The physicist who pushed wartime science into grand strategy
In 1942 he presented Churchill with the “Dehousing” argument for destroying working-class homes through area bombing.
Frederick Lindemann was a British physicist and Winston Churchill’s principal scientific adviser, joining scientific research directly to the conduct of state war and policy. He directed Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory, worked on aircraft spin recovery and physical chemistry, and during the war organized a statistical branch whose charts helped the War Cabinet judge supply and production. In the debate over bombing’s effects and civilian morale, he forcefully advocated area bombing and supplied arguments for continuing the policy after Coventry. His expertise gave Churchill a tool for rapid decisions, but his elitist view of society and his bombing policy also exposed the question of responsibility when scientific knowledge is absorbed into state violence.
Career Timeline
- 1915Researcher at the Royal Aircraft Factory, working on aircraft spin recovery
- 1919Professor of Experimental Philosophy at Oxford and director of the Clarendon Laboratory
- 1920Elected Fellow of the Royal Society
- 1940Chief scientific adviser to Churchill’s government; established the statistical S-Branch
- 1942Paymaster General; advised on area-bombing policy
- 1951Paymaster General and scientific adviser in Churchill’s second government