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"Shell" Research Limited, company No. 00539964, incorporated on 13 October 1954, is a
subsidiary of NV Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Group). Royal Dutch/Shell consists of over 2,000 companies operating in more than 100 countries. As one of the world's most profitable oil multinationals, it holds the largest exploration area and the greatest proven reserves. Shell is reportedly the tenth-largest corporation globally by turnover. Shell Research Limited, the Group’s research arm, has conducted nuclear research since the 1950s. Its main research center in Thornton, Cheshire, has carried out nuclear, military, and other research initiatives. A brief history of the Thornton Research Centre. 1954, “Shell”
Research Limited was established. Thornton was originally known as the Aero
Engine Laboratory (AEL), constructed in 1940 at the outset of the Second World
War, following a decision made in early 1939. The AEL sat on land southeast of
the Stanlow Refinery, established in 1922. From its inception, the facility
maintained a direct military connection. As recorded, 'the scientists and
engineers who moved to Thornton came to develop better fuels and lubricants for
the RAF....' The war prompted the relocation of the Lubricating Oil Laboratory
(LOL) and the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (BPM) to Thornton. Previously,
Shell conducted fuels and lubricants research in the Netherlands for markets
outside North America. 1942, it was officially agreed that a Ministry Committee, which included Shell, would decide the laboratory work. Shell would manage the laboratory. In return, the Ministry would secure priority access to staff and equipment. Quote: 'This arrangement helped the AEL to acquire staff, facilities and sources of information that would otherwise not have been on offer'. Professor Ronald Norrish of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (later a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry), and Roy Baldwin, later Professor of Physical Chemistry at Hull University, worked on problems such as visible exhaust flames from aircraft engines, which acted as aiming points for enemy interceptors. At AEL, Sir Frank Whittle (of jet engine fame) said the decisive factor in the success of his gas turbines was Shell’s development of the fuel atomisation systems, burners and flame tubes. AEL (Thornton) cooperated with Ricardo’s new premises at Oxford and with Britannia Laboratories in Cambridge and Liverpool University. In 1946, the Ministry handed AEL back to Shell. That same year, Brigadier R. A. Bagnold, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work on the movement of sediments by wind and water, and famous as the leader of the Long-Range Desert Reconnaissance Group, was appointed Director of Research for Shell. On January 1st 1947, he was appointed the first 'Director' at Thornton; his main task was to reorganise Thornton. One of his symbolic acts of unification was to drop the familiar names, Aero-Engine Laboratory, Lubrication Oils Laboratory, etc., and replace them with numbers and letters preceded by the word 'Block'. Buildings were named 'Number 1 Block', 'Number 2 Block ', etc. The senior dining room became 'Number I Mess'. This came after the war, supposedly after Thornton became a civilian research centre; hence, its military culture was ingrained, with Shell's military-industrial complex unified, so to speak. Shell would exploit its military (nuclear) contacts in the coming decades, for its own interests, not the nation's. 'John Dyer' and the 'Statement of Claim' (buttons) give a detailed account of events. Following the Shell's lawyers button (Wiseman first) is instructive.
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