Frederick William Meredith

Frederick William Meredith (10 July 1895 in Killiney, Ireland, 1980) was an Irish engineer, communist and Soviet agent. From 1936 to 1939 Meredith along with Wilfrid Vernon, his colleague at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) were spying for Ernest David Weiss, a Soviet GRU agent. In 1945, Meredith began the development of a new generation all-electric three-axis autopilot system called SEP-1 (Smiths Electric Pilot Mark 1) or the military version MARK 9.

Life Meredith was the son of Frederick Walsingham Meredith (1860–1924), a solicitor and Georgina Ida Marion Bianca Meredith née Ribton (1865–1935) in a family with four siblings, made up of 3 brothers and a sister. His brothers were the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court Sir Herbert Ribton Meredith (1890–1959), Richard Walsingham Meredith (1892–1971) and Raymond Carew Meredith (1893–1970). His sister was Doris Guinevere Meredith (1900-aft.1967).

As a child, Meredith attended a preparatory school, Aravon School in Bray County Wicklow between 1903 and 1909. Meredith won a mathematical scholarship that enabled him to attend Bromsgrove School between 1909 and 1912. He then attended university at Trinity College in Dublin between 1912 and 1914 when he won a foundation scholarship in mathematics. In 1919 Meredith was award a Bachelor of Arts.

Research Until April 1938, Meredith was a researcher at the RAE at Farnborough Airport. In 1935 following his studies in the wind tunnel, he published a report titled: "Note on the cooling of aircraft engines with special reference to ethylene glycol radiators enclosed in ducts" for the Report and Memoranda (R&M) of the Aeronautical Research Committee of the Air Ministry, in which he demonstrated the possibility of transforming the air flow towards the cooling system of endothermic engines on the radiator, thanks to its conveyance into a suitable duct on the heat exchanger, containing a mixture of water and ethylene glycol as engine coolant, at certain speeds, into additional thrust. This study experimented on the Supermarine Spitfire and subsequently carried out with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine on the North American P-51D Mustang aircraft, which became known for the use of the Meredith Effect and used under the erroneous name of Frank W. Meredith from the NASA Meredith Cycle as the principle for the study that created what is now the ramjet.

In 1938, Meredith left the RAE laboratories to take up an appointment at Smiths Aircraft Instrument company in Cricklewood Works in Cricklewood, London as head of the Physics and Instruments department with the title of Chief Designer. Meredith was able to continue developing his studies for several patents in the field of aircraft instrumentation. He is credited as the co-inventor of the automatic pilot for the DH.82 Queen Bee pilotless drone.

Espionage Meredith held extreme left-wing views, supported Labour and was a communist and a Marxist. In 1926, when as a left-wing agitator during the general strike of 1926, he stated that if he was called upon to perform duties other than those for which he was appointed, then he would commit sabotage. In 1934, the Chief Constable of Hampshire reported to SB that Meredith had attended the hunger marches as they marched to Aldershot. On 10 August 1935 Meredith visited the Soviet Union along with Ronald McKinnon Wood. Meredith met with him several times, before "Harry II" introduced him to Vernon and Weiss.

On 30 January 1948, Meredith was discovered to be informant to Ernest David Weiss, a Soviet agent who worked for the Communist International (Comintern) when he was interviewed by MI5 after his name was found in the Robinson papers and immediately put under surveillance. Meredith also implicated Vernon's lawyer, Denis Pritt, at the time a well known communist sympathiser. The decision was submitted to George Strauss Minister of Supply on 16 April 1951, who agreed with it, confirming its validity.