Family of former Pye Managing Director present new accession in Pye Building

Museum volunteers receive new accession from family of former Pye Ltd Managing Director: EV (Ernie) Root

EV (Ernie) Root joined WG Pye & Co aged 14 as an apprentice in 1911. He helped build Pye’s first radio in 1922 and became Chief Development Engineer of Pye Radio Ltd.

Root returned to WG Pye in 1939. Appointed Managing Director when it re-joined Pye Ltd in 1946, he updated the product range including the Scalamp galvanometer, introduced pioneering scientific instruments and successfully led the company until his retirement in 1965.

Ernie Root returned to visit Pye Unicam in 1972, where apprentices presented him with a scale model of a travelling microscope to mark his 54 years, service with the company.

This model travelling microscope has now been donated by the Root family to Cambridge Museum of Technology in the permanent Pye Story exhibition.

Museum volunteers and members of Pye History Trust were on hand to receive the donation in June 2023 from Pat Mansfield (Root’s granddaughter) and Richard Hopkins (Root’s grandson), for which Museum Trustees would like to thank the Root family.

Photo credits:

1972 photo:

Ernie Root in 1972 by three Pye Unicam apprentices who made it, with the Pye Unicam Managing Director of the time, Dr Peter Starke, in the background. The three apprentices (left to right) are Peter Wilding, Paul Andrews, and Michael Firmin.

2023 photos: Bob Bates, David Featherby