John Pinkerton

John Maurice McLean Pinkerton (2 August 1919 - 22 December 1997) was a British computer designer who, together with David Caminer, designed the LEO computer, Britain's first business computer, built for the catering firm J. Lyons and Co and completed in 1951. He studied natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, then worked on radar at the Telecommunications Research Establishment before joining Lyons in January 1949, where he built the small engineering team that produced LEO I, a machine based on the EDSAC design but substantially modified for business data processing. He led the engineering side of LEO I, LEO II and LEO III and became a director of LEO Computers Ltd when it merged with the computer department of English Electric in 1963, later working as head of research at English Electric Computers and then at ICL.