Oliver Craig Wells

rhychydwr1

Active member
Oliver Craig Wells was a well known Mendip Caver.  He was born in London, in 1931,the  son of George Phillip (Gip) Wells and Marjorie Craig. He was the grandson of author H.G. Wells .

After going to Marlborough College, he attended Cambridge University, earning his doctorate in electrical engineering. His doctorate thesis was a description of how he built a scanning electron microscope, believed to be the second working SEM ever built.

During his college years, he became an avid cave explorer and cave diver. The oxygen rebreathing apparatus was partly Royal Navy surplus, and partly homemade. He was the first to dive the submerged passages known as "sumps 4 and 5" in Swildon's Hole, England, and went furthest in the underground river of nearby Wookey Hole in the 1950s.

Wells met his wife, Pamela Hubbard, at a garden party in Cambridge in 1957. They were married one year later and immigrated to the United States in 1959.

Their plan was to travel around the world. They lived in Pittsburgh, Pa. and Stamford, Conn. before settling in Yorktown. Wells worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center until his retirement in 1993, and then continued as an emeritus researcher through 2011.

Wells is survived by his three children, John Craig, James and Julia, and his wife Pamela.


See also:

Cave Diving Group (187)  April  2013 1-2 Oliver Craig Wells [Obituary ]


 
Top