Cyril Frank Elwell

Cyril Frank Elwell (August 20, 1884 – February 11, 1963) was an Australian-born American inventor and pioneer in development of radio.

He had an American father and a German mother, then went to Fort St. Model Public School in Sydney, Australia.

Elwell arrived in the United States in 1902. He applied to Stanford University and entered the electrical engineering program there. In 1906, he organized fellow students to participate in repairs at the campus, owing to the San Francisco earthquake. He graduated in 1907. He founded the Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, later renamed Federal Telegraph Company in 1909.

Elwell designed a large transformer for electric arc furnace reduction of iron ore; this became the topic of his thesis. The thalofide cell was part of the important new technology of 'talking pictures', i.e. Phonofilm. Elwell was one of the founders of the Mullard company, manufacturers of vacuum tubes. After his term as director at Mullard, he returned to the United States in 1947 and was a consulting engineer for Hewlett Packard. He died in 1963 and is buried in Palo Alto.