John Wilfrid Linnett (known as ‘Jack’ to all his friends) was born at 4 Earlsdon Avenue North in Coventry, on 3 August 1913. He died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage at his club, the Athenaeum, on 7 November 1975. He was the only child of Alfred Thirlby Linnett and Ethel Mary Linnett ( nee Ward). His grandfather, John Linnett, married Sarah Ann Thirlby, the daughter of a Leicestershire farmer, in the Baptist Chapel in Ashby-de-laZouch in 1864. He is described on the marriage certificate as a printer. He was also a photographer; he died young of pneumonia contracted while taking photographs in North Wales. He invented an early method of obtaining moving pictures by flicking over the pages of a little book; the patent was apparently sold to an American by his widow who was left with three children. She continued the printing business, married a Mr Knight and had four more children; her second husband also died young, leaving her with seven children and the printing business.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1977.0012

J. W. Linnett

Papers

The mechanism of spark ignition. Part III.—Effect of adding organic vapours to hydrogen-oxygen mixtures