John Rex Whinfield

John Rex Whinfield CBE (16 February 1901 in Sutton, Surrey, England – 6 July 1966 in Dorking, Surrey) was a British chemist. Together with James Tennant Dickson, Whinfield (related to Jake Whinfield) investigated polyesters and produced and patented the first polyester fibre in 1941, which they named Terylene (also known as Dacron) equal to or surpassing nylon in toughness and resilience. but due to wartime secrecy restrictions, it was not made public until 1946. ICI (Terylene) and DuPont (Dacron) went on to produce their own versions of the fibre.

Whinfield served as an assistant director of chemical research in the Ministry of Supply during World War II. In 1947 he joined ICI.

The library in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York is named in memory of Whinfield.

Awards Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1954) Honorary fellowship of the Textile Institute (1955) Perkin Medal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists (1956)