Lord Chilver - Telegraph The areas that particularly interested him were precision engineering and information technology. A precision engineering institute had been opened at Cranfield in 1969, and in 1987, in collaboration with more than 30 American and British firms, the Institute established a new IT Institute, based at Milton Keynes, to specialise in information technology teaching and research, with the aim of reducing the national shortage of people with IT skills. Another innovation during his time at Cranfield was the foundation of a commercial subsidiary to take forward promising scientific ideas for which there was no obvious natural slot in industry. Chilver's approach was one that appealed to the government of Margaret Thatcher. In 1981, almost uniquely in higher education, the funds Cranfield received from the Department of Education and Science were not affected by the cuts imposed on the rest of the sector. Chilver was invited to serve on many public advisory bodies and boards. In 1980-81, he spent one day a week as chairman of the Post Office, splitting the telecommunications and postal sides of the operation and establishing BT as a totally separate publicly owned corporation prior to privatisation. In the late 1980s, as the first chairman of the new Universities Funding Council, he worked closely with the Education Secretary Kenneth (now Lord) Baker on reforms to university funding designed to encourage closer collaboration between business and academia. In 1987 he was created a life peerage. The oldest of three boys, Henry Chilver was born on October 30 1926. His parents, Annie and Amos, both came from families involved in the East London furniture trade; his father was a cabinet-maker in Shoreditch. As a boy, Henry would frequently take the train from Southend up to Liverpool Street on a Saturday morning to help out at his father's workshops, where he gained a lifelong appreciation for skilled woodworking and fabrication techniques. Henry was educated at Southend School for Boys. At night, during the Blitz, he would sometimes join his father, who served as an air raid warden, watching the German squadrons flying up the Thames estuary to bomb London. After taking a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Bristol University, where, as a keen sportsman, he was goalkeeper for the Southern Universities team, his first job was to inspect the strength of bridges for the Great Western Railway. He returned to Bristol to take a PhD in Civil Engineering in 1951. From 1952 to 1954 he was a lecturer at the University of Bristol, and from 1954 to 1961 he taught at Cambridge University, becoming a Fellow of Corpus Christi and a Director of Studies in Engineering. During his time there he co-wrote two books, Problems in Engineering Structures (1958, with RS Ashby), and Strength of Materials (1959, with J Case). In 1961 he moved to University College London as Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering. There he developed an interest in the logistics of roads, bridges and buildings, and this led to the setting up of the London University Centre of Transport Studies. His interest prompted the move to Cranfield in 1970. Not only did businessmen back the Cranfield Institute with research grants, they also sought to harness Chilver's skills for their own purposes. From the 1970s to the 1990s he served as a director on numerous boards, including De La Rue; the National Westminster Bank; English China Clays; Hill Samuel; Britoil; ICI; and Zeneca. Among many other public appointments, in the early 1980s he was chairman of the Northern Ireland Higher Education Review Group, which produced a report on the future of teacher training in the province. He served as chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation from 1983 to 1992 and of Plymouth Development Corporation from 1996 to 1998. Chilver was president of the Institute of Management Services from 1982 to 2000 and of the Institute of Logistics from 1993 to 1995. He was vice-president of the Institute of Civil Engineers from 1981 to 1983. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1977 and of the Royal Society in 1982. On receiving his peerage in 1987 and took his seat on the Conservative benches of the House of Lords. In 1959 he married Claudia Grigson, the sister of Christopher Grigson, the scientist credited with the invention of scanning electron diffraction. She survives him with their three sons and two daughters. Lord Chilver, born October 30 1926, died July 8 2012