AN industrialist who led top secret work on Teesside developing the atomic bombs that ended World War Two has died aged 94.

Sir Maurice Hodgson, who was chairman of ICI from 1978 to 1981, took up his first research and management position at ICI Billingham in 1942.

Two years later, he headed a project known as Tube Alloys, which was connected with the separation of radioactive materials, a technology that was used in the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Work was set to go ahead building the production plant in the UK but was thought to be too risky.

Speaking in 1978, he said: “There was a possibility at that time of building a separation plant in this country but it was considered too vulnerable to air raids.”

The project was subsequently transferred to Oakridge, Tennessee, code-named The Manhattan Project, using expertise from Sir Maurice and his team at ICI Billingham.

Sir Maurice succeeded Sir Rowland Wright as ICI chairman at a time when business conditions were challenging.

The recession of the early 1980s – high interest rates and a strong pound abroad – led Sir Maurice to accuse the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of damaging British Industry.

His drives to modernise the company – including a move away from producing bulk chemicals to higher value specialist chemicals – while streamlining the business also wiped out 30,000 ICI jobs across the UK.

Sir Maurice also overcame near blindness, suffering from cornea dystrophy - an inherited condition which led to him losing one eye.