John Hugh Westcott (3 November 1920 – 10 October 2014)[1] was a British scientist specialising in control systems and Professor of Computing and Automation at Imperial College London.

Westcott was educated at Wandsworth Grammar School, the City and Guilds College, both in London, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After a year in Germany with the Allied Commission, he obtained a scholarship to the MIT where many scientists returning from the services were addressing the early possibilities of computer applications.

[5] He researched servo-mechanisms at Imperial College London, where he headed the new Department of Computing and Control from 1966.

A founder-member in 1957 of the International Federation of Automatic Control, one of the first professional bodies to liaise successfully across the Iron Curtain, he was a consultant to companies such as Shell, ICI, Westlands and British Steel Corporation in applying control systems to large and complex processes.