Donald Davies
Computer scientist, inventor of packet switching
Donald Watts Davies was a computer scientist, born on the 7th of June, 1924, in Treorchy, in the Rhondda Valley, Wales.
Working at the National Physical Laboratory in the mid-1960s, Davies devised the technique of packet switching — breaking data into small, independently routed blocks for transmission between computers — a concept that would become one of the foundational technologies of the internet. His work was developed independently of, and around the same time as, American engineer Paul Baran's similar ideas.
Davies was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987 and appointed CBE in 1983 for his contribution to computer science. He died on the 28th of May, 2000, in Esher, Surrey, England.