William Penney, Baron Penney

William Penney was a British mathematician and physicist who directed Britain's nuclear weapons program and later helped shape its civil nuclear power industry. He led the High Explosive Research project from 1947, culminating in the successful test of Britain's first atomic device, Operation Hurricane, off Australia's Monte Bello Islands on 3 October 1952. Penney joined the board of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1954, became its deputy chairman in 1961 and its chairman in 1964, a position from which he endorsed the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor programme and authorized construction of the Prototype Fast Reactor at Dounreay, decisions that shaped the direction of Britain's civil nuclear power stations through the 1960s.