Guide to
the manuscript papers of British scientists: R
ACCESS ARRANGEMENTS
The collections described in this guide have been catalogued
by the CSAC and the NCUACS and subsequently deposited in libraries and archives
throughout the UK.
Inclusion in this guide does not imply that collections will be fully available
for research. There are restrictions on access to items in a number of the
collections and researchers should always consult the appropriate repository
before planning a visit.
New. Most of the catalogues compiled by the Unit
can now be viewed online through the Access to Archives website (http://www.a2a.org.uk) at the Public Record
Office. Direct links to the catalogues
are being (gradually) added from this Guide. To view the full-text catalogue, please click
on the link under Finding Aid. Note, some catalogues are very extensive and may take a few
moments to download. An indication of the size of the file is
provided.
|
RADO, Richard (1906-1989), mathematician.
READ, John (1908-1993), radiobiologist
RENWICK, James Harrison (1926-1994), geneticist
RENWICK, William (1924-1971), computer scientist
RICHARDS, Sir Rex Edward (b.1922), chemist and
biophysicist
RICHARDSON, Lewis Fry (1881-1953),
meteorologist and physicist
RIDEAL, Sir Eric Keightley
(1890-1974). Colloid chemist
|
ROBINSON, Sir Robert (1886-1975), chemist
ROTHERHAM, Leonard (1913-2001), physicist and metallurgist
ROTHERY, William HUME- (1899-1968), metallurgist
ROUGHTON, Francis John Worsley
(1899-1972), physiologist
ROWE, Albert Percival (1898-1976), telecommunications
scientist
ROWE, Peter Walter (1922-1997)
RUNCORN, Stanley Keith (1922-1995), geophysicist
|
Rado, Richard, 1906-1989. Mathematician.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Reading
University Library. Reference code: GB 0006 MS 4622 : Rado
Title: Papers and correspondence of Richard Rado,
1906-1989.
Dates of creation of material: 1921-1991.
Extent: 59 boxes.
CONTEXT
Biographical history
Rado was born in Berlin, Germany on 28 April 1906 and was educated at the
universities of Berlin and Göttingen,
taking his Ph.D degree at Berlin in 1933 for a thesis entitled 'Studien zur Kombinatorik'.
working under I. Schur. He
was also influenced by E. Schmidt during this period. He married Luise Zadek in March 1933 and, as
a consequence of Hitler's accession to power in Germany,
the Rados, being Jewish, moved to England. Rado obtained a scholarship through the recommendation of
F.A. Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell)
to study at Cambridge
University. He entered
Fitzwilliam House (later College) in 1933 and studied for a Ph.D. under G.H.
Hardy (awarded 1935 for his thesis on 'Linear Transformations of Sequences').
He stayed on at Cambridge
with a temporary Lecturership until 1936. During this
period, 1933-1936, Rado made contact with a number of
influential resident mathematicians, who included in addition to Hardy, J.E. Littlewood, P. Hall and A.S. Besicovitch,
and with fellow refugees such as B.H. Neumann and Hans Heilbronn.
In 1934 he met for the first time the Hungarian mathematician P. Erdös with whom he was to have many
productive collaborations over five decades. Rado
was subsequently Assistant Lecturer and Lecturer in Mathematics, University of
Sheffield, 1936-1947, Reader in Mathematics, King's
College London, 1947-1954, and Professor of Pure Mathematics, University of
Reading, 1954-1971. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Waterloo,
Ontario, 1971-1972.
Rado's mathematical research was particularly distinguished
for his pioneering work in many aspects of combinatorics
including abstract independent structures, transversal theory and extensions of
Ramsey's theorem (the partition calculus).
In recognition of his distinction in
mathematical research Rado was awarded the senior
Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 1972 and was elected FRS in
1978. He died on 23 December 1989.
See C.A. Rogers, 'Richard Rado', Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society, vol 37 (1989), 413-426.
Custodial history:
Received
for cataloguing in June 1991 and August 1992 from Mr Peter Alan Rado, son.
Placed in Reading
University Library in
1994.
CONTENT HISTORY:
Scope and content summary:
This large collection
includes important biographical material and full records of Rado's mathematical research and teaching.
Biographical material includes extensive
correspondence from Rado's student days in Germany, 1925-1927, and from his first years as
a Jewish refugee in England,
principally 1933-1936 when he was based at Cambridge University.
Research records include the student notebooks used by Rado
for lecture notes, 1927-1933, and the mathematical notebooks or diaries that he
kept throughout his career, 1928-1983. The student notebooks include notes on
the lecture courses of mathematicians E. Schmidt and I. Schur,
the physicists M. Born, M. Planck and E. Schrödinger, and the psychologist W. Köhler. There are extensive
records of Rado's mathematical publications including
collaborative papers with P. Erdös, his lectures both
university teaching and invitation and public lectures, and visits and
conferences including the British Mathematical Colloquia that he attended
regularly from 1950 and the Visiting Professorship at the University of Waterloo,
Ontario, 1972-1973. A number of Rado's major professional affiliations are also documented
including the Institute
of Mathematics and its
Applications, the London Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association.
There is an alphabetical sequence of Rado's principal
mathematical correspondents including G.A. Dirac,
1951-1985, P. Erdös, 1934-1987, E.C. Milner,
1957-1985, and L. Mirsky, 1948-1983, and also a
chronological sequence of shorter correspondence, 1948-1986.
Arrangement:
By section as follows:
Biographical, Notebooks, Reading
University, Publications,
Lectures, Societies and organisations, Visits and conferences, Correspondence,
References and recommendations. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE:
Access:
No special conditions of
access.
Language:
English. In part in German. Rado used the Stolze-Schrey
system of shorthand as a student in Germany and continued to use it for
drafting correspondence, papers and lectures for the rest of his career.
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the
papers and correspondence of Richard Rado: NCUACS
catalogue no. 50/6/94, 120 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
Read, John (1908-1993), radiobiologist
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Archives and Manuscripts section, Wellcome Library for the
History and Understanding of Medicine, London. Reference code: GB 0120 PP/JRE
Title: Papers and correspondence of John Read, 1908-1993
Dates of creation of material: late 1920s-1994
Extent: 25 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical
history
John
Read was born in Hendon, Middlesex on 31 March 1908. He left school at 16 to work as a clerk in
the Derbyshire County Council Education Department. Studying in the evenings, he took the University of London
external B.Sc. in Physics and Applied Mathematics in 1929 and then won a
scholarship to Nottingham
University College
where he took a B.Sc. in Special Physics in 1931.
Read
then won a teaching fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),
and worked for his Ph.D. on the attenuation coefficients of scattered radiation
from a range of elements. He returned to
the UK in 1934, joining the
Radium Beam Research Unit as Assistant Physicist working with L.H. Gray at Mount Vernon Hospital
in London. Gray and Read were awarded a grant from the
British Empire Cancer Campaign to build a neutron generator for study of the
biological action of neutrons. In the
words of John Haggith’s obituary of Read in Scope vol 3
(1994), ‘The next five years were remarkable. It took them two years of
toil and brilliant improvisation to build the neutron generator and then just
three years to put neutron and alpha dosimetry on a
sound footing and obtain the RBEs [Relative
Biological Effectiveness] for neutrons, alpha particles, X- and
gamma-rays’.
In
1939 Read moved to the British Institute of Radiology. In 1941 he was seconded to British
Thomson-Houston Co. in Rugby for war work, after which in 1943 he took up the
post of Hospital Physicist at the London
Hospital. In the same year he played a leading role in
the establishment of the Hospital Physicists Association. In 1946 he was made Head of the British
Empire Cancer Campaign’s Biophysics Research Group at the Mount Vernon Hospital and the Radium Institute, from
1948 serving as Combined Head of the Research Group and Physics Department.
In
1950 the British Empire Cancer Campaign established a laboratory for research
into radiation biology in Christchurch, New Zealand (moving to Dunedin in 1952). Read was appointed Director of the Radiation
Biology Group. He remained in New Zealand for
the rest of his life. As head of the
Radiation Biology Group Read pursued research into how ionising radiations
destroy tumours and how this action could be influenced by other factors. He retired in 1974.
Read
was awarded the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Anderson-Berry Gold Medal in
1953 and gave the Douglas Lea Memorial Lecture in 1957. He died in Dunedin on 10 October 1993.
Custodial
history:
The papers were received from the British Institute of
Radiology in 2000. Placed
in the Wellcome Library in 2004.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope
and content summary:
Biographical
material is slight. It includes two
obituaries, incomplete lists of publications, and a little material relating to
Read’s early career in New Zealand. There are also a few undergraduate notes from
University College Nottingham, 1930-1931.
Research
material covers Read’s entire career from his
postgraduate study at Caltech, through work with L.H. Gray at the Mount Vernon
Hospital in London and research while Hospital Physicist at the London
Hospital, to his move to New Zealand in 1950 and ongoing work to retirement in
1974. Following Read’s
own arrangement, the material is divided into a number of components. In addition to postgraduate notes from the
early 1930s, there is a run of notebooks for the period 1936-1974. The notebook entries are detailed, with dates
and often times of experiments, descriptions of techniques and results. The largest component is Read’s
chronological sequence of folders identified by year and (generally) also by
topic. The contents of the folders may
include manuscript data, drafts of publications, correspondence on work in
progress, supply of chemicals, figures, calculations and graphs. Other components are Read’s
alphabetical sequence of folders, chiefly extensive notes on the literature; a
general series of folders arranged by research topic - mostly undated research
notes and data; documentation of research on E. Coli
carried out with C. Cowell, 1965-1967; and a little
miscellaneous material.
Publications material
includes documentation relating to Read’s book Radiation Biology of Vicia
Faba in relation to the General Problem (Oxford,
1959), a number of miscellaneous drafts and a set of his offprints,
1934-1976. Lectures material is not
extensive, comprising drafts and notes for lectures delivered from the
1960s. It includes ‘The physics of
radiotherapy and radiation biology in the early 1930s’, Read’s John Strong Memorial Lecture of 1961 and a
sequence of numbered lectures, probably relating to a course of seminars in
radiobiology delivered in 1962.
Societies and organisations material is also slight. Nine, mostly New Zealand, organisations are
represented, including the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society, chiefly
relating to Read’s terms of employment; the New
Zealand Department of Health Dominion X-ray and Radium Laboratory, with papers
and correspondence on radiological equipment, supply of radioactive substances,
monitoring of radioactivity, etc; and the New Zealand Medical Physicists
Association, of which Read was chairman in the early 1970s.
There is an alphabetical
sequence of correspondence with individuals and companies, covering a range of
topics, including laboratory equipment and chemicals, progress of research,
visits, the launch of new journals, as well as social and personal news. There
are a few extended sequences, though correspondence of particular note includes
that with L.H. Gray, G.E. Roth and H.C. Sutton.
The correspondence postdates Read’s
relocation to New Zealand
and continues up to retirement in 1974.
Arrangement:
By section as follows:
Biographical, Research, Publications Societies and organisations,
Correspondence. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE:
Access:
By
appointment with the Archivist and after completion of a Reader's Application
and Undertaking.
Language:
English.
Finding aids:
Printed
Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of John Read. NCUACS catalogue no. 131/4/04, 79pp. Copies
available from NCUACS, University
of Bath
Renwick, James Harrison,
1926-1994. Geneticist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Glasgow
University Archives. Reference code: GB 0248
UGC155
Title: Papers and correspondence of James Harrison Renwick, 1926-1994.
Dates of creation of material: 1940s-1994, bulk 1950s-1970s.
Extent: 50 boxes.
CONTEXT
Biographical history
James Harrison Renwick was
born in Otley, Yorkshire
on 4 February 1926. He was educated at Sedburgh School winning a Harkness
Scholarship to the University
of St Andrews in
1943. He studied medicine, graduating
M.B., Ch.B. in 1948. After hospital
appointments, 1948 to 1951, Renwick did his national service in the Royal Army
Medical Corps 1951-1953, serving in Korea
and seconded part-time to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, Japan. In 1953
Renwick was awarded a Medical Research Council grant to train in Human
Genetics. He undertook this work in the Galton Laboratory of University College London, studying
under L.S. Penrose and J.B.S. Haldane (Ph.D.
1956). Renwick spent a period
1958-1959 working under V.A. McKusick at the Johns
Hopkins Hospital Department of Human Genetics.
On his return to the UK
in 1959 he took up a post as Research Fellow in Guido Pontecorvo’s
Department of Genetics at Glasgow
University. He was appointed Senior Lecturer in 1960,
Reader in 1966 and Titular Professor in 1967.
In 1968 Renwick moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine as Reader in Human Genetics in the Department of Community Health and
Head of the Preventive Teratology Unit.
In 1978 he was appointed Professor of Human Genetics and Teratology. He retired in 1991.
Renwick made
a fundamental contribution to modern genetics, in particular to the development
of human gene mapping that paved the way for the Human Genome Project. Working initially at the Galton Laboratory,
University College London, with L.S. Penrose, then at the University of
Glasgow, and latterly at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,
for a period of nearly 20 years up to the early 1970s, he pioneered the use of
genetic markers to map disease genes on human chromosomes, seeing this field
develop from its infancy at a time when there was virtually no information on
mapping human genes to a major international scientific endeavour. His Independent
obituarist notes that, ‘His work linking the ABO blood groups and the
nail-patella syndrome was seminal and is still cited as a classic in human
linkage analysis’ and he was behind the first generalised computer
program for calculating LODs (Logarithm of Odds) for large human
pedigrees. He also was involved in a
major ongoing transatlantic collaboration on gene mapping with V.A. McKusick,
making many visits to Johns Hopkins as a
consultant on the application of computer techniques to genetical linkage. Renwick’s
key role in this work was due to his expertise in three essential areas: the
clinical assessment of the families with specific genetic disorders, the
laboratory analysis of the genetic markers and the mathematical and computing
approaches to the data obtained.
In 1972 he
radically changed direction, following what he described as a
‘unilateral termination of computer facilities’ at Johns Hopkins
and his consequent ‘ejection from the field’. The subsequent years of his career at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine were mainly spent on analysis of causative
factors in human malformations, studying in particular birth defects with an
early study on the possible relation between toxins in potatoes and anencephaly
and spina bifida (ASB).
Renwick
was active in a number of genetical societies, including the Genetics Society,
which he served as Honorary Treasurer 1960-1965 and auditor 1965-1972. He was a founder of the Developmental
Pathology Society, serving as its President.
Renwick was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Glasgow (1970) and the Royal College of Physicians of London (1974) and a
Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (1982). He was awarded the University of London D.Sc.
in 1970. He died on 29 September 1994.
Custodial
history:
The papers were received via
Professor Sue Povey, Haldane
Professor of Human Genetics, University College London, in February 2005.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope
and content summary:
Biographical
material is slight. It includes
obituaries, curricula vitae and lists of publications. University
of Glasgow material is
also not extensive. There are two memoranda on leucocyte grouping at Glasgow
in the late 1960s but most of the extant material relates to the preparation of
examination questions in genetics.
Records of
Renwick’s research form the largest component of the archive. The research material
presented here records Renwick’s fundamental contribution to gene mapping
research, his key contribution to science and medicine carried out at the
Galton Laboratory, University of Glasgow and Johns Hopkins, and at the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Renwick was a meticulous record-keeper and the material forms a very
complete record, bringing together pedigree charts and associated family
information on patients from all over the UK, the US and elsewhere, offprints
frequently annotated by Renwick, covering letters from doctors, correspondence
with colleagues, and associated medical, laboratory and computing data, filed
by project. It thus documents a notable
contribution to one of the most important fields of later twentieth-century
science and gives an excellent picture of how the field evolved. The bulk of the research material is the
contents of Renwick’s box files of data on family pedigrees. There are three distinct sequences. The first, and largest, is organised by
disease, with the diseases coded in an alphabetical sequence, beginning with AA
(Congenital analgesia). The second
sequence is organised by chromosomal abnormality, and the third sequence is of
non-disease pedigrees. There are also
sequences of material arranged under the headings ‘Linkages’ and
‘Mapping’, material on coding methodology, and on computing
analysis and procedures - this including work with J. Schulze and D. Bolling on
the development of computer programs. A
number of other research collaborators are represented in the papers, including
S.D. Lawler, M.M. Izatt and E.B. Robson.
Other significant correspondents in the field include C.A. Clarke, M.A.
Ferguson-Smith, V.A. McKusick, L.S. Penrose and C.A.B. Smith. Renwick’s later research on analysis of
causative factors in human malformations is very sparsely documented. In some cases an ongoing research interest in
an individual condition, for example, cataracts, is documented alongside the
earlier data from the 1960s.
Publications
material includes drafts for some of Renwick’s published papers
1961-1990, though the majority of the material dates from the early 1970s. Articles documented range from ‘Probable linkage between a
congenital cataract locus and the Duffy blood group locus’, with S.D. Lawler,
Ann. Hum. Genet. vol 27 (1963) to ‘On avoiding statistical bias in
linkage-based counselling’, Ann. Hum. Genet. vol 54 (1990). There are some of the many book reviews by Renwick 1955-1980 and editorial
correspondence, chiefly documenting the refereeing of papers for journals. There is also a set of Renwick’s offprints. Further drafts of
Renwick’s publications are to be found with the research material to
which they relate. Lectures and conferences material is very
slight and represents only a tiny fraction of Renwick’s output in these
areas. There is some record of
Renwick’s involvement with fourteen UK, overseas and international
societies and organisations. The most
fully documented are the Developmental Pathology Society 1971-1991 and the Genetics
Society 1954-1991. A number of the
organisations are represented by Renwick’s refereeing of grant proposals.
Renwick’s
correspondence files were not extensive. He kept the bulk of
his scientific correspondence with the research to which it related. Apart from this there are no extended
exchanges of letters with the exception of the correspondence with L.R.
Weitkamp. Other correspondents
represented in his correspondence files by more than the individual letter
include E.A. Murphy, Ruth Sanger and
C.A.B. Smith. There are also references and
recommendations.
Arrangement:
By section as follows:
Biographical, Research, Publications, Lectures and conferences, Societies and
organisations, Correspondence. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE:
Access:
Some material may be subject
to closure. Contact the Duty Archivist.
Language:
English.
Finding aids:
Printed
Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of James Harrison Renwick. NCUACS catalogue no. 149/6/06, 123pp. Copies
available from NCUACS, University
of Bath
ALLIED MATERIALS
In other repositories:
Papers relating
to Renwick’s service as secretary of the Senior Common Room and the
Dining Club of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have been
placed in the Archives of the LSHTM.
Renwick, William, 1924-1971. Computer scientist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Cambridge
University Library. Reference code: GB 0012 CUL Add MS 8372
Title: Papers and correspondence of William Renwick, 1924-1971.
Dates of creation of material: ca 1943-ca 1971.
Extent: 2 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history:
Renwick was educated at Lanark Grammar School
and Glasgow University, 1941-1943, where he graduated B.Sc. in Mathematics, Physics
and Electronics. From 1943 to 1947 he worked on radar at the Admiralty Signals
Establishment, and in 1947 was appointed University Demonstrator in the
Mathematical Laboratory, Cambridge
where he became responsible for the direction and supervision of research and
development in the Digital Computer Department and was one of the team which
developed the EDSAC computer. He became Senior Assistant in Research at the
Mathematical Laboratory, and in 1958 joined the Plessey Company at the
Electronic Research Laboratory, Roke Manor, Romsey. In 1965, on the formation
of the Company's Automatic Group at Poole, he
became its first Research Manager, the position he held at the time of his
death at the age of 47.
Custodial history:
Received from Mrs J.K.M. Renwick, widow
via Plessey Controls Limited and through the good offices of Professor M.V.
Wilkes.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary:
The papers are not extensive, relating essentially to the
development of the EDSAC computer, 1947-1949, and include framed photographs of
the machine and of its first printout in 1947.
Arrangement:
By section as follows: Biographical and personal, Research
notes and lectures, Publications, EDSAC computer
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Access to holders of full Reader's Tickets
from Cambridge University Library.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of
William Renwick: CSAC 84/2/82, 9 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
Richards, Sir Rex Edward, b 1922. Knight.
Chemist and biophysicist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Bodleian Library, Oxford. Reference code: GB 0161 R.E. Richards papers
Title: Papers and correspondence of Sir Rex Edward Richards, 1922-.
Dates of creation of material: 1928-1988
Extent: 69 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history:
Richards was born in Colyton,
Devon and educated at the local grammar school and St
John's College, Oxford. Graduating with first
class honours in 1945, he undertook research on infrared spectroscopy with H.W.
Thompson (q.v.), obtaining his D.Phil. in 1948. In 1947 he was elected Fellow
and Tutor in Chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford and in
1964 he succeeded Sir Cyril Hinshelwood (q.v.) as Dr
Lee's Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.
He became Warden of Merton College, Oxford
in 1969, when he transferred his research to the Department of Biochemistry,
and served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1977-1981. In 1984 Richards
became Director of the Leverhulme Trust. Since 1982
he has been Chancellor of Exeter University.
Richards's research focused on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He has been
at the forefront of the application of NMR techniques to chemical problems and a
leader in the design and development of NMR equipment. In the 1960s he became
interested in biological applications of NMR, a change facilitated by the move
to the Biochemistry Department and the development of new NMR instruments using
superconducting magnets. In 1969 Richards and colleagues from eight science
departments formed the Oxford Enzyme Group (q.v.), a consortium of researchers
who agreed to contribute a significant part of their research effort to a
collaborative venture. He was chairman of the Enzyme Group from its inception
to 1984.
Richards was elected FRS in 1959 (Davy Medal 1976, Royal Medal 1986) and
knighted in 1977.
Custodial history
Received for cataloguing in 1987-1988 from
Richards. Placed in the Bodleian Library in 1989.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
The papers provide good documentation of Richards's research
and lectures on NMR and an extensive scientific correspondence. The research
material includes early work with H.W. Thompson (q.v.) on penicillin and the
lectures material includes notes of lectures on nuclear magnetism given by E.M.
Purcell at Harvard, 1954-1955. Documentation of Richards's publications is
slight, with the exception of the second (1964) edition of Numerical
problems in advanced physical chemistry prepared with J.H. Wolfenden and E.E. Richards. A number of societies and
organisations are well represented in the papers, in particular the Royal
Society. There are comprehensive records of Richards's chairmanship of its Hooke Committee, which is responsible for organising Royal
Society discussion meetings and review lectures. Richards's correspondence
files relate to his undergraduate chemistry students at Lincoln College,
those who researched in various capacities in his laboratory and manufacturers
of NMR equipment. The records of the Oxford Enzyme Group (q.v.) form a separate
group of papers deposited in the Bodleian Library.
Arrangement:
By section as follows: Notebooks, Research, Lectures and
publications, Oxford,
Societies and organisations, Visits and conferences, Correspondence,
Biographical. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Entry permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's
card or an Oxford University Card displaying the Bodleian logo. All
applicants for new or replacement cards must apply in person, with a
recommendation and payment if required, and with
proof of their identity.
Some items not available for 30 or 50 years from date of
writing.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Sir
Rex Edward Richards: NCUACS catalogue no. 12/5/89, 128 pp. Copies available
from NCUACS, University
of Bath
ALLIED MATERIALS
In other repositories:
Nuclear magnetic resonance equipment,
and related notebooks are held by the Science
Museum, London.
Richardson, Lewis Fry, 1881-1953. Meteorologist and physicist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Cambridge University
Library. Reference code: GB 0012 CUL
Add. MS 9228 :
Title: Papers and correspondence of Lewis
Fry Richardson, 1881-1953.
Dates of creation of material: 1881-1993.
Extent: 4 boxes
CONTEXT:
Biographical history:
Richardson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 11 October 1881. He
was educated at the Bootham
School, York, Durham College of Science and King's
College Cambridge. After a number of appointments he entered the Meteorological
Office in 1913 as superintendent of the Eskdalemuir
Observatory, thus beginning his fruitful association with Sir Napier Shaw. In
1916-1919 he served in the Friends' Ambulance Unit attached to the 16th French
Infantry Division. In 1920 he took charge of the Physics Department, Westminster Training
College and in 1929 became Principal
of Paisley College of Technology and School
of Art. He retired in
1940 to research on the causes of war and eddy diffusion. Richardson's Royal
Society obituarist identified as amongst the
principal components of his work: 'his development of the application of the
method of finite differences to the solution of physical problems, including
the major problem of meteorology ... the computation of the physical state of
the atmosphere for an epoch finitely subsequent to that for which the state is
known by observation' and 'his development of the application of mathematics to
the study of the relations between states, especially to elucidate the effects
... among a number of nations, of armaments, trade, communications, rivalry and
grievances on the stability of the regime.' (Obituary
notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, 9 (1954), 219). In 1922 Richardson published his
classic text Weather prediction by numerical process.
Richardson was elected FRS in 1926. He
died on 30 September 1953.
See E. Gold, 'Lewis
Fry Richardson', Obituary notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol 9 (1954), 217-235.
Custodial history:
Received
for cataloguing in 1993 from Mr O.M. Ashford, a colleague and close friend of Richardson and his family who brought the material
together over many years in the preparation of his biography of Richardson Prophet or
Professor? The Work and Life of Lewis Fry Richardson (Adam
Hilger, Bristol and Boston MA, 1985).
Deposited in Cambridge
University Library in
1993.
CONTENT HISTORY:
Scope and content summary:
This
small collection consists principally of the correspondence Ashford conducted
with Richardson's colleagues while preparing his
biography and Richardson's
own notes and drafts. These notes and drafts range from manuscript jottings and
research notes to lecture notes on differential equations 1937-1938 and drafts
submitted for publication, and their subjects relate to Richardson's
meteorological and mathematical interests, to his study of war and to his
interest in psychology. Of considerable biographical interest is Richardson's house diary
recording aspects of life at the family home Hillside House, Kilmun, Argyll 1943-1953. Ashford's own correspondence with
Richardson and his collection of Richardson photographs
were made available for cataloguing but are retained by Ashford during his
lifetime.
Arrangement:
By
section as follows: Biographical, Notes and drafts. Index of
correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE:
Access:
Access to holders of full Reader's Tickets for Cambridge University
Library.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed
Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Lewis Fry Richardson: NCUACS
catalogue no. 44/6/93, 22 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
Link
to catalogue on
A2A
ALLIED MATERIALS:
In other repositories:
Appendix
E of Ashford's biography provides a detailed list of 'Archives containing
material relating to L.F. Richardson'. The principal collections listed are at
the University of Paisley, which holds about thirty files, chiefly of lecture
notes but also including correspondence and research notes, and sixty textbooks
with marginalia by Richardson, and the University of Lancaster which holds six
bound volumes of principally working material for books on peace research but
including correspondence and notes on other subjects, and two files on
languages and religion and on mapping of populations.
Rideal, Sir Eric Keightley, 1890-1974. Knight. Chemist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: Archives, Royal Institution, London.
Reference code: GB 0116 Rideal Collection
Title: Papers and correspondence of Sir Eric Keightley
Rideal, 1890-1974.
Dates of creation of material: 1936-1973.
Extent: 2 boxes.
CONTEXT
Biographical history:
Rideal was born at Sydenham, the son of Samuel Rideal,
a leading public analyst and consulting chemist. He was educated at Farnham Grammar School
and Oundle School, entering Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1907 to read natural sciences.
He graduated with a first class honours B.A. in 1910 and then went to study
electrochemistry in Germany
where he graduated Ph.D. Bonn in 1912. After two years electrochemical
consultancy work with U.R. Evans (q.v.) and First World War service he began
his academic career at Cambridge
University in 1921,
becoming Professor of Colloid Physics (later Colloid Science), 1930-1946. He was Fullerian
Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Laboratory, Royal
Institution, London, 1946-1949, and Professor of
Physical Chemistry, King's College, London,
1950-1955. He served on many committees and was Chairman, Advisory Council on
Scientific Research and Technical Development, Ministry of Supply. Rideal's scientific work ranged widely in physical
chemistry including electrochemistry, chemisorption
and catalysis, colloid and surface chemistry, and kinetics and spectroscopy.
He was elected FRS in 1930 (Davy Medal 1951) and was knighted in 1951.
Custodial history:
Received by NCUACS for cataloguing in 1978 from Lady Oliver,
daughter. Deposited in the Royal Institution in 1978.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary:
The papers are not extensive. Very little survives of Rideal's early scientific career or of his public service.
There are some speeches and writings which, although dating from his later
years, contain reminiscences of his career and of the development of colloid
and surface sciences.
Arrangement:
By section as follows: Articles, speeeches
and writings, Notes, drafts and working papers, Committees, conferences and
organisations, Scientific correspondence. Index of
correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Access to bona fide scholars by
appointment with the Director of Collections, Royal Institution.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Sir
Eric Keightley Rideal: CSAC
catalogue no. 62/6/78, 9 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
Robinson, Sir Robert, 1886-1975. Knight.
Chemist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT:
Repository: Library, Royal Society, London. Reference code: GB 0117 Robinson papers
Title: Papers and correspondence of Sir Robert Robinson, 1886-1975.
Dates of creation of material: ca 1902-1983.
Extent:
ca 580 items. 19 boxes, 9.5 shelf feet.
CONTEXT
Biographical history:
Robinson was born into a well-to-do-family of surgical
dressing manufacturers (Robinsons of Chesterfield). He entered Manchester University to read chemistry in 1902
aged sixteen, and on graduation began research there under W.H. Perkin. Other lasting relationships from this period were
with C. Weizmann (from 1906) and A. Lapworth (from 1909). In 1912 Robinson was appointed to his
first chair at the University of Sydney and subsequently occupied chairs of organic
chemistry at Liverpool (1915), St Andrews (1920), Manchester
(1922), University College London (1928), and the Waynflete
Chair of Chemistry, Oxford
(1930-1955): the university extended his tenure for four years after the normal
retirement age. In all these posts, Robinson developed productive research
schools working in a wide range of chemical problems, and in retirement his
activity continued in a small laboratory made available by the Shell Chemical
Company, where he was consultant.
He was elected FRS in 1920 (Bakerian Lecture 1930,
Davy Medal 1930, Royal Medal 1932, Copley Medal 1942, PRS 1945-1950) and was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947. The actual citation read 'for
his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the
alkaloids' though his Royal Society memorialists A.R.
Todd and J.W. Cornforth suggest that 'it would have
been equally, or possibly more, appropriate to have said "for his
outstanding contributions to the entire science of organic chemistry".' (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol 22, 426). Robinson was knighted in 1939
and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1949.
Custodial history
Most of the material was received for cataloguing in 1975
from Lady (Stearn) Robinson, and, after her death,
from her legal advisers.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
Robinson's volatile temperament and his impatience with
administration and routine have seriously affected the survival of material.
Thus little survives of his correspondence which he usually wrote in longhand
and without copies, or of his public life, service on committees, advisory
boards, learned societies, and in the launching of new journals. There are,
however, many manuscript notes in varying lengths of sequence and a few
notebooks relating to research topics. Examples are a sequence of ideas on the
possible structure of strychnine, tentatively dated 1945-1947 by J.W. Cornforth, and from a later period two relatively extensive
sequences of research and correspondence, on the origins of petroleum and on
drug research. Lacunae in the collection are to some extent compensated for by
the autobiographical material. There are the background material and corrected
proofs for the first volume of his memoirs published in 1976, and substantial
typescript drafts of the second volume which was unfinished at his death
together with narratives, correspondence and photographs sent to him by
colleagues. There are also tape-recordings of conversations with colleagues covering
similar types of recollections.
Arrangement:
By section as follows: Biographical and autobiographical,
Scientific research, Lectures and publications, Correspondence, Non-print
material. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Papers retain the period of confidentiality agreed at time
of the deposit. All new deposits closed for 30 years except by permission of
Officers of the Royal Society or the person controlling access.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Sir
Robert Robinson: CSAC catalogue no. 94/5/83, 101 pp. Copies available from
NCUACS, University
of Bath
Rotherham, Leonard,
1913-2001. Physicist, metallurgist
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository:
University of Bath Library. Reference code: GB 1128 Rotherham
Title:
Papers and correspondence of Leonard Rotherham 1913-2001
Dates
of creation of material: 1932 to 1996
Extent:
19 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history
Leonard Rotherham was born on 31 August 1913. He was
educated at the Herbert
Strutt School, Belper,
Derbyshire and won a Derby County Major Scholarship as
well as a state scholarship to attend University College London, where he
obtained a first class degree in physics with subsidiary mathematics. In 1935
he received an M.Sc. from the same institution for
research on the viscosity of liquids carried out under the supervision of
Professor E. N. da C. Andrade.
Rotherham's first industrial appointment was at the Brown-Firth Research
Laboratories in Sheffield, where he conducted
work on the physical and mechanical properties of metals with particular
reference to magnetism, fatigue and creep. By 1939 the laboratories under Rotherham’s direct control constituted half of all
the Brown-Firth research facilities. Rotherham’s
own research centred on the development of creep resistant materials. During
World War II this area of study gained additional importance through its
contribution to the evolution of jet propulsion engines and Rotherham
was personally concerned with the manufacture of the special materials which
went into the production of the experimental Whittle engines. He also had
special responsibilities for the monitoring and development of shells and
armour manufacture. After eleven years in Sheffield Rotherham became head
of the Metallurgy Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Hampshire. He initiated new programmes of research on
the extraction and characteristics of titanium, the corrosion behaviour and
high-temperature properties of aircraft structural materials and the fatigue
and creep of metals. After four years he left to take up a new post with
the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Industrial Group, Risley,
Cheshire.
As Director of Research at the UKAEA Rotherham set up and oversaw the large
organisation which was responsible for almost all the metallurgical work
involved in the design, installation and maintenance of the Calder Hall and Dounreay nuclear reactors. He left the UKAEA in 1958
to become the Member for Research of the Central Electricity Generating Board
(CEGB). At the CEGB Rotherham renewed his working association with Christopher
Hinton, later Lord Hinton of Bankside. Hinton
was Managing Director of the UKAEA, Industrial Group between 1954 and
1957. His departure to become Chairman of the CEGB preceded Rotherham's own transfer to that organisation by a year.
In 1966 Hinton was appointed Chancellor of the newly established Bath
University of Technology (later the University
of Bath) and in 1969 Rotherham
joined him as the institution’s second Vice-Chancellor. He remained
in this position until his retirement in 1976.
Rotherham was elected FRS in 1963 and
became a Founder Fellow of the Fellowship of Engineering in 1976. He was
President of the Institution of Metallurgists, 1964 and the Institute of Metals,
1965. He served on the Defence Scientific Advisory Council, 1967-1977,
the Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology, 1968-1970, and the
Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development, 1976-1981. He died
on 23 March 2001.
Custodial history
An original deposit of material by Rotherham in the University of Bath archives was supplemented in
December 1999 by papers received from his son, Mr Miles Rotherham.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
There is a small amount of biographical material relating to
various aspects of Rotherham’s
career. It includes correspondence and papers concerning Rotherham’s appointments at Brown-Firth, the UKAEA
and the CEGB, his membership of professional societies and organisations, and
documentation, in photographic form, relating to his career, 1957-1967.
There are notebooks from his years as undergraduate and postgraduate student at
University College London, off-prints of his published papers, 1942-1967, and
correspondence and papers relating to the British Fast Reactor Project,
1975-1976. There is a good record of lectures, speeches and talks given
by Rotherham as Director of Research, UKAEA, Member
for Research, CEGB, President of the Institution of Metallurgists and the
President of the Institute
of Metals.
Conferences and meetings attended by Rotherham
are documented, 1956-1969, including two Royal Society Discussion Meetings, on
heavy section steel structures and advanced methods of energy conversion which
he organised and chaired in 1964 and 1965. Service on a number of
advisory bodies is also documented, especially the University Grants Committee
Technology Sub-Committee, ten years from 1961, and the Central Advisory Council
for Science and Technology, 1968-1970. The surviving correspondence is
not extensive but covers the period 1952-1990.
Arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical, Research, Publications,
Lectures and speeches, Visits and conferences, Societies and organisations,
Correspondence. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access: Contact
the Archivist, University
of Bath Library
Language: English
Finding aids: Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Leonard Rotherham: NCUACS
catalogue no. 98/3/01, 65 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
· Back
to the top
Rothery, William Hume-,
1899-1968. Metallurgist.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository:
Bodleian Library, Oxford. Reference code: GB 0161 W. Hume-Rothery papers
Title:
Papers and correspondence of William Hume-Rothery,
1899-1968
Dates
of creation of material: 1924-1969
Extent:
11 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history
William Hume-Rothery was born in Worcester Park,
Surrey and educated at Cheltenham College, 1912-1916, before entering Royal Military
Academy, Woolwich to pursue
an army career. However, in 1917 he contracted cerebrospinal meningitis which
destroyed his nerves of hearing and impaired his sense of balance. His higher
education, and all his subsequent scientific career
were accomplished under this handicap. In 1918 he was accepted by Magdalen College, Oxford
where he read Chemistry in the Honour School of Natural Science. He was awarded
a Demyship by the College in 1920 and took a First
Class in 1922. After graduation, on the advice of F. Soddy (q.v.), Hume-Rothery went to the Royal College of Mines, Imperial College,
London,
1922-1925, to work under H.C.H. Carpenter, the Professor of Metallurgy, on the
structure and properties of intermetallic compounds.
He then returned to Oxford
where his early work on the science of metals and alloys began 'in one room -
more literally, on one bench'. He held various research fellowships from his
College, Magdalen, 1925-1929, the Armourers' and
Braziers' Company, 1929-1932, and the Warren Research Fellowship of the Royal
Society, 1932-1955. His work in the study of metallurgy helped to gain
university recognition for the subject, and Hume-Rothery
was the first holder of the George Kelley Readership in Metallurgy, 1955-1958,
and the first Isaac Wolfson Professor of Metallurgy,
1958-1966. He was elected FRS in 1937.
Custodial history
Received for cataloguing in 1973 from Mrs
Elizabeth Hume-Rothery, widow. Placed in Bodleian Library in 1973.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
The papers include notebooks, working papers and drafts for
lectures and publications, mainly for the later period of Hume-Rothery's career since he destroyed much of the material
relating to his early life because of pressure of space. There are, however,
copies of letters written by him to G. Headley (his former schoolmaster),
1924-1931, describing the progress of his researches. Hume-Rothery's
total deafness required his colleagues to communicate with him in writing. Some
of these conversation notes are separately preserved in notebooks, and others appear
as random jottings throughout the papers.
Arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical and printed work,
Laboratory notebooks, Working papers, Lectures,
Lecture notebooks, Publications, Correspondence. Index of
correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Entry permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's
card or an Oxford University Card displaying the Bodleian logo. All applicants
for new or replacement cards must apply in person, with a recommendation and payment
if required, and with proof of their identity.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of
William Hume-Rothery: CSAC catalogue no. 1/73, 11 pp.
Copies available from NCUACS, University
of Bath
Roughton, Francis John Worsley, 1899-1972. Physiologist, Colloid scientist
IDENTITY STATEMENT:
Repository:
Cambridge University Library. Reference code: GB 0012 CUL Roughton papers
Title:
Papers and correspondence of Francis John Worsley Roughton, 1899-1972.
Dates
of creation of material: 1905-1973.
Extent:
8 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history
Francis John Worsley Roughton was born on 6 January 1899 at Kettering where his father was the fifth
successive Roughton to practice medicine. He
was educated at Winchester
College (Scholar) and
Trinity College Cambridge (Scholar). As a young man he suffered from
attacks of paroxysmal tachycardia. In consequence he was unable to serve
in the First World War coming up to Trinity in 1917 on leaving Winchester. He was also advised that
his cardiac condition precluded his planned career in medicine. His
academic distinction was such (1st Class Natural Sciences Tripos
Part I) that although he was unable to take his Part II examinations because of
repeated cardiac attacks he was treated as if he had done so, and became a
graduate student. On completion of his thesis he was elected to a
Fellowship at Trinity (1923). He was successively Lecturer in
Biochemistry, 1923-1927 and Lecturer in Physiology, 1927-1947 at Cambridge. In 1925
he married Alice Hopkinson whose father had been
Professor of Engineering at Cambridge.
The foundations of Roughton’s research
career were laid working with H. Hartridge to make
the first rapid kinetic measurement on a solution by the mixing method.
His interest in these early years was mainly physiology and, with three other
young Cambridge
scientists M. Dixon, J. Needham and H. Tunnicliffe,
he belonged to an informal association called the Canula
Club which met to discuss topics in physiology. In 1929 he was
Rockefeller travelling fellow in the USA and was back again in America in 1940
at the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, conducting war-related research, chiefly on
the effects of carbon monoxide on respiration. He returned to Cambridge at the end of
the Second World War and in 1947 accepted an invitation to become the second
John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Colloid Science (in succession to E.K. Rideal) and Head of the Department of Colloid
Science. He presided over a rather disparate group in the Department
whose interests ranged from physical chemistry of proteins to ore
flotation. During the latter part of his tenure he attempted to re-direct
the work of the Department towards the study of membranes and biological
surface effects. However, such were the doubts about the existence of a
definable subject called Colloid Science that on his retirement in 1966 the
title of the department was extinguished in favour of Biophysics. During
the last 15 years of his life he spent an increasing amount of time in California and Milan
working on the basic problems of respiratory physiology and of the carbon
dioxide-haemoglobin interaction.
Roughton was elected FRS in 1936. He died at
Cambridge on 29
April 1972.
For a fuller account of the life and career of Roughton
see Q.H. Gibson’s memoir for the Royal Society, Biographical Memoirs
of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 19 (1973), 563-582.
Custodial history:
The papers were received in 1999 from Dr Rosemary Summers,
daughter. Deposited in Cambridge University
Library in 2000.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
Biographical papers form the largest group in the
collection. There is some documentation of school, undergraduate and
early scientific career but the principal component is a sequence of letters
and postcards from Roughton to his mother,
1905-1929. There are also smaller groups of letters from
‘friends’ including scientific and Trinity College Cambridge
colleagues from the period ca 1920-1925. Department of Colloid
Science papers principally relate to the future of colloid science and the
department on Roughton’s retirement. The
material includes Roughton’s correspondence
with the university authorities and scientific colleagues and papers by him and
others on future of colloid science at Cambridge.
There is also a list of Roughton’s publications
and a set of off-prints 1921-1973, the last item being an off-print of Q.H.
Gibson’s memoir for the Royal Society. Scientific correspondence is
not extensive but of some importance as relating to Roughton’s
Second World War research at Harvard. His correspondents are E.D. Adrian,
W.L. Bragg, R.H. Fowler and A.V. Hill.
Arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical, Department of Colloid Science,
Publications, Scientific correspondence. Index of
correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Access to holders of full Reader's Tickets
for Cambridge University Library.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of
Francis John Worsley Roughton:
NCUACS catalogue no. 88/1/00, 36 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
ALLIED MATERIALS
In other repositories
The principal deposit of Roughton
papers is housed at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadephia,
Pennsylvania.
Rowe, Albert Percival, 1898-1976. Scientific
and university administrator.
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository:
Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum, London. Reference code: GB 0062 P344-P345
Title:
Papers and correspondence of Albert Percival Rowe, 1898-1976
Dates
of creation of material: 1941-1975
Extent:
2 boxes
CONTEXT
Biographical history
Rowe was born in Launceston, Cornwall
and educated at the Dockyard School, Portsmouth and
the Royal College of Science (Imperial
College), London. He joined the Air Ministry as a
Member of the Scientific Staff in 1922 and became Assistant to H.E. Wimperis, first Director of Scientific Research, Air Ministry in 1925. In 1935 he became Secretary to the
Committee for the Scientific Study of Air Defence (CSSAD), the 'Tizard Committee'. He was Superintendent of various
research stations at Bawdsey, Dundee
and Swanage, and served, 1942-1945, as Chief
Superintendent, Telecommunications Research Establishment, Malvern.
He was Vice-Chancellor, Adelaide University, 1948-1958, and on retirement
returned to live at Malvern and taught mathematics and astronomy at Malvern
College, 1958-66.
Custodial history
Received for cataloguing in 1976-1977 from
Mrs Mary Rowe, widow. Deposited in the Imperial War Museum
in 1977.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
Rowe's own records for the period of his important war
service were all destroyed in error as 'secret waste' in 1945. Consequently the
collection contains little material for this period, although there are
references in the correspondence and lectures. Most of the material relates to
Rowe's service as Vice-Chancellor at Adelaide
where his talks and addresses illustrated his strong principles and endeavours
to promote rigorous standards.
Arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical and personal, Talks,
addresses and publications, Correspondence. Index of
correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
The Department of Documents is, subject to the discretion of
the Keeper, open to all members of the public over the age of 15. Access
to some collections is governed by special conditions which readers are bound
to observe.
Language:
English
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Albert
Percival Rowe: CSAC catalogue no. 47/1/77, 14 pp. Copies available from NCUACS,
University of Bath
Rowe, Peter Walter (1922-1997), geotechnical scientist
and civil engineer
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository: John
Rylands University Library of Manchester.
Reference code: GB 0133 PWR
Title: Papers and correspondence of Peter Walter Rowe, 1922-1997
Dates of creation of material: 1940-1997
Extent: 115 linear metres, 3587 items
CONTEXT
Biographical
history
Peter Walter Rowe was born at Bath on 2 July 1922. He was educated at Bristol
Grammar School and Bristol University,
where he graduated in 1943 with first class honours
in civil engineering. He immediately
began to contribute to the war effort, joining the Royal Aircraft Establishment
at Farnborough as a Junior Scientific Officer.
While at Farnborough Rowe developed his experimental research techniques
and published his first scientific paper, ‘Interpretation of the notched
bar impact test’, Engineer (1944). After Farnborough, Rowe spent two years as an
assistant engineer with Sir Robert McAlpine &
Sons, gaining valuable field experience, but he resumed his research in 1947,
when he was appointed
assistant lecturer under Professor Bill Marshall at St
Andrews. Rowe’s
doctoral thesis was on the behaviour of flexible
sheet pile walls, and he undertook experiments with scale models, using
techniques that he had learnt at Farnborough. This led to the publication in
1952 of his major paper, ‘Anchored sheet pile walls’ in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers. For this he was awarded
the ICE’s Telford Premium. Karl Terzaghi, the
founder of the science of soil mechanics, praised Rowe’s work, predicting
that it would form the basis of future design techniques.
In 1952 Rowe was appointed to a
lectureship at Manchester.
Initially he taught surveying techniques, and it was
only later that he taught soil mechanics. He continued to pursue his own
research on sheet piling, investigating walls in clay and different support
conditions. In order to facilitate physical modelling,
he constructed a fourteen-tonne capacity sand flume.
In 1956 he was awarded a D.Sc. by the University.
In the late 1950s Rowe embarked
on two further research projects of fundamental importance. The first was
theoretically based and concerned the inter-relationship between effective
stress and strain rate ratios for frictional materials. He realised
the importance of particle interactions in governing the behaviour
of all but the loosest-packed sands. The result was the ‘Rowe stress-dilatancy equation’, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in
1962. Although it was not realised at the time, this
relationship is fundamental for formulating constitutive relationships for
soils. Rowe’s research was founded upon the pioneering work of Osborne
Reynolds, the first Professor of Engineering at Manchester.
The second of Rowe’s
research projects was more practical and experimentally based. It concerned
measurements of the coefficients of consolidation and permeability of natural
clays. He observed that the detailed arrangements of clay particles and the inhomogeneity of a clay’s
‘fabric’ could dominate its drainage and consolidation
characteristics. One of the first samples to be tested was a lacustrine clay from the Derwent
Reservoir site, where Rowe’s colleague at the University, Edgar Morton,
was engaged as a consultant. Rowe argued that it was better to take a few large,
representative clay samples, selected from critical locations on a site, than a
large number of small random samples. He concluded that conventional laboratory
equipment was generally too small and inadequate to test these clays. He
therefore developed a series of Rowe Consolidation Cells, hydraulically-loaded oedometers of up to 500 mm diameter. Rowe Cells soon became
standard laboratory equipment throughout the world. The importance of soil
‘fabric’, sample size and testing technique formed the basis of the
12th Rankine Lecture delivered at the Institution of
Civil Engineers in 1972.
At Manchester, the opening of the Simon
Engineering Laboratories in 1962 permitted space for extensive soil materials
and soil mechanics laboratories. In the following year Rowe was appointed to
the Chair of Soil Mechanics. He built up an impressive research team and
research on soil mechanics was greatly facilitated by the inauguration in 1970
of a massive 700 g-tonne centrifuge, located adjacent
to the Simon Engineering Laboratories. Part-funded by industry, the facility
was originally built to test large embankment dams, but the machine was also
ideally suited to testing offshore engineering structures during the North Sea oil and gas boom. In 1973 Elf-Total commissioned
centrifuge tests on their platform for the Frigg
field, and for the next ten years many offshore structures were subjected to
exhaustive centrifuge testing, including the Hutton Field Tension Leg Platform.
The centrifuge laboratory was named the ‘Peter W. Rowe Laboratory’
in 1982 and remained in regular use into the twenty-first century.
Rowe combined his pre-eminence in
laboratory research and academic work with a remarkable career spanning forty
years as a geotechnical consultant, both in Britain and overseas. He advised on
many dam schemes, such as those at Derwent, Kielder and Grimwith. He was
employed as a consultant by the Manchester Ship Canal Company for many years,
advising on a great variety of issues and proposals. Rowe worked on a wide
variety of other major projects in Britain: sea closures and docks, including
the Severn barrage scheme, Immingham docks and Faslane shipyard; nuclear power stations, such as those at Hinkley Point ‘B’, Hartlepool,
Oldbury and Torness;
road-building programmes, among them the M63 Sale
By-pass and the A55 North Wales Coast Road; numerous sewerage schemes; and
other projects relating to housing developments, land reclamation schemes, coal
mines, silos, chemical and gas storage facilities, and factory and office developments.
Rowe’s international
reputation ensured that his consultancy services were in demand across the
world, from the Arctic Ocean to the Falklands, from the Netherlands to Fiji. Among the most significant
projects in which he was involved were the construction of two eight-mile
crossings of the Jamuna River in Bangladesh, which
scours 60 metres deep, for electricity, gas, road and
rail links; the Hat Creek Thermal Power Project in Canada; and the foundations
for both 180,000 and 333,000 tonne grain silos and a
130,000 tonne sugar silo on a coral reef in Saudi
Arabia. Rowe claimed that the most interesting job he ever worked on was the Oosterschelde Storm Surge Barrier in The Netherlands, which
involved the construction of giant caissons to seal off the mouth of the Oosterschelde. He was also invited by the Italian
Government to advise on measures to halt the
settlement of Venice.
Rowe retired from Manchester in
1982, but his research and consultancy work continued unabated, and he worked
six or seven days a week consulting, writing and lecturing on geotechnical
engineering, until shortly before his death. In 1985 he gave the keynote
lecture at the 18th Congress of the International Association of Hydrogeologists in Cambridge.
In 1986 the Geotechnical Group at Manchester
celebrated its one hundredth postgraduate research degree since Rowe’s
arrival in 1952. The quality of his consultancy work, and his forensic methods
of investigating problems, meant that Rowe was regularly called upon as an
expert witness in professional disputes and arbitration cases. He was involved
in some thirty-five cases spread over forty years, for example, the case
concerning the major failure of the Carsington
Reservoir dam in 1984, as it neared completion, and its subsequent reconstruction.
He was awarded the Gold Medal of
the University of Liege; the Silver Medal of the University of New South
Wales; the Hogentogler
Award of the American Society of Testing Materials; the Cooper Hill War
Memorial Prize of the Institution of Civil Engineers; and several awards from
the British Geotechnical Society. He received a Telford Gold Medal in 1969, the
highest award of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Rowe died on 28 April 1997 at the
age of seventy four.
Custodial
history:
The bulk of the papers were received from the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester to which they were donated in 1998 by Rowe’s widow,
Ann. There were several minor accessions
of additional material, 2001-2003. Placed in John
Rylands University Library of Manchester 2004.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope
and content summary:
Rowe left a very substantial
archive that documents every aspect of his career, 1940-1997, as an academic
and research scientist, as a consulting geotechnical engineer, and as an expert
witness in many legal cases. It constitutes a major source for the history of
geotechnical science and civil engineering in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Biographical and personal,
comprises biographical and personal information on Rowe, such as curricula
vitae, documents relating to some of the many honours
and awards received by him during his lifetime, and copies of obituaries and
posthumous tributes. There is also a
series of field notebooks compiled by Rowe during site visits.
University of St Andrews, covers the period 1947-1952. The few papers that have survived from this
period relate to his lecturing and practical work at the University’s
academic centre in Dundee. The papers are not extensive and largely
comprise tutorial and lecture notes in soil mechanics. Rowe resigned his
lectureship in 1952 to take up an appointment at the University of Manchester.
University of Manchester, comprises Rowe’s notes for lectures and tutorials
given at the University of Manchester, details of research projects undertaken
by the University, minutes of departmental committees and miscellaneous
administrative material for Manchester
University and UMIST,
1952-1990. In addition, records relating
to Rowe’s involvement in the University’s Osborne Reynolds Society
can be found in this section.
Consultancy work,
constitutes the bulk of the archive, and comprises files relating to the many
projects in Britain
and overseas with which Rowe was involved as a consultant or an expert
witness. There are approximately five
hundred projects and cases, of which the majority (over three
hundred) are represented in the series British Construction
Projects. This series is further broken
down by project type. Other series,
International Construction Projects and Offshore Structures, reflect
Rowe’s international reputation in the fields of soil mechanics and civil
engineering. Whereas Rowe was employed
on an ad-hoc basis to advise on particular
construction projects or litigation cases, he was retained by the Manchester Ship
Canal Company for over thirty years to advise on a wide range of issues
relating to canal banks, docks, locks and sludge deposit grounds. These papers therefore form a separate
series. The documentation of individual projects and cases typically includes
correspondence, maps and plans, site investigation material such as bore-hole
logs, notes, sketches, calculations, laboratory test data, and
photographs. It varies in quantity from
a single slim file to the 180 folders spanning four decades that relate to Carsington Reservoir in Derbyshire. Rowe was invited to
submit evidence as an expert witness in many arbitration and legal cases. These
files form a separate series, Litigation, although there is some overlap of
subject matter with the files in British Construction Projects.
Research, reflects the
theoretical and experimental research activities and interests pursued by Rowe
throughout his career, from his early investigations into sheet pile walls in
the late 1940s and 1950s, through work on dams and reservoirs in the 1960s, to
the testing of offshore structures in the 1970s and 1980s. The majority of
Rowe’s research took place at Manchester,
and was greatly facilitated by the construction of the massive centrifuge
adjacent to the Simon Engineering Laboratories. This was designed to test dam
structures, but was later used extensively to test offshore oil and gas
facilities. The development of the Rowe Consolidation Cell for testing clays,
and the ring shear apparatus used to measure the shearing resistance of drained
soils, are also documented in this section of the archive. Although
Rowe’s academic research contrasted with his commercial consultancy work,
inevitably there was significant cross-fertilization between the two aspects of
his career. Engineering problems and issues encountered in the course of
consultancy projects tended to influence Rowe’s research interests, and
provided ‘real-world’ data for testing and experimentation, much of
which was very practically based. Simultaneously his work as a consultant
benefited from the knowledge he gained in the laboratory. Consequently there is
some overlap of subject matter between this and previous section.
Publications and technical
papers, comprises drafts and proofs of some of the many geotechnical papers
produced by Rowe, with associated notes and correspondence; drafts of
unpublished monographs prepared by Rowe, with notes and correspondence; and
drafts and proofs of papers written by others but submitted to Rowe for comment
or review. Lectures, relates to
lectures and speeches delivered by Rowe, apart from his routine university
lecturing duties. Among the most
significant was the Twelfth Rankine Lecture on soil
sampling and testing techniques, given to the British Geotechnical Society at
the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1972.
Besides draft and final texts of lectures, there is correspondence
concerning the arrangements for lectures, preparatory notes, lists
of slides, programmes and letters of thanks. Visits and conferences, is not extensive. It
documents Rowe’s attendance at thirty-four international and UK visits and
conferences 1964-1992.
Professional
bodies, covers Rowe’s involvement with nine,
principally British societies and organizations, 1955-1995. The largest body of material relates to the
Institution of Civil Engineers. Rowe was elected as a member of the ICE
in 1952 (Fellow 1963). He was also a
member of the Geotechnique Advisory Panel, 1963-1968.
Correspondence,
presents correspondence arising from Rowe’s research, academic and
consultancy activities throughout his career.
It is divided as follows: Files of Outgoing Letters, Academic Correspondence Files, Scientific Correspondence Files, Shorter Scientific Correspondence, Consultancy Correspondence and References and
Recommendations. It should be noted that the majority of
Rowe’s correspondence is to be found with other types of material in the
thematic sections of the archive, for example Consultancy, Research and
Publications and technical papers
Arrangement:
By section as follows: Biographical and personal, University of
St Andrews, University of Manchester , Consultancy work, Research, Publications
and technical papers, Lectures, Visits and conferences, Professional bodies, Correspondence.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE:
Access:
Admission to the Special
Collections Reading Room is by ticket only, either a valid University of Manchester
library card or a ticket issued from the Reading Room itself. In the latter
case prior written application is normally required though immediate admission
may sometimes be possible on production of a letter of introduction and/or
formal proof of identity. In either case additional identification or
authorization may be requested. There is no charge for using Special
Collections material.
Language:
English.
Finding aids:
Printed Catalogue of the papers and
correspondence of Peter Walter Rowe. NCUACS catalogue no. 132/4/04,
455pppp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath
Runcorn, Stanley Keith, 1922-1995. Geophysicist
IDENTITY STATEMENT
Repository:
The College Archives, Imperial College London. Reference code: GB 0098 B/RUNCORN
Title:
Papers and correspondence of Stanley Keith Runcorn, 1922-1995
Dates
of creation of material: 1936-1995
Extent:
100 boxes, ca 2,800 items
CONTEXT
Biographical history
Runcorn was born on 19 November 1922 in Southport, Lancashire. He was educated at King George V School in Southport, before going on to Gonville
and Caius College Cambridge in 1941. He studied
for the Mechanical Sciences Tripos, 1941-1943
(graduated BA in 1944, MA 1948) before war service as an Experimental Officer
at the Radar Research and Development Establishment, Great Malvern,
Worcestershire, 1943-1946. In 1946 he moved to the University of Manchester
where he was Assistant Lecturer in Physics, 1946-1948, and Lecturer in Physics,
1948-1949. He undertook research under P.M.S. Blackett
on the Earth’s magnetic field and was awarded his Ph.D. in 1949.
Runcorn returned to Cambridge
in 1950, where he was made Assistant Director of Research in the Department of
Geodesy and Geophysics. Building on his work at Manchester, he established a research team to
work on palaeomagnetism. Leaving Cambridge in
1956, he moved to Newcastle to take up the Chair of Physics at King’s
College (then part of the University of Durham, becoming the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne in 1963), a post he held until his retirement in
1988. After retirement Runcorn continued active research. He was
appointed Sydney Chapman Professor of Physical Science at the University of Alaska
and was also a Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London.
Runcorn was murdered in a hotel room in San Diego, California
in December 1995, at the age of 73.
Runcorn was one of the most distinguished British geophysicists of the
twentieth century. He made important contributions in a number of areas,
with an active research career spanning six decades. Under Blackett in the late 1940s he studied how the intensity of
the magnetic field of the Earth increases with depth. This work, carried
out in deep coal mines in England,
disproved Blackett’s initial predictions from
his theory on the generation of magnetism by rotating bodies. Runcorn continued
this research at Cambridge,
while also beginning to study the polarity reversals of the Earth’s
magnetic field. From the 1950s, using samples of igneous and sedimentary
rocks, many derived from field trips to the American west,
he demonstrated that the ancient directions of the Earth’s magnetic field
at different periods of geological time could be calculated. His
demonstration of the westward displacement of the poles from America in relation to Europe
was a powerful support for the theory of continental drift.
Runcorn’s interest in plate tectonics continued with his participation in
projects to study Earth currents using deep ocean cables.
Other contributions made by Runcorn to studies of the Earth were in the area
of solid state physics, where he argued that solid state creep below the
lithosphere resulting in convection in the mantle of the Earth was the
fundamental mechanism of continental drift, and work on the Earth’s
rotation, in which he used evidence from corals and other fossils to study
irregular fluctuations in the length of the day over geological time.
From the mid-1960s Runcorn developed a special interest and expertise in
planetary science, studies of the Moon in particular. In 1969 he was
appointed by NASA to be a principal investigator in its Apollo lunar program
and was able to study samples of rocks returned by the astronauts. He
greatly enhanced understanding of the Moon’s magnetic field, positing the
existence of a small iron core. Following his studies of the ancient
lunar magnetic field and polar wandering, he also advanced the idea that the
Moon had once had a primeval satellite system of its own. Apart from his
pioneering research work Runcorn made significant contributions to national and
international geophysics and lunar science through his wide-ranging involvement
with national and international organisations and his active participation in
conferences and seminars. In Britain he served on numerous Royal
Society committees including the British National Committees for Geodesy and
Geophysics, Geodynamics, and Space Research, as well as its Planetary Sciences
Study Group, Space Ranging Research Committee and Allocation Committee for
Soviet Lunar Samples, among others.
Runcorn was an important figure in European space science efforts. He was
prominent in both the European Science Foundation, pressing for it to give a
higher priority to space science, and the European Space Agency from 1979
(contributing to three research proposals for mission proposals). On the
international stage he served on COSPAR (the Committee on Space Research of the
International Council of Scientific Unions), the International Union of
Astronomy (serving as President of its Commission 17 on the Moon), the
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (the Upper Mantle Committee) and
the Inter-Union Commission for Studies of the Moon (serving as President 1975).
Runcorn travelled widely, particularly to the United States. He regularly
attended meetings of the American Geophysical Union and was a frequent visitor
to the Lunar and Planetary Science Institute, Houston, Texas,
attending most of the Lunar Science Conferences held there. Runcorn would
generally combine conference attendance with an extensive programme of visits
to colleagues at other research centres throughout the US, and sometimes Canada. He also spent periods
as a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
and contributed to NASA’s lunar polar orbiter
project. Runcorn also made numerous visits to the continent of Europe, particularly in connection with European space
projects. In the UK he
attended many meetings, particularly Royal Astronomical Society and Royal
Society discussion meetings in London, and NATO
Advanced Study Institutes held at Newcastle.
Runcorn was elected FRS in 1965. He was awarded the Vetlesen Prize of Columbia University
and the Vetlesen Foundation in 1971, the John Adams
Fleming Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1983, the Gold Medal of the
Royal Astronomical Society in 1984 and the Wegener
Medal of the European Union of Geosciences in 1987.
Custodial history
The papers were received from Mr Neil Molyneux,
nephew, in May 1998. Placed in Imperial College
Archives in 2002.
CONTENT HISTORY
Scope and content summary
Biographical material includes some biographical accounts,
material relating to a few of Runcorn’s many honours, diaries for the
period 1967-1983, and papers relating to his interest in the history of science
and of the earth sciences in particular. There are also notebooks and
loose notes providing good coverage of Runcorn’s schoolwork and
undergraduate studies. Documentation of Runcorn’s principal
academic affiliations is not extensive. His period at the University of Manchester
is chiefly represented by teaching material although this includes notes
adapted from Runcorn’s time at Cambridge
and the Radar Research and Development Establishment. Some of this
material may have been used for teaching on his return to Cambridge in 1950. Although he held a Chair at the University of Newcastle for over thirty years,
Runcorn’s frequent travelling and numerous outside commitments meant his
participation in the life of the university and the day-to-day running of his
department was limited. There is material relating to establishment of
the University in 1963 from a College of the University
of Durham, general university policy
including Senate reform, and some School
of Physics papers,
including lectures and teaching material.
There is documentation of Runcorn’s research over six decades from the
1940s to the 1990s. There is only one notebook of his wartime research at
the Radar Research and Development Establishment, but much fuller coverage of
work at Manchester and Cambridge in the late 1940s and early 1950s covering
studies of the Earth’s magnetic field, including data from bore holes
made in coal mines (illustrated by the coal dust still adhering to a number of
the notebooks). There is documentation of work collecting and analysing
geological samples in the western United States from the later 1950s
and early 1960s and further research on the magnetic field and ancient polarity
of the Earth. Runcorn’s principal research interests of his later
career are also well documented. There is extensive material relating to
his continued research on continental drift, with data from deep ocean cables,
principally in the Pacific Ocean from the
1960s to the 1990s. Runcorn’s interest in lunar magnetism and other
aspects of planetary science from the mid-1960s onwards is well represented
with significant research material relating to Moon samples and research
projects for lunar and planetary probes.
Publications material is represented by a sequence of drafts of published
and unpublished papers by Runcorn, covering the period 1950-1993 with some
undated material. A significant number of the drafts listed do not appear
to have been published, although apparently prepared with publication in
mind. However, it has not been easy in all cases to separate out different
drafts; many of Runcorn’s articles were similarly titled, in many cases
he repeatedly returned to the same topics over a period of time, and he would
also use extracts from earlier drafts to construct later papers. There is
a short sequence of drafts for Runcorn’s public and invitation lectures
delivered 1972-1993, together with illustrative material. However, the
bulk of his lecturing at conferences and seminars is to be found documented
with the visits and conferences material to which it relates. There is an
extensive record of Runcorn’s travel and attendance at conferences from
1956 to 1994. He made a very great number of visits abroad, mainly to the
USA but also to the
continent of Europe, and a few to Australia
and Asia. Although his visits generally
were tied in with attendance at specific conferences or meetings, Runcorn very
often took the opportunity to visit colleagues and deliver lectures at other
research centres and there may be voluminous correspondence relating to such
more informal visits, as well as the material relating to the meetings he was
attending, drafts of lectures, programmes and itineraries etc. UK material includes good documentation of
Runcorn’s attendance at Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Society
discussion meetings, and of his work promoting, organising and contributing to
NATO Advanced Study Institutes held at Newcastle.
Records of Runcorn’s scientific societies and organisations are very
extensive and document some of Runcorn’s most important contributions to science.
His involvement with 29 UK,
international and overseas organisations, chiefly in the fields of geophysics
and space science is represented. The largest body of material relates to
Runcorn’s service on Royal Society committees - the British National
Committees for Geodesy and Geophysics, Geodynamics, and Space Research, the
Planetary Sciences Study Group and the Space Ranging Research
Committee. There is also material reflecting his concern at
inadequate teaching and research facilities for the earth sciences in British
universities. Runcorn’s international contributions to geophysics
and space science are also well represented in the papers. There is
significant material relating to his participation in the work of COSPAR, the
International Astronomical Union (Commissions 16, Physical Studies of Planets
and Satellites, and 17, the Moon; and the Working Group on Planetary System
Nomenclature), and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (in
particular the work of the Upper Mantle Committee). There is also
important documentation of his contribution to the work of the European Science
Foundation and the European Space Agency.
Most of Runcorn’s correspondence was kept with his research records or
those documenting professional affiliations or visits and conferences.
There is, however, a short sequence of correspondence alphabetically arranged
by named individual (principally with W.F. and L.M. Libby of the University of California Los Angeles) and a
chronological sequence 1948-1995.
Arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical, University of
Manchester, University of Newcastle, Research, Publications, Lectures,
Societies and organisations, Visits and conferences, Correspondence. Index of correspondents.
CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE
Access:
Admission is by appointment only to bona fide scholars; prior proof of
status and proof of identity is required.
Language:
English
Finding
aids: Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Stanley Keith
Runcorn: NCUACS catalogue no.104/3/02, 380 pp. Copies
available from NCUACS, University
of Bath.
Last updated 20 September 2006. T.E.Powell@bath.ac.uk