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Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific research and development. A "boffin" was viewed by some in the regular military or government services as odd, quirky or peculiar, though quite bright and essential to helping in the war effort through having and developing the key ideas leading to transformative military capabilities. [1] [2]
The origins and etymology of boffin are obscure. A link to the mathematician and evolutionary theorist Buffon has been proposed. [3] Alternatively, linguist Eric Partridge proposed the term derived from Nicodemus Boffin, the good-hearted 'golden dustman' character who appears in the novel Our Mutual Friend (1864/5) by Charles Dickens, described there as a "very odd-looking old fellow indeed". In the novel, Mr Boffin pursues a late-life education, employing Silas Wegg to teach him to read. [4]
William Morris also has a man called Boffin, based on Charles Dickens and said to be a variant of 'Biffin', meet the newly arrived time traveller in his novel News from Nowhere (1890). Dickens had referred to a 'Miss Biffins', an artist with only vestigial arms and legs, in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843). Thus at this time a 'Boffin' is a good-hearted person who has suffered from 'hard times', been ill-regarded, taken an opportunity to better themselves and done well, demonstrating remarkable social mobility. Possibly ill-favoured in appearance, possibly artistic.
In 1894 Augustine Birrell invented a fictional character – Rev. Boffin B.A. – to epitomize those who bothered fellow Liberal politician Sir Frank Lockwood with seeming trifles. Sir Frank turned the joke on Birrell by writing letters to the papers and critical of him as if from Boffin, later published a popular book of cartoons on the affair and was only then identified as the author, as described in Birrell's humorous biography of Sir Frank. [5] [6]
J. R. R. Tolkien also had a police sergeant called Boffin in his children's tale Mr. Bliss (written around 1932, published 1982), but he is said to have derived the name from an Oxford family of bakers and confectioners rather than Dickens (as confirmed by his daughter Priscilla Tolkien). He later used Boffin as a surname for a family in The Hobbit (1937). This family provides the main heroes, who meet Dickens' mould and are also small, like Sarah Biffen.
The Oxford English Dictionary [7] quotes use in The Times in September 1945 based on a Ministry of Aircraft Production press release: [8]
1945 Times 15 Sept. 5/4 A band of scientific men who performed their wartime wonders at Malvern and apparently called themselves "the boffins".
Malvern was home to both the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and the Radar Research and Development Establishment (RRDE), who were later merged into the Radar Research Establishment (RRE). It developed RADAR in support of all the services. The then superintendent of TRE, A.P. Rowe used the term 'boffin' to refer to earlier R.A.F. usage [9] and by 1942 an RAF training film (School for Secrets) cited 'boffin' as armed-forces slang for an RAF technician or research scientist. Post war, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the British radar pioneer, cited Robert Hanbury Brown, who had been at RAF Bawdsey (later part of TRE), as the prototypical boffin, noting: "It is quite wrong to use the word ‘boffin’ simply to describe a scientist or technician; a boffin is essentially a middleman, a bridge between two worlds ...". [1]
Sir Robert cites Air Vice-Marshal G. P. Chamberlain, who played a vital part in the use of radar to defeat night-bombers, as the source of the word. [2] Chamberlain himself claimed that 'A Puffin, a bird with a mournful cry, got crossed with a Baffin, [10] a mercifully obsolete Fleet Air Arm aircraft. Their offspring was a Boffin, a bird of astonishingly queer appearance, bursting with weird and sometimes inopportune ideas, but possessed of staggering inventiveness, analytical powers and persistence. Its ideas, like its eggs, were conical and unbreakable. You push the unwanted ones away, and they just roll back.'". [11] [12] A naval origin is supported by reports of an anti-submarine trial by HM Signal School April 1, 1941 based on equipment from TRE. [13] Eric Partridge, in his dictionary of slang, noted that the word had been used in the Royal Navy as "an unkind term for any officer over forty", but this usage seems to have been overshadowed by that referred to by the OED, above.
Of its etymology Sir Robert himself wrote: “I am not quite sure about the true origins of this name of Boffin. ... I am sure it has nothing at all to do with that first literary “Back Room Boy,” the claustrophiliac Colonel Boffin, who as you remember never overtly emerged from his back room, although his voice was clearly audible from it. It is the very essence of the Boffin that he should emerge frequently and almost aggressively from the Back Room to which, however, he must return on his missions of interpretation and inspiration.” [2]
The origin of the term appears to be Naval, rather than Air, but its main usage seems to have originated with Naval officers working with civilian radar 'boffins' and quickly adapted by other servicemen and boffins themselves.
A key innovation at TRE was Rowe's 'Sunday Soviets'. [14] [15] These reflected the lessons identified from the Great War as reflected in the Haldane principle, [16] but adapted to suit the operational challenges. They allowed the boffins both to contribute more, and to be more recognized. [17]
World War II was regarded by many as a 'Wizard War'. [18] [19] War-time and immediate post-war reference to scientists was particularly associated with radar, either Malvern or Farnborough. [6] [8] Alternatively, Lindemann noted that Mervyn O'Gorman had inaugurated the use of scientific methods in aeronautical development at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, developing a cadre of 'leaders and explorers' who have retrospectively been termed 'boffins'. [20] [11] Some "have been careful to differentiate between the true boffin and the 'nark', who was a member of the scientific staff of the Experimental Flying Section at Farnborough.' [11] [12] Similarly, the Secretary of State for War cites the contribution of an operational analyst to the U-boat war in 1943. [21] ”
The radar pioneer Robert Watson-Watt [22] provided the following definition: "The Boffin is a researcher, of high scientific competence, who has learned that a device of great technical elegance, capable of a remarkable performance in the hands of a picked crew, is not necessarily a good weapon of war. He (sic) is the instrument for building into the design provisions which depend on close analysis of the vehicle in which the device is to operate, the field conditions in which it is to operate and above all things, the competence of those who are to operate, maintain, and repair it. He alone can save us from the danger of engendering electronic dinosaurs; he alone can provide on the one hand the knowledge on which the machine can be measured to the man and on the other, the knowledge on which can be based the selection, training, and (this is important) the inspiration of the normal human beings on whom its successful use, in the end, must rest. He must have an understanding and an appreciation of these normal human beings. He can reach these only through having their confidence. He is a middleman, but he is a middleman who can effect enormous economies and enormous increases in efficiencies. He is a rare bird, but he should be free to flit over the whole field of defense science, its origins, and its applications." He also noted that “It is a term of respect, and admiration, but particularly a term of affection—an affection which is expressed, as is the English way, in a slightly outside-in, jocular way so that the affection and admiration may not be regarded as too demonstrative.”
Thus a Boffin seems the type of person described by Isaac Newton (1642–1726/7), who, in his advice to the Admiralty, made an important distinction when he said that 'if, instead of sending observations of seamen to able mathematicians on land, the land would be able to send able mathematicians to sea, it would signify much more to the improvement of navigation and the safety of men's lives and estates on that element.'
Watson-Watt stated that 'the bill of the boffin has two separate functions. One is to poke into other people's business and the other is to puncture 'the more highly coloured and ornate eggs of the "Lesser Back Room Bird", which are quite inappropriate to the military scene.' Henry Tizard has also been regarded as the prototypical boffin. [11]
According to the Daily Herald, "backroom boys known throughout the services of the United Nations [were known] as `Boffins`. [It] should be considered a badge of honour." [23]
On VJ Day the Daily Herald reported: ”This is `Boffins Day` because for the first time it is permissible to tell something of the war saga of the backroom boys known throughout the services of the United Nations as `Boffins`. It is a dramatic and romantic story of a battle of wits, brains and inventive genius between the scientists of the United Nations and those of the enemy and the United Nations Team won hands down. … Theirs was the best kept secret of the war they were conducting what had been aptly described as the very heart of the United Nations war effort.” [23]
In 1952 the Secretary of State for War noted the need to develop 'Colonel Boffins' at Shrivenham (1952). [24] [25] Notably, Richard Vincent acquired the nickname 'the boffin' after working at Malvern (1960–62) as a Gunnery Staff Captain and, via RMCS Shrivenham, rose to become Chief of the Defence Staff (United Kingdom). [26]
In the 12 January 1953 issue of Life magazine, a short article on Malcolm Compston depicted him testing "the Admiralty's new plastic survival suit" in the Arctic Ocean; the article, entitled "Cold Bath for a Boffin", defines the term for its American audience as "civilian scientist working with the British Navy" and notes that his potentially life-saving work demonstrates "why the term 'boffin', which first began as a sailor's expression of joking contempt, has become instead one of affectionate admiration". [27] By 1956 the US Navy apparently regarded boffins as too influential. [28]
By 1962 Boffins were characterised as 'the man (sic) who could understand the viewpoint of the Services, who worked with them, and who frequently shared their dangers' [11] and R V Jones, wartime head of scientific intelligence, was referred to as a boffin. [29] [30] By the late 60s the term was sometimes being used to include all scientists who had worked at Malvern, irrespective of how closely they worked with the services, even 'backroom' staff. [31]
Boffin continued, in the immediate postwar period, to carry some of its wartime connotation, as a modern-day wizard who labours in secret to create incomprehensible devices of great power. For example, the comics of the period depicted them as developing imaginative machines. [32] However, their more nuanced wartime role was not reflected in popular culture, such as the 1951 Festival of Britain [33] and the term was used in the UK parliament (1953) to refer to boffins as either narrow academics [34] or the catalyst for growth. [35]
The image of the technical hero was popularised by Nevil Shute's novel No Highway (1948), Paul Brickhill's non-fiction book The Dambusters (1951) and Shute's autobiography Slide Rule (1954). The Dambusters film (1954) also featured boffins as heroes, as did stand-alone films such as The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Sound Barrier (1952).[ citation needed ]
John Wyndham's novel The Kraken Wakes (1953) includes a song called "The Boffin's Lament" or "The Lay of the Baffled Boffin", with Naval Boffins. By 1958 sound engineers such as Shute and Frank Cordell were being referred to as ‘Pop Boffins’. [36] [37] More recently, the term 'boffin' has been used to cover all of Churchill's war-winning Wizards, including atomic scientists, aeronautical engineers and the scientists of the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (including Shute). [38] By the late 60s the term boffins was being used for any research scientists who were making a difference. [39] [40] Alan Turing has been described as a 'boffin' both for his cryptanalytic wizardry and his backroom work on computers, as have some 'Pop' architects. [36] [41] [42]
However, while the main characters in the semi-autobiographical films The Small Back Room (1948) and No Highway in the Sky (1948) came good in the end, many scientists were presented as figures of fun, including those working with computers, in bomb disposal and on aircraft. Moreover the films (unlike the books) used the term 'Boffin' to apply to any Back-Room Boy, with unfortunate connotations. By 1959 a biography refers to 'muzzle-headed boffins in cob-webby small backrooms'. [43] [44]
Moreover between 1968 and 1972 a series of English language primers portraying a 'mad professor', reinforced by a British TV children's comedy Bright's Boffins (1970–72), became the stereotype for children's literature. [45] [46] [47] [48] By the 1980s boffins were relegated, in UK popular culture, to semi-comic supporting characters such as Q, the fussy armourer-inventor in the James Bond films, and the term itself gradually took on a negative connotation within society at large. [49] [50] Thus, by the late 1990s, while the need for 'high-calibre' research staff with 'intimate knowledge' of users and their potential needs was well recognized by potential employers, the term 'boffin' was no longer used in its original sense, lest it conjure up images of 'mad scientists'. [51] [52] [53] [54]
This negative view changed after 2003, with Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin, but without making the original distinction between 'back-room boys' and boffins. [55] By 2009 a popular history noted how enthusiastic 'home-taught boffins' and academics contributed to both world wars, and came to have 'key positions in directing the war effort' [56] and a nostalgic popular book [32] to accompany the Science Museum's 'Dan Dare and the Birth of High-Tech Britain' Exhibition described the optimism as the war-time boffins turned their attention to turning Britain into 'a place of ingenious, and beautifully crafted home-spun technology and design', until thwarted by the consumerist policies of Harold Macmillan. Norman Foster is cited as carrying forward the spirit of the boffin. [36]
The term 'boffin' has become widely used in the UK popular media to refer to any scientist or scientific expert, especially those engaged in research. The Institute of Physics is running a campaign to limit this usage, due to the negative image. [57]
In its July 1984 edition, Road and Track commented: "Peter Wright, formerly aerodynamic engineer for Team Lotus Research and Development, is known there as 'The Boffin' for his scientific wizardry." This Boffin would go on to pioneer active suspension in Formula-One.
The term is used frequently in the sketches of comedy duo Mitchell & Webb , particularly in the reoccurring sketch Big Talk.
The Royal Radar Establishment was a research centre in Malvern, Worcestershire in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1953 as the Radar Research Establishment by the merger of the Air Ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and the British Army's Radar Research and Development Establishment (RRDE). It was given its new name after a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Both names were abbreviated to RRE. In 1976 the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE), involved in communications research, joined the RRE to form the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE).
Reginald Victor Jones, FRSE, LLD was a British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert who played an important role in the defence of Britain in World War II by solving scientific and technical problems, and by the extensive use of deception throughout the war to confuse the Germans.
Malvern is a spa town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The centre of Malvern, Great Malvern, is a historic conservation area, which grew dramatically in Victorian times due to the natural mineral water springs in the vicinity, including Malvern Water.
The Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) was a scientific research establishment within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the United Kingdom. It was located primarily at Malvern in Worcestershire, England. The RSRE motto was Ubique Sentio.
Robert Hanbury Brown, AC FRS was a British astronomer and physicist born in Aruvankadu, India. He made notable contributions to the development of radar and later conducted pioneering work in the field of radio astronomy.
The Small Back Room is a 1949 film by the British producer-writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron and featuring Jack Hawkins and Cyril Cusack. It was based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin.
The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II and the years that followed. It was regarded as "the most brilliant and successful of the English wartime research establishments" under "Rowe, who saw more of the English scientific choices between 1935 and 1945 than any single man."
Sir Charles Dennistoun Burney, 2nd Baronet was an English aeronautical engineer, private inventor and Conservative Party politician.
Research Councils UK, sometimes known as RCUK, was a non-departmental public body that coordinated science policy in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2018. It was an umbrella organisation that coordinated the seven separate research councils that were responsible for funding and coordinating academic research for the arts, humanities, science and engineering. In 2018 Research Councils transitioned into UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Philip Mayne Woodward was a British mathematician, radar engineer and horologist. He achieved notable success in all three fields. Before retiring, he was a deputy chief scientific officer at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence in Malvern, Worcestershire.
Royal Air Force Defford, or more simply RAF Defford, is a former Royal Air Force station located 1.1 miles (1.8 km) northwest of Defford, Worcestershire, England.
School for Secrets is a 1946 British black-and-white film written and directed by Peter Ustinov and starring Ralph Richardson. In leading supporting roles were David Tomlinson, Raymond Huntley, Finlay Currie, Richard Attenborough, John Laurie and Michael Hordern. Based on a 1942 RAF training film for would-be 'boffins' and developed with the full cooperation of the Air Ministry, the film celebrates the discovery of radar, its discoverers and the enabling culture. Produced by Two Cities Films, it was shot at Denham Studios with sets designed by the art director Carmen Dillon.
Albert Percival Rowe, CBE, often known as Jimmy Rowe or A. P. Rowe, was a radar pioneer and university vice-chancellor. A British physicist and senior research administrator, he played a major role in the development of radar before and during World War II.
Sir George Gray Macfarlane was a British engineer, scientific administrator and public servant.
John George Trump was an American electrical engineer, inventor and physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1936 to 1985, he was a recipient of the National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Trump was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy. Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. He was the uncle of Donald Trump.
Ernest Henry Putley was a British scientist and prolific author. He is best known for his work on radar, the Hall Effect, and infra-red spectroscopy.
Sir Robert Cockburn was a British government scientist who played an important role in the field of electronic countermeasures for the RAF in the defence of Britain during the Second World War and later became Director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment and Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Aviation.
Robert Allan Smith CBE FRS PRSE was a British mathematician and physicist.
John Robert Mills was a British physicist and scientific expert who played an important role in the development of radar and the defence of Britain in World War II. After the war he continued his career working for various British government research establishments on a variety of projects until his retirement in 1977.
Susan Bond, was a scientific officer and computer programmer for the Mathematics Division of the Royal Radar Establishment (RRE) in the United Kingdom. She worked extensively on the programming language ALGOL 68 and the Royal Radar Establishment Automatic Computer (RREAC), an early solid-state electronics, ICL 1907F computer.
With so much in doubt about the source of the term, its derivation from Huxley's set of Buffon on board H.M.S. Rattlesnake [1846-1850] has a better claim to be true than many another conjecture.
The King and Queen honoured the 'boffins' - as the MAP radar scientists have become universally known to the Services ... .
I was fortunate in having considerable dealings in 1938–40 with the 'Boffins' (as the Royal Air Force affectionately dubbed the scientists).
[We] played cards waiting for the weather to deteriorate. At last it did & both 'boffins' were so sick that they could only just make it to the set. … [They] turned over to me all the drawings of circuits and layout etc., & wished me luck … They couldn't get away quick enough! [Sub-Lieutenant Orton, RNVR].
It appears to us that adequate provision has not been made in the past for the organised acquisition of facts and information; and for the systematic application of thought, as preliminary to the settlement of policy and its subsequent administration. ... There are well-known spheres of action in which the principle has been adopted of placing the business of enquiry and thinking in the hands of persons definitely charged with it, whose duty is to study the future, and work out plans and advise those responsible for policy or engaged in actual administration. The reason of the separation of work has been the proved impracticability of devoting the necessary time to thinking out organisation and preparation for action in the mere interstices of the time required for the transaction of business. ... . [The] principle ought by no means to be limited in its application to military and naval affairs
Whilst at Worth in 1940, he conceived the idea of inviting senior military personnel to visit TRE on Sundays to meet with the rest of the research engineers and scientists working in the team. These gatherings were very informal and even the most junior staff were encouraged to contribute their ideas. If an idea was put forward that had merit, it could be adopted there and then because all the main decision-makers would be there. Such informality (and trust) at such a powerful level was unprecedented. A great sense of purpose was thus built up between the researchers and the military decision-makers
I can find no instance of WSC using the word in his published works, except in 1949 as Dr. Ferreiro mentions. However, "Wizard War" was a common expression, at least postwar.
[The] new idea of planned flying and planned service [due to] a "boffin," Dr Cecil Gordon, of the University of Aberdeen, [who used to work] on the ambiguous task of breeding flies.
David Low could very well bury "Colonel Blimp" and ... I suggest "Colonel Boffin" because the Army is becoming very technical.
it is hoped to bring about a contact between the regimental officer and the "boffin
{{cite book}}: |magazine= ignored (help)United States Navy ... has coined the term "de-boffinisation" apparently with the object of ensuring that its personnel do not become too involved in technical problems.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)[The] man on the job often thinks of [a better way of doing something] than the backroom boys with their research, the boffins with their theories and the work-study wallahs with their statistics.
We should concentrate attention very much on the newest types of industry, the Boffin industries, which may at the moment employ only two or three men with slide rules and a few lady typists, but which are building up a nucleus of design and technical expertese around which the industrial skills of the old areas will regroup in the future as the pattern of industry changes.
I only hope that a "boffin" will come across the answer to this problem sometime ... .
The basic study of new passenger trains now going on at Derby, of trains of 100 tons moving at speeds of 150 m.p.h. ... with all the boffin work done by railway headquarters.
the backroom-boffin proposed an electronic computer design in 1946
Boffins made an immense contribution to the Allied victory. That didn't mean they were either popular or respected by the public at large.
being ascribed as a 'boffin' is partly a consequence of failing to effectively navigate this balancing of academic work and peer relations
The academic as baffled failure in children's books reaffirms established tropes, becomes more popular in the latter half of the twentieth century and teaches the next generation to distrust boffins, eggheads and intellectuals.
The Institute of Physics believes young people are put off subjects if they'll be thought of as boffins.
