Peter Wilson was an inventor and polymath. He was born in Sunderland on 22nd May 1926 and moved to Nottingham at a young age. During the late 1930s he was employed by John Player & Sons

John Player & Sons

John Player & Sons, known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. It is today a part of the Imperial Tobacco Group.-History:...

 before joining the RAF in 1944. Due to poor eyesight he was unable to apply as a Pilot and so he became a RADAR

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

 fitter in the Burmese campaign during 1944-45 where he was involved in some pivotal operations both due to selection for fitting RADAR or through chance.

After his time in the RAF he left to work at various Textiles firms before eventually inventing the Wilson Yarn Clearer

Wilson Yarn Clearer

The Wilson Yarn Clearer is yarn clearer, i.e., a device to remove faults from yarn.In the early 1950s Peter Wilson, a young physicist working at William Hollins Pleasley Vale yarn production factory, became interested in the yarn clearing process....

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During this time he started a family and moved into obscurity taking up painting and photography after retiring from textiles and teaching maths in the 1990s.

He died on 9th September 2009.