Thomas Allibone was born on 11 November 1903, the son of Henry J. Allibone. He was educated at Central School, Sheffield (Birley Scholar), the University of Sheffield (Linley Scholar; PhD; DSc) and Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge (Wollaston Scholar). In 1931 he married Dorothy Margery Boulden, LRAM, ARCM (d 2001), having two daughters.

Allibone's career included: 1851 Exhibition Senior Student, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, 1926-30; head of the High-Voltage Laboratory, Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company, Manchester, 1930-46; Director of the Research Laboratory, Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), Aldermaston, 1946-63 and AEI (Woolwich) Limited, 1948-63; Scientific Adviser, AEI, 1963; Chief Scientist, Central Electricity Generating Board, 1963-70.

Allibone was also a member of the British Mission on Atomic Energy to Berkeley, California and Oakridge, Tennessee [United States], 1944-45 and Chairman of the Research Committee, British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association, 1955-62. He was President of Section A, British Association, 1958, EIBA, 1958-59, and the Institute of Information Scientists, 1964-67, and Vice-President of the Institute of Physics, 1948-52, and of the Royal Institution, 1955-57 and 1970-72.

Allibone's lectures included: Faraday, 1946, 1956; Royal Institution Christmas, 1959; William Menelaus, 1959; Bernard Price, 1959; Trotter Patterson, 1963; Fison Memorial, 1963; Royal Society Rutherford Memorial, 1964 and 1972; Baird Memorial, 1967; Melchett, 1970. His publications include: The Release and Use of Nuclear Energy, 1961; Rutherford: Father of Nuclear Energy (Rutherford Lecture 1972), 1973; The Royal Society and its Dining Clubs, 1975; Lightning: the long spark, 1977; Cockcroft and the Atom, 1983; Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company and the Cavendish Laboratory, 1984; The Making of Physicists, 1987; papers on high voltage and transient electrical phenomena, fission and fusion.

Thomas Allibone died on 9 September 2003.