Harry Ricardo

Sir Harry Ricardo (26 January 1885 – 18 May 1974) was one of the foremost engine designers and researchers in the early years of the development of the internal combustion engine.

Among his many other works, he improved the engines that were used in the first tanks, oversaw the research into the physics of internal combustion that led to the use of octane ratings, was instrumental in development of the sleeve valve engine design, and invented the Diesel "Comet" Swirl chamber that made high-speed diesel engines economically feasible.

Early life

Harry Ricardo was born at 13 Bedford Square, London in 1885, the eldest of three children, and only son of Halsey Ricardo, the architect, and his wife Catherine Jane, daughter of Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, a civil engineer. Ricardo was descended from a brother of the famous political economist David Ricardo, a Sephardi Jew of Portuguese origin (hence the last name). He was one of the first people in England to see an automobile when his grandfather purchased one in 1898. He was from a relatively wealthy family and educated at Rugby School. In October 1903 he joined Trinity College, Cambridge as a civil engineering student. Ricardo had been using tools and building engines since the age of ten.