Tommy Flowers

Thomas ( Tommy ) Harold Flowers ( born December 22, 1905 in Poplar, London, London's East End, † 28 October 1998) was an English engineer who designed the Colossus.

The son of a bricklayer made ​​a mechanic training at the Royal Arsenal and attended evening classes electrical engineering at the University of London. In 1926 he started at the General Post Office, where he was transferred in 1930 to the Post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill (north- west of London ). In 1935 he explored the use of electronics for telephone systems.

For Alan Turing, he should build a decoder for the relay-controlled Turing - bomb. In February 1943 he proposed an electronic system with 1800 tubes. Since the others were skeptical, he put a large part of the funds for the project itself Colossus His work remained secret because of the Official Secrets Act until the 1970s.