[1] Richard Lawrence Grimsdale was born on 18 September 1929 in Australia, where his father, an English engineer, was working on construction of the suburban railway system for the Metropolitan-Vickers company.
The family returned to England, where he was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and then studied electrical engineering at the University of Manchester, where he earned his Bachelor of Science,[2] his Master of Science in 1951, writing a thesis on Computing Machines - Design of Test Programmes,[3] and subsequently his Doctor of Philosophy, writing his thesis on the Transistor Digital Computer under the supervision of Frederic Calland Williams.
[4] In 1953, whilst still a post-graduate research student at the University of Manchester, Grimsdale achieved one of the first major landmarks in his career with his design and development work on the Metrovick 950, the world's first computer made from transistors rather than valves or electromechanical devices.
[5] He remained at the University of Manchester until 1960, then began to work at Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) as a research engineer.
In 1967 he left AEI and joined the University of Sussex's electrical engineering faculty as a lecturer.