George Porter
| The Right Honourable The Lord Porter of Luddenham OM FRS FRSE | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | George Porter 6 December 1920 Stainforth, England |
| Died | 31 August 2002 (aged 81) |
| Alma mater | University of Leeds (BSc) Emmanuel College, Cambridge (PhD) |
| Known for | Flash photolysis |
| Spouse | Stella Jean Brooke (since 1949)[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Thesis | The study of free radicals produced by photochemical means (1949) |
| Doctoral advisor | Ronald Norrish |
| Doctoral students | James Robert Durrant[2] Graham Fleming |
| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Lord Temporal | |
| Life peerage 16 July 1990 – 31 August 2002 | |
George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham, OM, FRS, FRSE (6 December 1920 – 31 August 2002) was a British chemist.[3] He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967.
Education and early life
Porter was born in Stainforth, near Thorne, in the then West Riding of Yorkshire. He was educated at Thorne Grammar School,[4] then won a scholarship to the University of Leeds and gained his first degree in chemistry. During his degree, Porter was taught by Meredith Gwynne Evans, who he said was the most brilliant chemist he had ever met. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1949 for research investigating free radicals produced by photochemical means.[5] He later became a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.[6]
Career and research
During the Second World War Porter served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He then went on to do research supervised by Ronald George Wreyford Norrish at the University of Cambridge, where he began the work that ultimately led to them becoming Nobel laureates.
His original research in developing the technique of flash photolysis to obtain information on short-lived molecular species provided the first evidence of free radicals. His later research utilised the technique to study the detailed aspects of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis, with particular regard to possible applications to a hydrogen economy, of which he was a strong advocate.
From 1953 to 1954 he served as Assistant Director of the British Rayon Research Association, where he studied the phototendering of dyed cellulose fabrics in sunlight.[7]
Porter served as professor in the Chemistry department at the University of Sheffield from 1954 to 1965. Here he started his work on flash photolysis with equipment designed and made in the departmental workshop. During this tenure he took part in a television programme describing his work in the "Eye on Research" series. Porter became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in London and Director of the Royal Institution in 1966. During his directorship of the Royal Institution, Porter was instrumental in the setting up of Applied Photophysics, a company formed to supply instrumentation based on his group's work. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967 along with Manfred Eigen and Ronald George Wreyford Norrish.[8] In the same year he became a visiting professor at University College London.[8]
Porter was a major contributor to the public understanding of science, and championed the cause of "not-yet-applied science".[9] He became president of the British Association in 1985 and was the founding Chair of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS). He gave the Romanes Lecture, entitled "Science and the human purpose", at the University of Oxford in 1978; and in 1988 he gave the Dimbleby Lecture, "Knowledge itself is power". From 1990 to 1993 he gave the Gresham lectures in astronomy.
Awards and honours
Porter was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1960,[10] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1979,[11] a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1986,[12] and served as President of the Royal Society from 1985 to 1990. He was also awarded the Davy Medal in 1971, the Rumford Medal in 1978, the Ellison-Cliffe Medal in 1991 and the Copley Medal in 1992.
Porter received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1971.[13]
He was knighted in 1972, appointed to the Order of Merit in 1989,[14] and became a life peer as Baron Porter of Luddenham, of Luddenham in the County of Kent, in 1990. In 1995, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) from the University of Bath.[15]
In 1976 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Natural History of a Sunbeam.[16]
Porter served as Chancellor of the University of Leicester between 1984 and 1995. In 2001, the university named its chemistry building the George Porter Building in his honour.
Family
In 1949 Porter married Stella Jean Brooke.
Publications
- Chemistry for the Modern World (1962)
- Chemistry in Microtime (1996)
See also
- List of presidents of the Royal Society
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
George Porter — Archbishop of Bombay, b. 1825 at Exeter, England; d. at Bombay, 28 September, 1889. Of Scottish descent, he was educated at Stonyhurst and joined the Society of Jesus in 1841. After making his novitiate at Hodder, and devoting three years to philosophy at Stonyhurst, he was employed in teaching at Stonyhurst, and at St. Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool, becoming prefect of studies at the former college in 1849. In 1853 he went to St. Beuno's College, North Wales, for theology, and in 1856 was ordained priest. His theological studies were completed in Rome under Passaglia and Schrader. After two years more spent at Stonyhurst and a year Liesse, near Laon, Father Porter returned to St. Beuno's, where for four years he occupied the chair of dogmatic theology. He was then appointed rector at Liverpool, but was moved to London in 1871, becoming master of novices two year later. In 1881 he was appointed rector of Farm Street, London, but was soon called to Fiesole as assistant to the general. In December, 1886, he was made Archbishop of Bombay (q.v.). Father Porter's collected "Letters" (1891) reveal the versatility of his mind, and his skill in direction. He translated or wrote prefaces for a number of spiritual books and compiled "The Priest's Manual for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass" (Liverpool, 1858). Some of his meditations and considerations have been printed for private circulation.
GILLOW, Bibl. Dic. Eng. Cath. s. v.
Charles Plater.
References
- Back to citation "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967".
- Back to citation Durrant, James Robert (1991). Transient absorption spectroscopy of photosystem two. spiral.imperial.ac.uk (PhD thesis). Imperial College London. hdl:10044/1/11455. OCLC 855696059. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.573962.
- Back to citation Phillips, David (2002). "Obituary: George Porter (1920–2002)". Nature. 419 (6907): 578. Bibcode:2002Natur.419.578P. doi:10.1038/419578a. PMID 12374966. S2CID 30532134.
- Back to citation "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/77183. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
- Back to citation Porter, George (1949). The study of free radicals produced by photochemical means (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
- Back to citation "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
- Back to citation David Phillips The Biography of George Porter Archived 17 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine. icpress.co.uk
- Back to citation occurrence 8.0 Back to citation occurrence 8.1 "George Porter – Biography". Nobel Media. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
- Back to citation Collins, Peter (12 November 2015). "Supporting individual researchers". The Royal Society and the Promotion of Science since 1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 78–79. ISBN 9781316467695. Retrieved 19 February 2026. “[...] Georg Porter made it a centrepiece of his 1985-90 presidency [of the Royal Society] to oppose this trend [of increasing dirigisme in science policy]. [...] George Porter was fond of commenting that there were only two kinds of science: applied science and not-yet-applied science.”
- Back to citation Fleming, G. R; Phillips, D. (2004). "George Porter KT OM, Lord Porter of Luddenham. 6 December 1920 – 31 August 2002: Elected F.R.S. 1960". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 50: 257–283. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2004.0017. ISSN 0080-4606.
- Back to citation "George Porter". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
- Back to citation "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
- Back to citation "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- Back to citation "Science/Nature Obituary: Lord Porter". BBC Online. BBC News. 2 September 2002. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
- Back to citation "Honorary Graduates 1989 to present". bath.ac.uk. University of Bath. Archived from the original on 17 July 2010. Retrieved 18 February 2012.
- Back to citation "George Porter – Famous Experiments", Ri Channel video, 6 December 1985 Archived 28 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- Portraits of George Porter at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- Profile – Royal Institution of Great Britain
- The Life and Scientific Legacy of George Porter, World Scientific Publishing, 2006
- Obituary in The Guardian, 3 September 2002
- Biographical Database of the British Chemical Community, 1880–1970
- "The Relevance of Science". George Porter. JASA (Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation) Vol. 28. March 1976. pp. 2–3.(Includes editorial responses from astronomer Owen Gingerich and theologian Bernard Ramm amongst others.)
- George Porter on Nobelprize.org