Henry Selby Hele-Shaw

He was the inventor of the variable-pitch propeller, which contributed to British success in the Battle of Britain in 1940,[citation needed] and he experimented with flows through thin cells.

[3] Born on 29 July 1854 at Billericay,[4] he was the eldest son of Henry Shaw (1825 – 1880), a lawyer who went bankrupt, and his wife Marion Selby Hele (1834 – 1891),[5] daughter of the Reverend Henry Selby Hele, vicar of Grays Thurrock and grandson of the Reverend George Horne.

[8] He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1899 for his work on the flow of liquid between parallel glass plates,[8][9] and served as President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1922.

The aim of the society is to bring closer those who have benefited from Sir Joseph Whitworth's generosity.

In 1902 Hele-Shaw was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture Locomotion : On the Earth, Through the Water, in the Air.