Sir Basil John Mason (18 August 1923 – 6 January 2015) was an expert on cloud physics and former Director-General of the Meteorological Office from 1965 to 1983 and Chancellor of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) from 1994 to 1996.

Education and early life

Mason was born in Docking, Norfolk. and educated at Fakenham Grammar School and

University College, Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

. He served in the Radar branch of the RAF during the Second World War as a Flight-lieutenant. After being awarded a first class degree in physics by the University of London he was in 1948 appointed lecturer in the postgraduate Department of Meteorology at

Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, London. He married Doreen Jones, with whom he had two sons.

Career

He worked at Imperial College from 1948 to 1965, being appointed Professor of Cloud Physics in 1961. His work concerned the physical processes involved in the formation of clouds and the release of rain, snow or hail and led to the Mason Equation, which defines the growth or evaporation of small water droplets. In the 1960s, he helped to modernise the World Meteorological Organization From 1965 to 1983 he was Director of the UK Meteorological Office at Bracknell where he also developed theories to explain how electric charge is separated in thunderclouds, ultimately leading to lightning. Mason was elected a Fellow at Imperial College in 1974. His doctoral students included John Latham. John Mason died in 2015. After his death, the Sir John Mason Academic Trust, was established by his family and is chaired by his son, Professor Nigel Mason

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, currently Head of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Kent.

Awards and honours

In 1965 he was awarded the

Chree Medal The Edward Appleton Medal and Prize is awarded by the Institute of Physics for distinguished research in environmental, earth or atmospheric physics. Originally named after Charles Chree, the British physicist and former President of the Physica ...

and in 1974 the

Glazebrook Medal The Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize is awarded annually by the Institute of Physics to recognise leadership in the field of physics. It was established in 1966 and named in honour of Sir Richard T. Glazebrook, the first president of the Insti ...

from the Institute of Physics and was President of the Institute from 1976 to 1978. From 1968 to 1970 he was President of the Royal Meteorological Society of which he was an honorary member, and from whom he received the

Symons Gold Medal The Symons Gold Medal is awarded biennially by the Royal Meteorological Society for distinguished work in the field of meteorological science. It was established in 1901 in memory of George James Symons, a notable British meteorologist. Recipients ...

in 1975. In 1974 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, choosing the subject "Recent Developments in Weather Forecasting". Mason was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1965 and in 1972 received their

Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...

. He was Treasurer of the Society from 1976 to 1986, gave their 1990 Rutherford Memorial Lecture in Canada and in 1991 received their

Royal Medal 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 ...

. In 1991 Mason also received an Honorary Doctorate from

Heriot-Watt University Heriot-Watt University ( gd, Oilthigh Heriot-Watt) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and subsequently granted univ ...

. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1993. In 1973, he was made a companion of the Order of the Bath and in 1979 was knighted for his services to meteorology. He was Chancellor of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology from 1965 to 1996, when he was succeeded by Sir Roland Smith. In 1998 he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Reading. The

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

contains a portrait of Mason. In 2004, Mason opened the Mason Centre for Environmental Flows at the University of Manchester. In 2006, an endowment from Mason enabled the Royal Meteorological Society to establish the Mason Gold Medal. Mason was also Chairman of the British Physics Olympiad Committee.

Bibliography

* ''The Physics of Clouds'' (1957) * ''Clouds, Rain and Rainmaking'' (1962); 2nd edition 1976 * ''The Surface Waters Acidification Programme'' (editor, 1990) * ''Acid Rain: Its Causes and its Effects on Inland Waters'' (1992)
''Highlights in Environmental Research – Professorial Inaugural Lectures at Imperial College''
(editor, 2000). * B.J. Mason (1957) ''The Physics of Clouds'' Oxford University Press

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, John 1923 births 2015 deaths People from Docking, Norfolk Alumni of the University of London Academics of Imperial College London British meteorologists Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the British Science Association Presidents of the Institute of Physics Presidents of the Royal Meteorological Society Royal Medal winners Knights Bachelor Presidents of the Association for Science Education Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Royal Air Force officers