Sir James Woodham Menter, (22 August 1921 – 18 July 2006) was a British physicist. He was born in

Teynham Teynham ( ) is a large village and civil parish in the borough of Swale in Kent, England. The parish lies between the towns of Sittingbourne and Faversham, immediately north of the A2 road, and includes the hamlet of Conyer on an inlet of the Sw ...

, Kent and was educated at the Dover Grammar School for Boys, where he won a scholarship to study Natural Sciences at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he was engaged on trials of Under Water Sound Detection systems at the Admiralty Research Station in Fairlie, Ayrshire. He completed his degree in 1945 and did a PhD on the subject of the use of the electron microscope to examine the micro-topography of surfaces. In 1961 he went to work at the Tube Investments Research Laboratory at Hinxton Hall, Cambridgeshire. There he was able to acquire the latest and most powerful Electron Microscope then available, the Siemens Elmiscop 1, and soon demonstrated its potential to determine the atomic structure of crystalline solids by resolving the structure of platinum phthalocyanine. In 1965 he was appointed Director of Research and Development at the establishment and in 1968 made a member of the main board of the company. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1966, becoming Vice-President and Treasurer of the society. He was also President of the newly renamed Institute of Physics for 1970–1972 and knighted in 1973. In 1974 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society. He left TI in 1976 to become Principal of

Queen Mary College, London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

, holding the position until 1986. He died in Aberfeldy, Perthshire in 2006. He had married Jean Whyte-Smith and had two sons and a daughter.

Honours and awards

*1966 Fellow of the Royal Society *1954 Beilby Medal and Prize *1973 Bessemer Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute *1973 Knighthood *1977

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 ...

of the Institute of Physics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menter, James Woodham, Sir 1921 births 2006 deaths People from the Borough of Swale People educated at Dover Grammar School for Boys Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge British physicists Presidents of the Institute of Physics Fellows of the Royal Society Knights Bachelor Honorary fellows of the Royal Microscopical Society Bessemer Gold Medal