Michael Westbrook obituary

My father, Michael Westbrook, who has died aged 88, was one of the first professionally trained electronics engineers in the UK and, during a long career in the field, invented and patented a number of useful devices, including a fuel injection system for cars and a photoelectric fog detector for ships. He also became an early expert in the technology behind electric vehicles.

Born an only child into a farming family in Preston Candover, Hampshire, to George and Phyllis (George's cousin, also born Westbrook), Mike went to Peter Symonds school in Winchester, where even then he showed ability in the emerging field of electronics. From 1945 to 1948 he served in the RAF near Cheltenham. He married Barbara (nee Maw), a secretary, in 1949, and they moved to Upham in Hampshire while Michael studied at University College, Southampton (now the University of Southampton) under the electronics pioneer Eric Zepler.