St. Andrew's Cemetery, grave of Sir Claude D Gibb

Sir Claude Dixon Gibb (1898-1959) was an industrialist. He was born in Australia and served as a pilot in France during the First World War. In 1924 he began working at C.A. Parsons & Co. Heaton Works. He rose from electrical engineering apprentice to Chairman and Managing Director. He proposed the application of atomic energy to produce electricity. Parsons provided the turbo alternators for the UK's first nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumbria in 1954. Gibb was knighted in 1945 and was awarded the FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) in 1946. A hall of residence at Northumbria University is named after him.