Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington, (7 January, 1920–5 May, 1995) (
Sir Alastair Pilkington) and his associate Kenneth Bickerstaff, both of
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, developed the world's first commercially successful manufacture of high quality flat glass using their
float glassFloat glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and various low melting point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. Modern windows are made from float glass...
process. American inventors had tried several times to achieve an improved and lower-cost process to replace the costly plate glass, but had not succeeded.
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Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington, (7 January, 1920–5 May, 1995) (
Sir Alastair Pilkington) and his associate Kenneth Bickerstaff, both of
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, developed the world's first commercially successful manufacture of high quality flat glass using their
float glassFloat glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and various low melting point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. Modern windows are made from float glass...
process. American inventors had tried several times to achieve an improved and lower-cost process to replace the costly plate glass, but had not succeeded. His breakthrough, in which the molten glass was 'floated' over a bath of molten tin and manipulated to achieved the required product thickness, enabled the UK-based Pilkington Glass company to lead the world market for high quality flat glass for many years. Starting in the early 1960s, all the world's leading flat glass manufacturers obtained licences to use the float glass process.
Pilkington was chairman of Pilkington Glass from 1973 until 1985, prior to which he had been the company's technical director.
He was educated at
Sherborne SchoolSherborne School is a British independent school for boys, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....
and
Trinity College, CambridgeTrinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 160 Fellows ....
and knighted in 1970. He was a director of the
Bank of EnglandThe Bank of England is, despite its name, the central bank of the whole of the United Kingdom and is the model on which most modern, large central banks have been based. It was established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and to this day it still acts as the banker for the UK...
.
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