Flying Tail Question?

I was watching a documentary on the bell X-1 and Chuck Yeager and Bob Cardenas credited Jack Ridley the program’s flight test engineer with coming up with the flying tail solution to the stability problems being encountered as the aircraft approached the sound barrier.
I also recall reading somewhere that the flying tail was orignally developed in England as part of their program to build a supersonic aircraft but this was terminated and teh tech was supposedly turned over to the US.
Can anyone reconcile this issue for me? Was the flying tail something that was conceived of and developed independently on both sides of the atlantic?