Tim Berners-Lee

Berners-Lee honoured with Order of Merit

Queen recognises work of the 'father of the internet'

Guy Clapperton

Tim Berners-Lee, the founding father of the World Wide Web, has been recognised with the Order of Merit from the Queen.

The award, which is in the Queen's personal gift, is one of the highest honours available and reflects the huge impact of Berners-Lee's work.

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Berners-Lee built his first computer from scratch in 1976 while at Oxford. The components included an old television.

In 1980 he wrote a program called Enquire during a short placement at Cern that would become the template for the World Wide Web, although this was never published.

In 1989 he proposed a global hypertext project that would become the template for what we now take for granted as the web.

His idea was to form a matrix of interlinked documents and his first viewer was a browser, as we'd now call it, known as Worldwideweb.

Its publication in 1991 to the internet at large allowed the rest of the world to refine and develop the basic template he had outlined.

Berners-Lee was knighted in 2004.

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Further reading

World wide web creator gains 'K' upgrade

Sir Tim Berners-Lee heads sizeable tech-gong list

World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Web inventor goes back to school

Berners-Lee takes chair of computer science at University of Southampton

Berners-Lee slams US on net neutrality

'This is serious', says inventor of the worldwide web

Berners-Lee voted Greatest Briton of 2004

Further honours for the 'father of the web'

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