Richard Varvill


Richard Antony Varvill is a British engineer, and the Chief Designer at Reaction Engines Limited.

Early life

He was born in Hammersmith in west London. He is the son of Mark Varvill, a naval architect, and Elizabeth Agar, and has a younger sister. His great-great-great-great grandfather on his mother's side is Hucks Gibbs, 1st Baron Aldenham.
He was educated at Belmont Preparatory School at Holmbury St Mary in the Surrey Hills AONB, then Bryanston School in Dorset. He read Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol, where he did an undergraduate apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce. Reaction Engines offer an annual prize at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Bristol.

Career

Rolls-Royce

He started his career with Rolls Royce Military Engine Division, in the Advanced Projects division. He worked on preliminary ideas for what could have become the RB545 air-breathing rocket engine for HOTOL.

Reaction Engines

He co-founded Reaction Engines in 1989.
At Reaction Engines, he is working on the successor to the RB545, SABRE. On 22 May 2014 he appeared in an edition of Horizon, called The £10 Million Challenge.

Personal life

He first married Julie O'Brien in December 1998. They have a son. He later married Marianne Suhr, having two sons. He lives in the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire.