Bernard Lovell, the physicist who founded the Jodrell Bank Observatory, was born in Gloucestershire on 31 August 1913.

Lovell studied physics at the University of Bristol before joining the University of Manchester in 1936. During the Second World War, he worked on radar, experience that became important when he returned to scientific research after the war.

Lovell wanted to use radar equipment to investigate cosmic rays. Experiments in Manchester were disrupted by electrical interference from the city’s trams, so in December 1945 he took his equipment to a University of Manchester botany site at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire.

The move solved the interference problem but produced an unexpected result. The radar echoes Lovell detected were associated with meteors rather than the cosmic rays he had intended to study. The work became part of the developing field of radio astronomy, using radio waves rather than visible light to investigate objects and activity beyond the Earth.

Other scientists and technicians joined Lovell at Jodrell Bank. They built early instruments using equipment, including surplus military material. Lovell wanted a much larger telescope that could be directed towards different parts of the sky.

The engineering problem was considerable. Lovell worked with engineer Charles Husband on plans for a fully steerable dish 250 feet across. Construction began in 1952 and took five years. Design changes, delays and rising costs left the project in serious financial difficulty.

The telescope became operational in 1957. In October that year, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, it tracked the carrier rocket used to place the satellite in orbit.

Jodrell Bank continued as a centre for radio astronomy, with Lovell as its director until 1981. The large instrument he had pushed to completion was later named the Lovell Telescope.