Arthur Donald Walsh FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FRIC (8 August 1916 – 23 April 1977) was a British chemist, who served as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Dundee. He is usually referred to as Donald Walsh. He was the creator of the

Walsh diagram Walsh diagrams, often called angular coordinate diagrams or correlation diagrams, are representations of calculated orbital binding energies of a molecule versus a distortion coordinate (bond angles), used for making quick predictions about the geo ...

and Walsh's Rules.

Life

Arthur Donald Walsh was born on 8 August 1916 to Arthur Thomas Walsh (who worked for Messenger & Co. Ltd.) and Amy Florence (née Vollans). He spent his early years with the family at 11 Burton Street, Loughborough, first attending the local primary school, and then Loughborough Grammar School, from 1928 to 1935. Walsh won a Mawson Scholarship to

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus"), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th century through to the early 19th century ...

, graduating with a Natural Sciences Tripos in 1938. He then undertook research with W C Price on the spectra of double- and triple-bonded molecules, including

butadiene 1,3-Butadiene () is the organic compound with the formula (CH2=CH)2. It is a colorless gas that is easily condensed to a liquid. It is important industrially as a precursor to synthetic rubber. The molecule can be viewed as the union of two viny ...

diacetylene Diacetylene (also known as butadiyne) is the organic compound with the formula C4H2. It is the simplest compound containing two triple bonds. It is first in the series of polyynes, which are of theoretical but not of practical interest. Occurr ...

and

acrolein Acrolein (systematic name: propenal) is the simplest unsaturated aldehyde. It is a colorless liquid with a piercing, acrid smell. The smell of burnt fat (as when cooking oil is heated to its smoke point) is caused by glycerol in the burning fa ...

; he was awarded a PhD in 1941. He was then invited by Professor R G W Norrish to join a project on the study of knock in combustion engines; his work is described in detail in the FRS Biographical Memoir. In the period 1946-1949 Walsh was funded by an ICI fellowship at Cambridge to continue work in both spectroscopy and combustion. This was followed by a lectureship (and then a readership) at

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, during which time he spent a semester as Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (1950-51). On his return he wrote his well-known series of ten papers on The electronic orbitals, shapes, and spectra of polyatomic molecules, published in 1953. In 1955 he left

to take the Baxter Chair of Chemistry at

Queen's College, Dundee , mottoeng = "My soul doth magnify the Lord" , established = 1967 – gained independent university status by Royal Charter1897 – Constituent college of the University of St Andrews1881 – University College , t ...

, then a part of the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

where he then spent the rest of his career. During his tenure he expanded the number of staff in his department, and attracted several research chemists via industrial research grants. When Queen's College gained independence as the University of Dundee in 1967, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science. As Dean of Science, he played a key role in creating a

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

department at the University. As convenor of the University of Dundee's gardens sub-committee he was a prime mover in developing open spaces on the institutions main campus, notably Frankland Court, the establishment of which particularly pleased him. He was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were

Ernest Geoffrey Cullwick Ernest Geoffrey Cullwick (24 May 1903 – 13 May 1981) was a British pioneer of electromagnetism in relation to its effects upon atomic particles. He served as Director of Electrical Engineering for the Royal Canadian Navy and Director of the Ele ...

, George Dawson Preston, John Meadows Jackson,

Alexander Murray MacBeath Alexander Murray Macbeath (30 June 1923 Glasgow – 14 May 2014 Warwick) was a mathematician who worked on Riemann surfaces. Macbeath surfaces and Macbeath regions are named after him. Early life and education Macbeath was the son of Alexande ...

and

Anthony Elliot Ritchie Anthony Elliot Ritchie FRSE FRCPE LLD (30 March 1915–14 September 1997) was a 20th-century Scottish physiologist and educator. Life Ritchie was born at 20 Upper Gray Street, Edinburgh on 30 March 1915, the only son of Jessie Jane Elliot and ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1964.

Family

Walsh married Elin Frances Woolley in 1945. They had met in Cambridge when she was a student at Girton. Elin, a geographer, published a paper the year she was married. The couple adopted two children (Peter in 1951 and Valerie in 1953) and later in 1957 had twins of their own in Dundee (Timothy and Margaret).

Publications

*''Knock in Internal Combustion Engines'' (1944) *''The Structures and Spectra of Molecules'' (1951)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Arthur Donald 1916 births 1977 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society People educated at Loughborough Grammar School British chemists Academics of the University of Dundee Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Academics of the University of St Andrews