George Henry Briggs was the Officer-in-Charge of Physics at the National Standards Laboratory. He was in England when the Optical Munitions Panel was first established, but returned to Australia in December 1940. During his time abroad, he investigated aspects of optical instrument production in the UK and the USA.
When Briggs returned to Australia in December 1940, he joined the Optical Munitions Panel and remained a member until it was disbanded at the end of the war. Briggs initally believed that the way things were being organised in Australia was not the best that they could be and raised this issue at the Panel meeting of February 1941:
Dr Briggs pointed out that the centralised government-owned company in Canada was preferable to the present methods of using private companies in Australia. The Chairman replied that the present conditions in Australia must be allowed to continue until difficulties occurred which made intervention necessary. - H.C. Bolton (1)
(1) H.C. Bolton (1990), 'Optical Instruments in Australia in the 1939-45 War: successes and lost opportunities', Australian Physicist, vol. 27, no. 3, March, p. 38.
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