine at King’s College Hospital in 1947. During the post-war period, Hill further established his reputation as an expert on the psychiatric dimensions of electroencephalography, serving on a number of committees investigating the technique’s use on patients, prisoners, and juvenile offenders. In 1966, Hill returned to the Institute of Psychiatry to become Professor of Psychiatry, a post which he retained until his retirement in 1979. Hill was married twice, first to Phoebe Elizabeth Herschel in 1938, and then to Lorna Wheelan in 1962. He had four children. Hill died following a heart attack on 5 May 1982.

Marconi Instruments Limited was a British manufacturer of electronic test and measurement equipment, based in St Albans and Stevenage, England. The company was formed following the Marconi Company buy-out of Marconi-Ecko Instruments in 1941 and was sold to IFR Systems Inc. in 1998. The company was named after Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), a pioneer in radio and telegraphy who founded the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company (later the Marconi Company) in 1897.