Philip Ellaby Cleator

Phillip Ellaby Cleator, 1908–1994, born in Wallasey, United Kingdom

As a young office worker in the Liverpool area, Cleator was inspired by science fiction movies and news of the rocket societies, especially the American Interplanetary Society. He founded the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) in 1933. In 1936 he published the first book in Britain on the topic, Rockets Through Space: The Dawn of Interplanetary Travel. The BIS became the world’s most important space advocacy society from the mid-1930s on.