William Joseph Stern
William Joseph Stern OBE, ARCS, BSc, DIC was a physicist who worked closely with the early development of the jet engine.
In 1920 Stern reported to the Royal Air Force that there is no future for the turbine engine in aircraft. He based his argument on the extremely low efficiency of existing compressor designs. Stern's paper proved to be so convincing there ceased to be any official interest in gas turbine engines in Britain for several years.
Obituary in Vacuum Magazine
“We announced with regret the sudden death of the Abstracting Editor, Mr W J Stern, OBE, ARCS, BSc, DIC. The following details have been provided by his relatives and friends, to whom the Editors wish to express their thanks and sympathy.
William Joe Stern was born in London in 1890. Not long afterwards his parents moved to Antwerp where his father had the European agency for the American Locomobile steam car. The young boy delighted in persuading the mechanics to let him drive the cars around the warehouse. He loved the docks, which in those days were open for anyone to wander around and watch the shipping. French was the language for school and everyday life whilst English and German were spoken at home. He returned to London when he was 14, attending Owen's School, matriculated the following year and entered Imperial College, London University where he took his degree with "Firsts" in all classes.
During the First World War he served as an Observer in the Royal Naval Air Service and was invalided out when the experimental aircraft in which he was flying crashed at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, Farnborough. In 1916 he won a Research Fellowship and began to specialise in problems of aerodynamics, and fuels and heat. He lectured at the Imperial College. Then, starting as a Technical Assistant in 1917 at the old Ministry of Munitions, he entered the Air Ministry Laboratory in 1920.
In this year, H M Stationery Office published his researches on internal combustion turbines and their possible use in aircraft. For the next twenty years he was involved in research and development work there and at the Royal Aircraft Establishment on a variety of topics in the aviation field, finding time also to work with the racing driver George Eyston on the designing and testing of the "Powerplus" supercharger for racing cars. He wrote several books, and many articles for scientific and learned journals, and did a large amount of translation of scientific works.
It is interesting to note that the magazine Flight credited him with being the pioneer in the theories and practice of jet propulsion. Anyone less like the conventional image of a civil servant than the colourful, cosmopolitan, versatile and entirely lovable Joe Stern would be difficult to imagine, yet he spent over 41 years in the public service.
In 1940 he was brought to the Headquarters Staff in London for the remainder of the war years. His facility in languages, and his knowledge and understanding of people and thought in science abroad, made him a natural choice for service in Europe after the war. Concerned initially with gaining experience for the Ministry of Supply of rockets developed in wartime Germany, he afterwards remained abroad with a joint Service and civilian team concerned with the assessment of new weapons and techniques of warfare. By his ability, energy and firm intellectual integrity he became a figure of high respect not only with colleagues of his own country, but amongst the international circle who were involved in this work. His pre-war acquaintance with many of the principal aircraft designers in Germany, such as Heinkel and Messerschmidt, was to prove of great assistance to the British Government. It was for his outstanding contribution during this period that he received the award of the OBE.
By now a Principal Scientific Officer, he returned to England in 1956 to serve on the Central Staff of the Ministry of Defence, continuing after the normal age and finally retiring from the public service in 1958. He, and his wife Becky, whose death in 1955 saddened his last years in the Service, will always be remembered by his colleagues; there are many vivid memories, of open-handed hospitality, of cheerful controversy, of unobtrusive kindnesses. It was typical of Joe, with his driving energy that set the pace for many a younger man, that retirement was for him merely the occasion to open the door to new work. He loved London but some of the recent changes made him furious and sad. He was pleased to find work with Pergamon Press in one of the beautiful houses in Fitzroy Square, and he quickly won the respect of his new colleagues. His work there was principally on the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Physics, which on its appearance was at once widely accepted as the standard reference; many of the articles were written by him and more owe their published form to his editorial attention.
The presentation of the Index and Glossary were also largely his work. The abstracting service of Vacuum became his full-time task for the last three years of his life. His wide scientific knowledge and his linguistic facility made this appointment a congenial one, and he found that it sometimes brought him into contact with old friends. All his life he kept an active interest not only in scientific thought but in all the arts. His great knowledge of literature was not confined to England and his comprehension of the history of European culture and philosophy was exceptional. The complicated mechanism of chiming clocks fascinated him and sometimes he would have between 20 and 30 such museum pieces to keep him company if he slept badly. He leaves two daughters and 11 grandchildren. His sudden death in July leaves a gap that cannot easily be filled.”
Authorship
He was the author of many scientific papers relating to combustion.
Order of the British Empire
Despite being ethnically German and a close friend of Hugo Junkers, from whom and from Messerschmitt he received several very lucrative offers of work, he worked for the British government during the Second World War. After the War he was awarded the Order of the British Empire.
Personal Life
He was married to Anna Werner of Frankfurt, Germany.
One of his daughters, Ann Marguerite married the British artist and television director John Crockett.