... was born in Bristol in 1913, and obtained BSc and PhD degrees in Physics at Bristol University. He was involved in research into cosmic rays at Manchester University, until this work was interrupted by the Second World War. He attempted to continue after the war, but found that his work was hampered by interference from the trams on Oxford Road. This led him to set up an observatory at Jodrell Bank, as part of the university's Botany department. He was able to show that radar echoes could be obtained from daytime meteor showers as they entered the Earth's atmosphere and ionised the surrounding air. With university funding, he constructed what was at the time the world's largest steerable radio telescope – which now bears his name.
During the Cold War, the telescope was used to provide early warning of Soviet nuclear attacks. Lovell claimed that this led to his being the subject of an assassination attempt whilst on a visit to the Soviet Union in 1963. This story was only published, on his own insistence, after his death.
He died at his home in Swettenham, which is a village to the east of Holmes Chapel and not far from Jodrell Bank, in August 2012. He would have been 99 years old later that same month.
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