Professor Robert Williams

 

Robert Joseph Paton Williams MBE FRS[3] (25 February 1926 – 21 March 2015) was an English chemist, an Emeritus Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Oxford.

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Robert Williams was born on 25 February 1926 in Wallasey to Ernest Ivor Williams, a customs and excise officer at Liverpool, and Alice Williams (née Roberts), a milliner; he was the second of four children.

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Williams failed to gain a scholarship to Wallasey Grammar School, having missed six months’ schooling with diphtheria., but his parents paid for him to attend. He went on to gain a place and be awarded a Postmastership to read chemistry at Merton College, Oxford in 1944. For his final undergraduate research year he worked with analytical chemist Dr Harry M N H Irving resulting in valuable research.

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Williams’s plan was to continue working with Irving for his DPhil, but he first visited the lab of Arne Tiselius at Uppsala University in Sweden. He was impressed by what he saw there, and returned after he gained his DPhil in 1950. During the longer stay he worked on protein purification and devised a method called gradient elution analysis.

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Williams then spent another period back at Merton, having won a Junior Research Fellowship, Then, “out of the blue, in 1954, Sir Cyril Hinshelwood FRS, then Oxford Professor of Chemistry, asked to see Bob.” He was told that three colleges - Christ Church, Pembroke and Wadham - needed a tutor in chemistry. “Each one will invite you to dine. Come back again in two weeks to give me your decision.” Williams joined Wadham College in 1955 and remained there for the rest of his life. He retired in 1991 and set about writing several important books on chemical elements and chemical evolution.

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While he was in Uppsala Williams met Jelly Klara Büchli, a Dutch student from Groningen. They married in 1952 and then lived in Oxford.

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Williams was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to the community in North Oxford.

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He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1972 and was a Foreign Member of the Swedish, Portuguese, Czechoslovakian and Belgian science academies. He was a medallist of the Biochemical Society (twice), the Royal Society (twice), the Royal Society of Chemistry (three times), the European Biochemical Societies (twice) and the International Union of Biochemistry. He won the Royal Medal in 1995.

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The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences", done within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

Source: Wikipedia