Babcock takes nuclear option for new name

Engineer Babcock International is renaming its £270m-turnover civil nuclear division after Henry Cavendish, the 18th-century physicist who discovered hydrogen (right), having been banned from using its own name.

In 1995, the FTSE 100 group sold off an energy business which is now in the hands of South Korean conglolmerate Doosan Group. Earlier this year Doosan successfully argued in the High Court that it had an unlimited time licence to use the Babcock name in the civil nuclear sector and that the British group had infringed its trademark.

Babcock's division will now be called Cavendish Nuclear in honour of the fabulously rich aristocrat who published his discovery of "inflammable air" – hydrogen – in 1766. Cavendish was also notoriously reclusive and particularly afraid of women. He is said to have ordered his dinner from female servants by leaving a note on his hall table.