User:Menumaster1/William Floyd (Ergonomist)

William Floyd (Ergonomist) William F Floyd was born in 1910. He attended St Marylebone Grammar School and graduated from Queen Mary, University of London with a BSc in Mathematics in 1931.

He obtained a teaching diploma and worked on mathematics applied to engineering and physics, he undertook research into the Skin conductance and became a demonstrator in physiology at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. After war service, radar with the RAF, he returned to the Medical School, extending his studies of physiology, particularly into muscular action. He also served as part-time consultant to the Post Office, possibly the first consultant ergonomist appointment in the UK. He was a founder member of the Society, and joint Honorary Secretary until 1954. He played an important part in the Societies publishing role, as joint editor of the early proceedings and of Ergonomics. From 1960 to 1975 he was head of the new Department of Ergonomics and Cybernetics at Loughborough University of Technology and was appointed Professor in 1964, the first to hold the position with Ergonomics in the title in the UK, probably the world. He founded the first undergraduate course in ergonomics, as well as being influential in starting the Institute of Consumer Ergonomics and the HUSAT Research Institute, both at Loughborough. The major department which he founded has trained students and research scientists from all over the world and is certainly the largest source of ergonomists in the UK.