Full name: Ernest Dunlop Swinton Born: 21st October 1868 Invention/Achievement: The Tank, armoured tracked fighting vehical Date of introduction/Achievement: First deployed in action, 1916  Died: 15th January 1951

The principle of placing troops, equipped with offensive weapons, inside an armoured vehicle is centuries old. Leonardo envisaged a primitive "tank".  In 1903 HG Wells proposed the steam powered "Land Ironclads" in a short story.  

By 1914, armoured trains and cars were in use, though limited by rail and terrain.  The invention of all-terrain caterpillar tracks, modern armour and the internal combustion engine made the idea of an armoured fighting vehicle a practical proposition.

It's impossible to pin down one person as the inventor, but Ernest Dunlop Swinton, as a proposer, champion and enabler, played a central role in the tank's introduction to the battlefield.  Born in India in 1868, Swinton attended the Royal military Academy, Woolwich and became an officer in the Royal Engineers.  

He served in the second Boer War and received the Distinguished Service Order.  Before World War I, Swinton heard of the American-made Holt Caterpillar Tractor and suggested to his superiors that it might be useful for transport and artillery towing over rough ground.

When war broke out, Swinton was posted to France as an official war correspondent and conceived the idea of a tracked bullet-proof vehicle that could travel over trenches and destroy enemy machine guns.  This time the idea was taken up, in fact by the Royal Navy and it was Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty who formed the Land Ships Committee in February 1915.  

Their first design, "Little Willy" first ran in September 1915 and an improved trench-crossing model, codenamed "Mother", became the template for future tanks.  

In 1916 Swinton was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and assigned to train the first tank units going on to create the first tactical instructions for armoured warfare.  

First used with mixed results on 15^th September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, tanks were improved in design along with reliability and played an increasingly important role in later battles.  

During World War II tanks were to be the crucial land weapon.  Swinton was promoted to Major General and was Colonel Commandant of the Royal Tank Corps from 1934-38.

He died in Oxford in 1951.