Thomas M. Kilburn was one of the leading contributors to the development of computers in Britain in the period following World War II. At Manchester University, where he spent most of his career, he played a key role in the development of the cathode-ray tube memory. (A cathode ray is the glowing beam that appears when an electrical discharge is passed through a gas under very low pressure in a tube.) Kilburn also was instrumental in developing one of the first stored-program computers, as well as in producing a series of other computers. In addition, he helped establish the institution's department of computer science.

Kilburn was born on August 11, 1921, in the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, England, where his father had risen from a clerk to general secretary at a large woolen firm. Though neither of his parents had attended a university, both encouraged the young Kilburn to continue...