Professor Michael Laughton

Professor Michael Laughton

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean of Engineering at Queen Mary College, University of London (Queen Mary and Westfield College from 1989); later Emeritus Professor. Of the three British visitors of October 1990 he is the engineer, and the one whose own papers on Meyer the archive has not found.

What the record has him do

• 19–22 October 1990, Grove City. With Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin and Dr Keith Hindley he watched Meyer’s cell demonstrated. Electronics World reported it in January 1991, naming him first; raum&zeit 50/91 gives him as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean of Engineering, and prints a photograph of Griffin and Hindley sitting in the buggy (raum&zeit 50). Griffin, at Warsash in 1993: “I first saw it in the company of Professor Laughton, the Dean of Engineering at London University, and Dr Keith Hindley” (Water as Fuel).
• 1991, the joint appreciation. Item D of Griffin’s index: a paper by the three witnesses, written eight months after the visit and titled for the universal adoption of hydrogen. Not held.
• 1992, the report on the patents. Item J1 of the same index, a letter of 13 April 1992 covering “the Laughton report on SM’s patents”: the only technical assessment of the patents by a qualified outsider the record mentions. Perkins Technology’s note of 28 February 1993 describes a “DTI sponsored report, published in early 1992, on Meyer’s patents” by experts from Queen Mary and Westfield College, very probably the same one, whose experts “were unable to reconcile Meyer’s WFC descriptions … with currently established scientific doctrine and literature”, while leaving open “the possibility that WFC might prove to be an altogether new development” (the note). Not held.
• 1996, the dealership case. The Sunday Times of December 1996 had him as the expert due to examine the car, and Meyer offering what Laughton called “a lame excuse”, so that the car was not seen (as reprinted in Fusion Facts). Meyer’s answer, that Laughton’s visit was in 1990 and not during the case, is in the WFC Public Notice to Inform.

By him

• Combined Heat and Power: Executive Summary, Applied Energy, 1996. Not about Meyer: his summing-up of a conference on combined heat and power, held for what it shows of his field.

Still missing

• The 1992 report on the patents, and the 1991 joint appreciation. Griffin’s file has not been found (where it has been looked for); Laughton himself is the likeliest source of both.
• A photograph that may be reproduced here.