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John R. Womersley's career epitomized how numerical and statistical methods came into widespread use from the 1930s, in Britain as in other Western countries. As an applied mathematician and then a manager of mathematicians and statisticians, in war and in peacetime, Womersley and his career reflect the major trends in British applied mathematics, statistics, and automated computation in the middle decades of the 20th century. Womersley made both significant scientific contributions in applied mathematics and managerial contributions to computer innovation. He was also involved at the beginning of electronic computers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Manchester Baby, built by F.C. Williams and Tom Kilburn and operational in June 1948, was the first stored-program electronic computer. The Williams-Kilburn tube memory, pioneered in the Baby, was subsequently adopted in many first-generation computers, including the Princeton IAS machine and the IBM 701. Part 1 of this article provides an overview of the Manchester project and its personnel and documents the origins of the Williams-Kilburn tube. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]