bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vernon Ellis Cosslett, 16 June 1908 - 21 November 1990
Authors: Mulvey T. , Hirsch Peter Bernhard
Published: December 2006

Vernon Ellis Cosslett was born on 16 June 1908 and died on 21 November 1990, after some months of an incapacitating illness. This brought to an end a memorable career in electron microscopy at Cambridge University. During this 42-year period the electron microscope has revolutionized our basic concepts in materials science, chemistry, biology and medicine. Cosslett had contributed to all of these fields personally or through the many gifted research students and colleagues that he was able to attract to the Electron Microscopy Section that he founded in the Cavendish Laboratory in 1946. He had also played a notable role in uniting national and international efforts in electron microscopy, after the divisive effects of World War II. In 1946 he was already a founding member and first secretary of the newly formed Electron Microscopy Group of the Institute of Physics, and later its chairman. In July 1954, after two years of international discussions and negotiations, the International Federation of Electron Microscope Societies (IFSEM) was brought into being. Cosslett was again a founder member and its first secretary; B. von Borries was the first President - Cosslett himself was President from 1972-1975. As President of the Royal Microscopical Society (1961-63), he set up their first Electron Microscope Section under the Chairmanship of Audrey Glauert, notwithstanding a certain amount of opposition from some of the Fellows who were traditional light microscopists. This innovation greatly enhanced the professional standing of the RMS. In 1963 Cosslett was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. by the University of Tubingen for his contributions to electron and X-ray microscopy. And in 1974 he was awarded an Honorary M.D. by the University of Gothenburg for his contribution in applying these new technologies to medicine and biology. Ellis Cosslett’s scientific career did not go according to his own plans, or those of his teachers. This was largely due to early health problems and the economic disruption caused by two World Wars. Nevertheless, a pattern of events can be discerned, leading eventually to his position as the father of electron microscopy at Cambridge, his subsequent election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1972, and a greatly respected position in the world-wide electron microscope community that he had worked so hard, all his life, to bring into being. In 1979, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in recognition of his outstanding contribution in all these fields.
Austin Bradford Hill, 8 July 1897 - 18 April 1991
Authors: Doll William Richard Shaboe
Published: December 2006

Austin Bradford Hill was described in one of his obituary notices as the greatest statistician of the 20th Century, despite the fact that he held no specialist qualification in either medicine or statistics. If, however, greatness is measured by the influence of a man’s teaching and example there can be no doubt that he had earned this accolade. For he taught an innumerate profession to think quantitatively, persuaded it to adopt the principle of randomization in its assessment of the efficacy of therapy, and laid the basis for the explosive development of epidemiology, by showing how the old science could be refurbished as a tool to discover the causes of non-infectious disease.
Robert Hill, 2 April 1899 - 15 March 1991
Authors: Bendall D. S.
Published: December 2006

Robert Hill will always be remembered for his fundamental contributions to the study of photosynthesis, but his originality in the scientific sphere was the reflection of an unusual personality, which will not be so easily remembered without a written record. He was almost invariably known affectionately as Robin, by family, friends and colleagues alike, although his closest friends tended to address him simply as Hill, in the pre-war manner. The scientific outlook was a deep seated part of Robin’s nature, but he was also an artist and craftsman. The different aspects of his life merged into one another with no sharp distinctions. He was trained primarily as a chemist, but in the inter-war years he was one of the pioneers who applied chemical skills and insight in attempts to understand living things, and thus established biochemistry on a sound basis as an independent discipline. His great love was for plants. At the old farm in Barton where he made his home, he grew all the plants needed for his experimental work in the laboratory. For Robin Hill this meant growing any plant with some particular biochemical interest. Among them were the traditional dye plants, such as madder and woad, and he became a well known expert in the chemistry of the natural dyes. Plants and landscapes were the usual subjects of his watercolour sketches. Some of these could be seen hanging in the house, but he was too modest to explain to visitors that he had not only painted the pictures but had also made the pigments himself. He spent the whole of his working life in Cambridge. He had a highly individual lecturing style which could occasionally verge on the histrionic, but his shyness came to dominate. He would stand with his attache case open on the bench in front of him, spectacles cocked on his forehead, and from time to time would duck down, for protection from the audience, as it were. These antics were amusing but distracting, and may partly explain why he never achieved a university appointment. He existed on a series of fellowships until he was eventually rescued by the Agricultural Research Council, and taken on to their external staff in 1943.
John Freeman Loutit, 19 February 1910 - 11 June 1992
Authors: Lyon Mary Frances , Mollison Patrick Loudon
Published: December 2006

John Loutit was a scientist of great versatility. In the early 1940s he made important contributions to methods of red cell preservation and to immunohaematology. In 1946 he felt qualified, on the basis of his earlier training at the London Hospital, to apply for a Chair of medicine but was then persuaded by the Medical Research Council to become director of a research unit to open up the then scarcely studied subject of radiobiology. In the next 20 years, whilst building up this unit to become one of the international leaders in fundamental aspects of radiobiology and radiation protection, he was active in research in a number of fields. In the early 1950s, with his collaborators, he studied the protective effect of splenic extracts and was amongst the very first to demonstrate that the transplantation of haemopoietic cells was responsible, a conclusion of enormous interest to the world of transplantation. With colleagues, he made important observations on radiation chimeras and described secondary disease, soon afterwards identified as a graft versus host reaction. He also made extensive studies on the versatility of haemopoietic stem cells, on the distribution and toxicity of radioactive strontium, on osteoclasts and on osteopetrosis and on haematological mutants in mice. He served on many national and international committees on radiation protection and was generally accepted as one of the world’s leading radiobiologists.
Peter Dennis Mitchell, 29 September 1920 - 10 April 1992
Authors: Slater Edward Charles
Published: December 2006

Peter Mitchell was a biochemist who developed a theory of the mechanism of energy transduction in biological systems that not only transformed the field of bioenergetics but that has had widespread ramifications in the whole field of cell biology.
Denis Parsons Burkitt, 28 February 1911 - 23 March 1993
Authors: Epstein Michael Anthony , Eastwood M. A.
Published: December 2006

Denis Parsons Burkitt was born in Lawnakilla near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, in 1911 and spent his early boyhood there. He graduated M.B. from Trinity College Dublin in 1935, passed the Edinburgh F.R.C.S. examination three years later, and served during the Second World War as a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in East Africa. On demobilization, Denis joined the Colonial Medical Service and went to Uganda to become what he described as ‘a simple bush surgeon’, but while working there he made observations on a hitherto unrecognized cancer of children which now bears his name, Burkitt’s lymphoma, with profound consequences for human oncology. In 1964, Denis transferred to a new appointment funded by the U.K. Medical Research Council (MRC) to work on geographical pathology in Uganda, but in the aftermath of Ugandan independence he moved his activities to London in 1966 and became interested shortly after this in the effects of diet on disease. As a result, he remained throughout the rest of his life a leading proponent of the importance of dietary fibre in the prevention and treatment of a wide range of human pathologies. Denis Burkitt came from a deeply religious family with a strong tradition of service in the Empire; these influences not only determined the way he lived, but were also responsible for the pattern of his career and, indeed, for the manner in which he made his scientific contributions. He was the elder of two brothers who both became surgeons.
Ian Graham Gass, 20 March 1926 - 8 October 1992
Authors: Cox Keith Gordon
Published: December 2006

Ian Gass had two major claims to scientific fame. As a geologist, his early work on the Troodos Complex in Cyprus played an important part in the development of seafloor- spreading theory and the understanding of the nature of the oceanic crust. With Masson- Smith, he was the first to suggest that the ultramafic rocks forming the lower part of the sequence were originally a part of the earth’s mantle and, later, that the complex, including the pillow lavas, represents a section through oceanic crust and its underlying mantle. Troodos became a model for ‘obducted’ oceanic crust and mantle, that is to say slices of oceanic rocks thrust up to higher levels during plate collisions, now preserved at the continental surface, and recognized in many other parts of the globe. His second claim results from his appointment in 1969 as the Foundation Professor of Earth Sciences at the Open University. His department rapidly became a research centre with a first-class international reputation in research as a result of his firm direction and the efforts of the well- equipped staff and research-workers on site. The teaching methods developed, moreover, inspired a veritable host of enthusiastic students. The Open University owes much to Ian, for his early demonstration that it could compete in academic excellence with conventional universities. At the time of his death, Gass had been at the Open University for 23 years and was held in extraordinary reverence by his colleagues and former students.
Sir John McMichael, 25 July 1904 - 3 March 1993
Authors: Dollery Colin
Published: December 2006

A quote that says much about John McMichael comes from his own autobiographical notes: ‘I come from a materially poor branch of a Galloway family’. He was born on 25 July 1904 in Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, son of James and Margaret McMichael. There were two older sisters and two elder brothers, and he was something of an afterthought. His father ran a farm on the edge of the village and was also the local butcher. A ‘God-fearing, generous man’, he was not a good manager of his limited resources. Until he was ten years old John McMichael went to a school run under the patronage of the Lady of the Manor; but in 1914 this school was closed and he transferred to Girthon public school under its headmaster, William Learmonth, who was to have a major influence on the young McMichael. Learmonth’s son, eight years McMichael’s senior, became Sir James Learmonth, the well-known surgeon. Learmonth was an exceedingly capable teacher to find in a small village school and his pupils clearly felt the benefit. At the age of 14 there was a debate in the McMichael household about the next stage in John’s education. His mother, supported by Learmonth, decided he must continue and he moved to Kirkcudbright Academy, eight miles away, a hard and hilly bicycle ride. Here he blossomed, taking first place in most subjects, and ending up as
Dux
of the school. His decision to read medicine was influenced by two chance factors. He often spent his holidays with a fisherman on an island in the Fleet Bay where the solitary house was occupied by a doctor from the Indian Medical Service during his leaves. On wet days his medical books opened up exciting prospects in the schoolboy’s enquiring mind. During World War I a maternal cousin, Col. George Home, C.B.E., M.D., of the New Zealand Army Medical Corps, spent his leaves with the family and kindled a broad interest in science and medicine.
Dame Janet Maria Vaughan, D. B. E., 18 October 1899 - 9 January 1993
Authors: Owen Maureen E.
Published: December 2006

Dame JANET VAUGHAN was one of six women who were featured in 1984 in the BBC’s series ‘Women of our Century’. It has been said that Janet Vaughan had four careers. She had two scientific careers, the first as a clinical pathologist and research worker in haematology in the 1930s and 1940s, and the second when she directed the unit investigating the metabolism of radioactive fission products in the 1950s and 1960s. She had a third career in education as Principal of Somerville College from 1945 to 1967. Always Janet was greatly concerned with social issues in the widest sense. Her work on committees and her active involvement in many areas of social injustice can be described as a fourth career which permeated her whole life.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 19 October 1910 - 21 August 1995
Authors: Tayler Roger John
Published: December 2006

In August 1930 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar arrived in London at the age of 19 years and 10 months with the aim of studying for a doctorate at Cambridge. He had already published several papers, including one which had been communicated to the Royal Society by R.H. (later Sir Ralph) Fowler, F.R.S. During his sea journey he had made considerable progress towards the solution of the problem of the maximum mass of a white dwarf star, which was a key topic in the award of the Nobel Prize for Physics to him in 1983. How could he have done so much at such a young age? Although Chandrasekhar (known to all of his friends and colleagues as Chandra) was born in Lahore, in what is now Pakistan, his paternal ancestors were brahmins and small landowners in the Madras Presidency in south India. His grandfather, Ramanathan Chandrasekhar, was educated in an English school and subsequently obtained college degrees while working as a teacher; he eventually became a college vice-principal. The two oldest of his eight children were Chandra’s father, C. Subrahmanyan Ayyar and C. Ventakaraman (later Sir C.V. Raman, F.R.S. and Nobel Laureate). They were brilliant students who entered government service as accountants and auditors. Raman’s interest in science later led him to give up his secure employment to take up full-time research. Chandra’s father was assistant auditor to the Northwest Railways when Chandra was born on 19 October 1910. He was the third child and first son of C.S. Ayyar and his wife Sitalaksmi and he was to have three younger brothers and four younger sisters. In 1912 Chandra’s family moved to Lucknow and then his father became deputy accountant general in Madras, which meant that Chandra grew up where his family had its roots.
Joseph Chatt, 6 November 1914 - 19 May 1994
Authors: Eaborn C. , Leigh G. J.
Published: December 2006

Joseph Chatt was expected to take over his family farm in Cumbria, but as a consequence of finding interesting minerals on the fells near his home became one of the outstanding inorganic chemists of the century.
Claude Rimington, 17 November 1902 - 8 August 1993
Authors: Neuberger Albert , Goldberg Abraham
Published: December 2006

Claude Rimington was born in London on 17 November 1902, the youngest of the three children of George Gathwaite Rimington, formerly of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Matilda Isabel, née Klyne. When he was three years old the family moved to rural Hertfordshire where Claude grew up. The Rimingtons came originally from a hamlet of that name lying on the borders of Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were a large family, including in their number academics and churchmen, one ancestor being William de Rimington who was Chancellor of Oxford University in 1372. Claude’s father was a businessman with an interest in light engineering, and his mother was both artistically and academically inclined.
Sir Archibald Edward Russell, C. B. E., 30 May 1904 - 29 May 1995
Authors: Strang William John
Published: December 2006

Archibald Edward Russell was born on 30 May 1904 and was within a day of his 91st birthday when he died on 29 May 1995. He was a genuine pioneer of aviation who worked on the stick- and-string biplanes of the 1920s, but he is best remembered as the father figure of the supersonic Concorde.
David Whitteridge, 22 June 1912 - 15 June 1994
Authors: Gordon G. , Iggo Ainsley
Published: December 2006

David Whitteridge was born in South Norwood, London, on 22 June 1912, the second of three children. His father William Randall Whitteridge came from a Baptist family, and was a manufacturer’s agent whose living depended on the export of woollen goods and was at times precarious. His mother Jeanne was of French and Dutch Protestant ancestry; her family were small farmers in Normandy. She came to this country as a governess and to teach French; she was later to be distinguished for taking and passing O-level German and A-level French, at the ages of 89 and 90 respectively. David’s brother, Gordon, K.C.M.G., became a diplomat and his sister, Marcelle Elizabeth, married Robert Audley Furtado, C.B. After five years at All Saints, a good church school in North Norwood, David won a Foundation Scholarship to Whitgift School in Croydon (1922-31). He spoke of his time there with some affection. As a Foundation scholar he was expected to take Greek and Latin for School Certificate, but in his four years in the VIth form he specialized in the sciences. The physics and chemistry teaching was exceptionally good, the biology ‘best passed over’. He played rugby in the First XV (just) and was a member of the shooting VIII. An accomplished all-rounder, he left in 1931 with a leaving scholarship and a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford to read physiology and medicine.
Murray Llewellyn Barr, O. C. 20 June 1908—4 May 1995
Authors: Potter Paul , Soltan Hubert
Published: December 2006

Murray Barr died six weeks before his eighty–seventh birthday and 15 miles from his birthplace on a farm in south-western Ontario. He had lived and died in London, Canada, which, during his lifetime, grew from a commercial and educational centre of 40 000 inhabitants to a prosperous city of over 300 000. Following in the tradition of his pioneering forebears, Murray Barr was firmly rooted in his place of origin; in fact, he never strayed for long from London after arriving there to attend high–school as a boy of 12.
Sir David Robert Bates. 18 November 1916—5 January 1994
Authors: Dalgarno Alexander
Published: December 2006

David Robert Bates was an inspirational figure in the histories of atmospheric science and of atomic, molecular and optical physics. In his researches, each discipline was informed and enriched by his insights into the other. He drew deep connections between them in a creative interplay of innovative ideas. Together with Sir Harrie Massey, F.R.S., building on the work of Sydney Chapman, F.R.S., David Bates provided the first realistic description of the physics of the terrestrial ionosphere in which the ion and electron production and loss mechanisms were identified and their efficiencies calculated. His early papers with Massey transformed the study of the terrestrial ionosphere into a quantitative discipline of enquiry.
David Joseph Bohm. 20 December 1917—27 October 1992
Authors: Hiley B. J.
Published: December 2006

On Tuesday 27 October 1992 David Bohm died of a heart attack while returning home from College, where we had been discussing the final details of our book The Undivided Universe (90).* We had been colleagues since joining Birkbeck College over 30 years ago and we spent many hours discussing a wide range of topics and writing many papers together. I will never forget those exciting and stimulating meetings. He would never spend any time on ordinary conversation, but he would immediately pick up on what we had been discussing the previous day and there would be no let–up in the discussion that followed until it was time to lecture or to go home. It was exhausting but it was exhilarating. What follows is an account of a radical independent thinker who made important contributions to physics yet had the courage to challenge the orthodoxy long before people realized there was a real problem. I hope that my personal involvment in his later work does not cloud the objectivity of this Memoir too much.
William Robert Boon. 20 March 1911—28 October 1994
Authors: Wain R. L.
Published: December 2006

William (Bill) Boon and his sister Jean were the children of Walter Boon, a general railway agent, and his wife Ellen Catherine, a farmer's daughter. Bill's mother and father were third cousins and their common great grandfather, James Medhurst, achieved local fame in Sussex as an amateur archaeologist. Some of the artefacts he discovered are in Worthing museum. James Medhurst was also a manufacturer of Tonbridge Ware, and pieces made by him are exhibited in the museum at Tunbridge Wells.
Wilhelm Siegmund Feldberg, C. B. E. 19 November 1900—23 October 1993
Authors: Bisset G. W. , Bliss T. V. P.
Published: December 2006

Wilhelm Siegmund Feldberg, one of the greatest neuropharmacologists of the 20th century, was born in Hamburg on 19 November 1900. During a working life of 65 years, he published over 350 papers. His early work in Berlin on the pharmacology of histamine and acetylcholine was followed in the 1930s by his fundamental work with Dale, which finally established the chemical nature of synaptic transmission in the peripheral nervous system. In later years he turned to the central nervous system, introducing a new and widely adopted experimental approach to elucidate the site and mode of action of drugs in the brain.
Niels Kaj Jerne. 23 December 1911—7 October 1994.
Authors: Askonas Brigitte A. , Howard James G.
Published: December 2006

Niels Jerne was unquestionably one of the most distinguished immunologists of the present century. Although a relatively late starter—he was approaching 40 before he seriously embarked on a research career—he soon made a major impact that altered the direction of attempts to understand the biology of immune responses. For more than 30 years Niels was preoccupied with the mechanism of specific immune recognition by lymphoid cells, its generation and regulation, and the expression of a diverse repertoire. His analytical thinking is apparent in deeply considered papers, which show a remarkable continuity in the development of ideas from beginning to end of an unconventional career. Niels was predominantly a theoretician who probed deeply into the basic biology of recognition by identifying major questions, which he always tackled with quantitative logic. This orientation also led to the delineation of the first quantitative assay for antibody–secreting cells (plaque–forming cells), which had an enormous impact on the research of others in cellular immunology. The powerful influence he exerted on the thinking, objectives and experimental approaches of his contemporaries and young associates is one measure of his greatness. He created and directed for 10 years the unique Basel Institute for Immunology, entirely funded by Hoffmann LaRoche. He received many honours culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1984.
John Alwyne Kitching, O. B. E. 24 October 1908—1 April 1996
Authors: Sleigh M. A.
Published: December 2006

John Alwyne Kitching, known to his colleagues as Jack, was distinguished for his laboratory researches on the physiology of protozoa, particularly in the area of osmoregulation, and for his field studies in marine ecology, largely concerning benthic sublittoral communities. He commenced work in both of these areas while he was working for his Ph.D. as a junior lecturer at Birkbeck College in London, but it was through sustained energetic application to research in both fields during his two main academic appointments at the Universities of Bristol and East Anglia that he made his main scientific contributions.
Severo Ochoa. 24 September 1905—1 November 1993
Authors: Grunberg-Manago Marianne
Published: December 2006

I first met Severo Ochoa in 1952 in Paris, at the second International Congress of Biochemistry. He was then 47 years old, tall and handsome; he looked like a Spanish Hidalgo, with deep brown eyes and a shock of white hair. He was giving an impressive, didactic and clear lecture, at the Sorbonne, on CO
2
fixation during substrate oxidation, showing beautiful crystals of the condensing enzyme. His name was well known in France, but mostly from the literature, as Europe was just recovering from the war and international meetings were scarce. It was my first international meeting and I was excited. I had already made up my mind that I wanted to do my postdoctoral studies in Ochoa's lab and my supervisor, Eugene Aubel, introduced me to him. Severo Ochoa spoke fluent French and I was thrilled when he accepted me in his lab at New York University (N.Y.U.) to start in September 1953. We agreed that I should first spend a few months in Irwin C. Gunsalus's lab in Urbana. Severo was happy to get already trained postdocs, and I admired Gunsalus's work. Fortunately Gunsalus agreed to the scheme.
William Charles Price. 1 April 1909—10 March 1993
Authors: Dixon R. N. , Agar D. M. , Burge R. E.
Published: December 2006

William Charles Price, known as Bill Price to his friends and colleagues, was a spectroscopist whose work spanned the disciplines of physics and of chemistry. He made important contributions to our understanding of the electronic structure of molecules through his pioneering developments in vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy and photoelectron spectroscopy. He was a superb experimentalist, a formidable theorist and an extraordinary innovator. Perhaps more than any other physical scientist of the age he symbolized the approach of the great 19th-century physical scientists who constructed their own apparatus, made their own measurements and developed the theories for interpreting their own results. He and his research group were constantly at the forefront of new instrumental developments and the interpretation of the novel data that could then be produced. The greater part of his career was spent at King's College, London, where he was the Wheatstone Professor of Physics.
Florence Gwendolen Rees. 3 July 1906—4 October 1994
Authors: Morris J. Gareth
Published: December 2006

Gwendolen Rees was born in Abercynon, Glamorganshire, and after a brief stay in Llandaff moved to Aberdare for her schooling. She graduated from the University College of Wales, Cardiff in 1927 with Honours in zoology and, after one year of postgraduate teacher training, proceeded to postgraduate studies in parasitology in the same Department, being awarded her Ph.D. in 1930. Immediately thereafter she was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Zoology in the sister University College of Wales in Aberystwyth where she remained for the rest of her working life, formally retiring as holder of a Personal Chair in 1973. Though rather private and self–effacing she was noted for her meticulous attention to detail, the artistry of her zoological illustrations, her ability to enthuse students, and her personal elegance and charm. She was particularly distinguished for her definitive studies of the comparative functional morphology and histology of trematode and cestode worms. Her descriptions of the life history strategies of these parasitic platyhelminths threw new light on the relationships of parasites to non-vertebrate hosts and promoted enhanced interest in the evolution of host–parasite associations.
John Crossley Swallow. 11 October 1923—3 December 1994
Authors: Charnock Henry
Published: December 2006

John Swallow was a big quiet Yorkshireman who devoted his working life to careful observation of the ocean.
George Keith Batchelor. 8 March 1920 – 30 March 2000
Authors: Moffatt H.K.
Published: December 2006

George Batchelor was a pioneering figure in two branches of fluid dynamics: turbulence, in which he became a world leader over the 15 years from 1945 to 1960; and suspension mechanics (or ‘microhydrodynamics’), which developed under his initial impetus and continuing guidance throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He also exerted great influence in establishing a universally admired standard of publication in fluid dynamics through his role as founder Editor of the
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
, the leading journal of the subject, which he edited continuously over four decades. His famous textbook,
An introduction to fluid dynamics
, first published in 1967, showed the hand of a great master of the subject. Together with D. Küchemann, F.R.S., he established in 1964 the European Mechanics Committee (forerunner of the present European Society for Mechanics), which over the 24-year period of his chairmanship supervised the organization of no fewer than 230 European Mechanics Colloquia spanning the whole field of fluid and solid mechanics; while within Cambridge, where he was a Fellow of Trinity College and successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor of Applied Mathematics, he was an extraordinarily effective Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from its foundation in 1959 until his retirement in 1983.
Sir Cyril Astley Clarke, C.B.E. 22 August 1907 – 21 November 2000
Authors: Weatherall David
Published: December 2006

Cyril Clarke was an outstanding physician, medical scientist and lepidopterist. His career was unusual in that he developed a serious interest in medical research only after many years in clinical practice, a change of direction from the life of a busy consultant physician that was undoubtedly stimulated by his lifelong interest in butterflies. This remarkable transition was to result in his leading the team in Liverpool that developed a method for preventing rhesus haemolytic disease of the newborn, one of the major advances in preventative medicine of the second half of the twentieth century.
Alastair Graham. 6 November 1906 – 12 December 2000
Authors: Andrews Elizabeth B. , Allen J.A.
Published: December 2006

There is no doubt that nurture strongly reinforced nature in moulding both the character and the intellect of Alastair Graham. He became a zoologist more out of consideration for his parents than out of choice, but his innate ability made him outstanding in this, as it might well have done in any other sphere that he could have turned to. If he had the analytical mind of a good scientist he also had the soul of an artist, and he combined these in his contribution to zoology.
Edward George Gray. 11 January 1924 – 14 August 1999
Authors: Guillery R.W.
Published: December 2006

George Gray was an early contributor to our knowledge of the electron microscopic appearance of the central nervous system. He was skilful with the difficult techniques for preparing the tissues, worked rapidly, and was an astute observer. Sitting with him in the dark, staring at a dim image that George was moving rapidly as he searched for significant detail, could be an exciting experience. He had clear ideas about features that mattered and could quickly relate the two-dimensional electron microscopic images to the three-dimensional neural structures under investigation. He is best known for his detailed and perceptive description of synaptic junctions in the mammalian neocortex, and his name is still linked to two distinct junctional types (Gray's type 1 and Gray's type 2), now recognized as generally distinguishing excitatory from inhibitory junctions. He studied a wide range of neural tissues, played a significant role in the early isolation of ‘synaptosomes’, contributed greatly to the rapid advance of knowledge that accompanied the early application of the electron microscope to neural tissues, and influenced a great many later fine-structural studies of the nervous system.
Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994
Authors: Dodson Guy
Published: December 2006

Dorothy Hodgkin was an X-ray crystallographer whose scientific career began in the 1930s and finished in the 1990s; her research had a deep influence on modern crystallography, chemistry and biochemistry. She had a profound grasp of crystallography and a genius for applying its methods. Her research was driven by the conviction that the X-ray image was the best basis for understanding the chemistry and function of molecules.
Jacques-Louis Lions. 2 May 1928 – 17 May 2001
Authors: Ciarlet Philippe G.
Published: December 2006

Jacques-Louis Lions was born in the heart of Provence in the charming city of Grasse, much renowned for its perfume industry and its historical centre.

In spite of his young age, he had the courage and determination to join the French Résistance at the end of 1943, as a soldier in the FFI (French Forces of the Interior). There he met Andrée, his wife and lifelong companion.

Their son Pierre-Louis, who was born in 1956, would also be distinguished by mathematical talent. This gift earned him the highest mathematical distinction, the Fields Medal, awarded to him during the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. His parents had the great joy of being present for this unique occasion.
Sir Harry Work Melville, K.C.B. 27 April 1908 – 14 June 2000
Authors: Bevington John C. , Gowenlock Brian G.
Published: December 2006

Sir Harry Melville was a physical chemist with an international reputation for his studies of gas-phase and heterogeneous reactions, polymerizations and polymer properties; much of this work was characterized by the development of analytical techniques that exploited a very wide range of physical properties. His career changed direction at the age of 48 from immediate personal involvement in the direction of research to the development of national research strategies, followed later by academic administration as a university Principal. His interests in chemical research remained active throughout his long life.

For J.C.B., acquaintance with Melville began during a study of phosphorus as an incendiary agent and reading some of his published papers; there was later (in 1948) appointment to the staff at the University of Birmingham and membership of the High Polymer Research Group. B.G.G. heard him lecture at a scientific meeting in 1945, met him as external PhD examiner in 1949 and joined his department at Birmingham in 1955.
Sir Alexander [Alec] Walter Merrison, D.L. 20 March 1924 – 19 February 1989
Authors: Gabathuler E.
Published: December 2006

Alexander (‘Alec’) Walter Merrison was born in Wood Green, London, on 20 March 1924. He was the only child of Henry Walter Merrison, a fitter's mate, who rose to be a service manager in the local Gas Board and a respected Chairman of the Tottenham Group of Hospitals, and of Violet Henrietta Merrison (
née
Mortimer) the daughter of an Ipswich family. Alec attended Tottenham Grammar School, then the Grammar School, Enfield, where he took the Higher School Certificate in physics, chemistry and mathematics. He became Captain of the school and is remembered as a fine scholar with a pleasant manner. His qualities of leadership were already evident at a very young age. He was also a choirboy at All Hallows Church, Wood Green, where his lifelong love of music was first developed.

;In 1944 he graduated in physics at King's College, London, when he was just 20 years old, researching radio wave propagation, after which he was ‘placed’ on wartime radar at the Signals Research Development Establishment at Christchurch, the only Englishman and civilian in a group of 26 engineers of the Polish Army in exile. Two years later he requested a transfer to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell to participate in research of a more interesting and challenging nature. There he came under the tutelage of O.R. Frisch (F.R.S. 1948) and J.D. (later Sir John) Cockcroft, F.R.S., who were the leading research scientists in nuclear physics. At that time Harwell was the breeding ground for a generation of British physicists; Alec clearly relished this new environment, helping to equip an electron accelerator to produce short pulses of neutrons. His first published papers described how the new technique could be used to study the interaction of neutrons with matter. This was his first experience of the use of particle accelerators as powerful probes to investigate nuclear matter. The technique of neutron scattering from bulk matter is now an important discipline in its own right, and the genesis of the current world-leading facility (ISIS) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory can be traced back to these pioneering experiments in which Alec played a major role.
Albert Cyril Offord. 9 June 1906 – 4 June 2000
Authors: Hayman W.K.
Published: December 2006

Cyril Offord was one of the most distinguished and certainly the most senior of British mathematical analysts. With J.E. Littlewood, F.R.S., he pioneered the subject of probabilistic analysis by studying the typical behaviour of the zeros of a random polynomial with real coefficients, or an entire function.
Douglas Frew Waterhouse, C.M.G. 3 June 1916 – 1 December 2000
Authors: Day Maxwell F.C. , Whitten Maxwell J. , Sands Don P.A.
Published: December 2006

Doug Waterhouse was a renowned entomologist, a fine scientist and an accomplished administrator. He worked within the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Division of Entomology for over 60 years, and was its Chief for 21 years until his retirement in 1981. Doug was responsible for many developments in insect and weed control, both in Australia and around the globe, especially in developing countries across Asia and the Pacific. He not only guided the Division to international prominence, but was also an ardent humanitarian whose work had beneficial effects in many neighbouring countries. Much of his ‘public good’ work was done as an Honorary Fellow (1981–2000). As well as his extensive entomological interests, Doug was active in other areas such as education and community services. He was the foundation Chairman of the Canberra College of Advanced Education and continued as Chancellor when it became the University of Canberra.
Edward Raymond Andrew. 27 June 1921 – 27 May 2001
Authors: Sheppard Norman
Published: December 2006

Raymond Andrew's career in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) began two years after the independent discoveries of the phenomenon by Edward Purcell of Harvard University (Purcell
et al.
1946) and by Felix Bloch of Stanford University (Bloch
et al.
1946) for which they shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952. Andrew developed a wide spectrum of applications of the phenomenon of ‘motional narrowing’ in the NMR spectra of solids, and initiated an experimental technique, ‘magic-angle spinning’, which he expanded into the major research field of high-resolution NMR spectroscopy of solids. He also made influential early and longer-term contributions to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), now of major importance in clinical medicine. His scientific work was notable for his close interweaving of its theoretical and experimental aspects. Andrew's exceptional powers of exposition assisted many others to understand and develop the sophisticated field of NMR spectroscopy.
Robert Hanbury Brown. 31 August 1916 – 16 January 2002 Elected FRS 1960
Authors: Davis John , Lovell Bernard
Published: December 2006

Robert Hanbury Brown was born on 31 August 1916 in Aruvankadu, Nilgiri Hills, South India; he was the son of an Officer in the Indian Army, Col. Basil Hanbury Brown, and of Joyce Blaker. From the age of 3 years Hanbury was educated in England, initially at a School in Bexhill and then from the ages of 8 to 14 years at the Cottesmore Preparatory School in Hove, Sussex. In 1930 he entered Tonbridge School as a Judde scholar in classics. Hanbury's interests turned to science and technology, particularly electrical engineering, and after two years he decided that he would seek more appropriate education in a technical college. His decision was accelerated by the fact that after the divorce of his parents his mother had married Jack Lloyd, a wealthy stockbroker, who in 1932 vanished with all his money and thus Hanbury felt he should seek a career that would lead to his financial independence. For these reasons Hanbury decided to take an engineering course at Brighton Technical College studying for an external degree in the University of London. At the age of 19 he graduated with a first-class honours BSc, taking advanced electrical engineering and telegraphy and telephony. He then obtained a grant from East Sussex and in 1935 joined the postgraduate department at the City & Guilds, Imperial College. In 1936 he obtained the Diploma of Imperial College (DIC) for a thesis on oscillators

He intended to continue his course for a PhD but a major turning point in his career occurred when he was interviewed during his first postgraduate year by Sir Henry Tizard FRS, Rector of Imperial College. Hanbury explained to Tizard that he was following up some original work by Van der Pol on oscillator circuits without inductance and hoped, ultimately, to combine an interest in radio with flying. In fact, Tizard had already challenged him about the amount of time he spent flying with the University of London Air Squadron.

Tizard told Hanbury to see him again in a year's time and that he might then have a job for him. In fact, within three months Tizard accosted Hanbury and said he had an interesting research project in the Air Ministry for him. After an interview by R.A. (later Sir Robert) Watson-Watt (FRS 1941), Hanbury was offered a post at the Radio Research Board in Slough. His visit to Slough was brief; he was soon told to report to Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk, which he did on 15 August 1936. Thereby, unaware of what Tizard had in mind for him, Hanbury's career as one of the pioneers of radar began.
Sir Kingsley Charles Dunham. 2 January 1910 – 5 April 2001 Elected FRS 1955
Authors: Johnson G.A.L.
Published: December 2006

The history of the Dunham family goes back to the researches of Kingsley Dunham's grandfather, Rev. Charles Dunham (1848–1942), a Methodist Minister and diarist who, at the age of 72, brought together facts and recollections of the Dunham family. Apparently the family migrated from East Anglia and settled in the Bedford area for 200 years, centred on the village of Shillington. By the middle of the nineteenth century the family were bootmakers and shoemakers and moved to north London. Kingsley Dunham's father, Ernest Pedder Dunham, was trained in estate management at the Duke of Bedford's office in Trafalgar Square, and in 1904 he was given a position in the Pitt-Rivers estate office at Hinton St Mary, Dorset. To here he brought his bride, Edith Agnes Humphreys, to live at Newton House, Sturminster Newton. The first child, Kingsley Charles Dunham, was born on 2 January 1910. The family's time in Dorset was short, because Ernest Dunham's post came to an end in 1913 and be obtained a new appointment at Lord Boyne's estate office at Brancepeth near Durham. Although this estate was later sold to the Duke of Westminster, Ernest Dunham stayed on as agent throughout his career. Kingsley Dunham's mother Edith was a trained schoolteacher and chapel organist, and she gave him the foundations of his education and an introduction to music. Aged seven years he joined the school on the estate, Brancepeth Village School. Here he was well prepared to sit for a County Scholarship in the spring of 1921, when he was 11 years old. Dunham won the scholarship and entrance to the Durham Johnston School, a notable secondary school in the district. The teaching at the Johnston School was extremely efficient and he flourished, developing a particular interest in physical science and mathematics. His hobby was music and he was taught the organ at Durham Cathedral by the Canon Precentor, A.D. Culley. He was also a chorister at St Brandon's Church, Brancepeth, for five years, where, despite his Methodist background, the liturgy of the Anglican prayerbook made a deep and lasting impression. He was head of school in 1927 and sat for a Durham University Open Foundation Scholarship, winning a junior award. Thus, early in October 1927, aged 171/2, Dunham went up to Hatfield College, University of Durham, a scholar and later organ scholar. He was advised to read honours in chemistry with two auxiliary subjects, for which he chose physics and geology. The chemistry course was enjoyable, but the real joy was the geology course, with lectures on physical fundamentals given by Professor Arthur Holmes (FRS 1942) and practical work and fieldwork with Dr William Hopkins. The geology course and particularly the fieldwork proved to be life changing. At the end of the first year, Dunham was encouraged to continue with geology and found himself the only honours candidate in geology in his year, with almost individual attention from Professor Holmes and Dr Hopkins.
Gerhard Herzberg PC CC. 25 December 1904 – 3 March 1999
Authors: Stoicheff Boris P.
Published: December 2006

Gerhard Herzberg, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, had broad interests and achieved supreme accomplishments in physics, chemistry and astrophysics. The high points in his research were many. In physics they were the work on atomic hydrogen and helium, and evaluations of energy levels and constants of molecular hydrogen and its isotopes. His determinations of many molecular structures and discoveries of spectra of the free radicals CH
2
and CH
3
, and of the Rydberg molecule H3, were each outstanding contributions in chemistry. In astrophysics, his reproduction in the laboratory of the spectrum of CH
+
, proving its presence in the interstellar medium, and of spectra of C
3
and H
2
O
+
and their presence in comets, his observation of the quadrupole spectrum of H
2
and his discovery of hydrogen in the atmospheres of the planets opened up new applications of spectroscopy for our knowledge of the universe. His classic volumes on molecular spectra and molecular structures remain as encyclopaedias of molecular knowledge for all time. And his famous laboratory, the ‘Temple of spectroscopy’, served as a home for hundreds of scientists around the world, and helped to bring Canadian science to international prominence.
Sir Ewart Ray Herbert Jones 16 March 1911 – 7 May 2002 Elected FRS 1950
Authors: Jones J.H.
Published: December 2006

Ewart Ray Herbert Jones, just ‘ERH’ or ‘Prof’ to his laboratory colleagues but ‘Tim’ to his more intimate friends and family, died on 7 May 2002. He made important contributions to the chemistry of polyenes, poly-ynes, steroids and triterpenes. A leading figure in the profession of chemistry, he steered the Chemical Society and the Royal Institute of Chemistry towards unification, and was first President of the resulting Royal Society of Chemistry.
Frank Matthews Leslie. 8 March 1935 – 15 June 2000
Authors: Atkin R.J. , Sluckin T.J.
Published: December 2006

Frank Leslie was a distinguished applied mathematician, who was above all foremost in creating the modern continuum theory of nematic liquid crystals in the late 1960s. This theory is now known as the Ericksen-Leslie theory, and the crucial elements in it as Leslie coefficients. After developing the hydrodynamic theory of nematic liquid crystals, he went on to perform a similar task in the 1990s for smectic liquid crystals. He also actively collaborated with experimentalists and engineers involved in liquid crystal applications, and his work has been extremely influential in the development of liquid crystal display (LCD) device technology.