The Anonymous Widower

John Baxendale’s Thermometer

Over the years, I’ve been involved with lots of innovative ideas.

When I worked at ICI Mond Division in Runcorn, one of the guys, that I worked with was John Baxendale, who was a fairly local lad, with unusually for the late 1960s, a very keen interest in surfing. John would often drive up to the North of Scotland in his green Morris Minor Traveller for a few day’s surfing.

Workwise, I remember John most for an electronic thermometer he built, that measured the temperature of a body by its black-body radiation, which is described in this Wikipedia entry.

He developed the thermometer to measure the temperature of remote objects and used to calibrate it on a handy ear, which is a very convenient black-body at 36.9 degrees C.

December 22, 2025 - Posted by AnonW | Health, Sport | Black-Body Thermometer, ICI, ICI Mond, John Baxendale, Runcorn, Scientific Instruments, Surfing, Temperature