Sir John Harold Horlock FREng. 19 April 1928 — 22 May 2015

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 213-232
Author(s):  
J. D. Denton ◽  
J. P. Gostelow
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Fluid Mechanics ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Jet Engines ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Personal Skills ◽  
Frequent Visitor

John Harold Horlock was one of the outstanding engineers of his generation. His expertise was in the thermodynamics and fluid mechanics of turbines and compressors, as used for jet engines and for power generation. He made major contributions to this field over 60 years. After graduating from Cambridge he worked for Rolls-Royce for two years before returning to Cambridge to study for his PhD, and was subsequently appointed a lecturer in engineering and a Fellow of St John's College. At the age of 30 he was elected to the Harrison Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Liverpool, where he remained for nine years, producing an impressive amount of individual research as well as transforming the department into one of the best in the country. Returning to a chair at Cambridge he reorganized the Mechanical Sciences Tripos and founded the Whittle Laboratory, which became one of the world's leading centres for turbomachinery research. He then became Vice-Chancellor of Salford University, remaining there for seven years before moving on to become Vice-Chancellor of the Open University. After retirement at the of age 62 he continued to be very active: as a consultant, as Treasurer and Vice President of the Royal Society, as a frequent visitor to the Whittle Laboratory and as the author of many papers and several books. Knighted in 1996, Sir John Horlock will be remembered not only for his intellectual abilities but also for his personal skills, which enabled him to interact freely with all levels of society, from cabinet ministers to graduate students.

scholarly journals Richard Evelyn Donohue Bishop, 1 January 1925 - 12 September 1989

1994 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Hepatic Abscess ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
Commonwealth Fund ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
University College London

Richard Evelyn Donohue Bishop, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Brunei University, Uxbridge, died after a short illness at Queen Alexandra’s Hospital, Portsmouth, on Tuesday 12 September 1989. Although he suffered a mild heart attack some 14 months earlier, his death was caused by the combined effects of a hepatic abscess and septicaemia. Ironically, for this very active individual, his heart had fully recovered from the earlier damage. Dick had a fine, clear mind which brought him significant achievements and honours in the scientific world. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1980), a Vice-President and Member of the Council of the Royal Society (1986-1988), a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1977), a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, a Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a Chartered Engineer. Other awards bestowed upon him were Commonwealth Fund Fellow (1949-1951), Fellow of University College London (1964), President of the British Acoustical Society (now the Institute of Acoustics, 1966-1968), Hon. Member, Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (1968), CBE (1979), and Hon. Fellow, Portsmouth Polytechnic (now University, 1982). A distinguished engineer with an international reputation both in mechanical engineering and naval architecture, Dick was recognized as a communicator par excellence in matters of science and engineering. In technical matters he was a man of vision, able to discuss the principles of mathematics and engineering. He sought academic excellence and scholarship in the tasks he set himself and had the ability to take a complex dynamics problem and reduce it to a discussion or analysis of the fundamental principles involved. Although trained as a mechanical engineer, when asked about his professional background the usual response was ‘a dynamicist and a sort of engineer’. There is no doubting his love for dynamics. He enjoyed change - even change for change’s sake - and quickly became bored by statics and steady state, both professionally and in administration.

Struther Arnott. 25 September 1934 — 20 April 2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Sir Dai Rees
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Molecular Model ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Dna And Rna ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Refinement Method ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Diffraction Patterns ◽  
Difference Fourier

Struther Arnott worked tirelessly as a researcher, teacher, leader and maker and implementer of policy in universities in Britain and the USA, always carrying his colleagues along with him through his infectious energy and breadth of academic enthusiasms and values. His outlook was shaped by the stimulus of a broad Scottish education that launched wide interests inside and outside science, including the history and literature of classical civilizations. His early research, with John Monteath Robertson FRS, was into structure determination by X-ray diffraction methods for single crystals, at a time when the full power of computers was just becoming realized for solution of the phase problem. With tenacity and originality, he then extended these approaches to materials that were to a greater or lesser extent disordered and even more difficult to solve because their diffraction patterns were poorer in information content. He brought many problems to definitive and detailed conclusion in a field that had been notable for solutions that were partial or vague, especially with oriented fibres of DNA and RNA but also various polysaccharides and synthetic polymers. His first approach was to use molecular model building in combination with difference Fourier analysis. This was followed later, and to even greater effect, by a computer refinement method that he developed himself and called linkedatom least-squares refinement. This has now been adopted as the standard approach by most serious centres of fibre diffraction analysis throughout the world. After the 10 years in which he consolidated his initial reputation at the Medical Research Council Biophysics Unit at King's College, London, in association with Maurice Wilkins FRS, he moved to Purdue University in the USA, first as Professor of Biology then becoming successively Head of the Department of Biological Sciences and Vice-President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School. As well as continuing his research, he contributed to the transformation of biological sciences at that university and to the development of the university's general management. He finally returned to his roots in Scotland as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, to draw on his now formidable experience of international scholarship and institutional management, to reshape the patterns of academic life and mission to sit more happily and successfully within an environment that had become beset with conflict and change. He achieved this without disturbance to the harmony and wisdom embodied in the venerable traditions of that ancient Scottish yet cosmopolitan university.

scholarly journals Address BY Dr. J. H. Jeans, President of the Royal Astronomical Society and Secretary of the Royal Society.

1925 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 151-152
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Special Care ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Astronomical Society ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
Royal Astronomical Society ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Lord Chancellor

My Lord Chancellor, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Campbell, Ladies and Gentlemen: It would be an impertinence on my part to try to add anything to the Cambridge welcome which the Chancellor has offered you, but it is my privilege to be allowed to offer you a few words of welcome from a somewhat different angle. As the Chancellor has said, it is my good fortune to be officially connected with the two learned societies to whom, I suppose, your visit to this country means most: the Royal Society, which takes all natural knowledge for its province, and which is especially interested in international co-operation in the pursuit of such knowledge, and the Royal Astronomical Society, which takes astronomical knowledge for its special care. I am sure that both these bodies would wish that I should seize this opportunity to offer a most cordial welcome to our astronomical visitors from other countries; a welcome not only to Cambridge, but to this country in general. We feel it right that your visit should begin at Cambridge, but we are sure it is not right that it should end there; we hope you will remember that, after Cambridge, London also exists.

scholarly journals John Sutton, 8 July 1919 - 6 September 1992

1995 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 440-456
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Imperial College ◽  
The West ◽  
North West ◽  
Precambrian Rocks ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire Career ◽  
World Centre

John Sutton was a geologist who made an important contribution to the understanding of the Precambrian rocks of north-west Scotland, and his methods have been applied by others in many parts of the world. His entire career was spent at Imperial College, where he was associated with the growth of the Geology Department from small beginnings to a world centre, and he took part in many of the science policy debates of the seventies and eighties. He was appointed a Vice-President of the Royal Society in 1975, and in that office he was instrumental in establishing the first contacts between the West and the scientific community in China.

scholarly journals Sir Derman Guy Christopherson. 6 September 1915 — 7 November 2000

2004 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
Duncan Dowson ◽  
Gordon Higginson
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Fluid Mechanics ◽  
Viscous Flow ◽  
Relaxation Method ◽  
Mathematical Skills ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
Physical Insight ◽  
At Home

Derman Christopherson was characterized principally by his kindness and humanity, recognized by all who knew him, in any capacity. Those who came into contact with him professionally soon appreciated his physical insight and his versatility—he was equally at home with solid and fluid mechanics and he had considerable mathematical skills. He recommended to his graduate students that success came from the ability ‘to bring home the bacon in a number of fields’. He was an inspirational supervisor—informal, personal, friendly. In relatively few papers he contributed significant applications in elasticity, plasticity and viscous flow, and pioneered the application of Southwell's relaxation method to the solution of engineering problems.

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