Sir John Cunningham McLennan, (October 14, 1867 – October 9, 1935) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. Born in

Ingersoll, Ontario Ingersoll is a town in Oxford County on the Thames River in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The nearest cities are Woodstock to the east and London to the west. Ingersoll is situated north of and along Highway 401. Oxford County Road 119 (former ...

, the son of David McLennan and Barbara Cunningham, he was the director of the physics laboratory at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

from 1906 until 1932. McLennan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1915. McLennan delivered the

Guthrie lecture The Michael Faraday Medal and Prize is a gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics in experimental physics. The award is made "for outstanding and sustained contributions to experimental physics." The medal is accompanied by a pr ...

to the Physical Society in 1918. With his graduate student, Gordon Merritt Shrum, he built a helium liquefier at the University of Toronto. They were the second in the world to successfully produce liquid helium in 1923, 15 years after Heike Kammerlingh Onnes. In 1926, he was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's

Flavelle Medal The Flavelle Medal is an award of the Royal Society of Canada "for an outstanding contribution to biological science during the preceding ten years or for significant additions to a previous outstanding contribution to biological science". It is n ...

and in 1927 a Royal Medal. He died in 1935 near

Abbeville Abbeville (, vls, Abbekerke, pcd, Advile) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the chef-lieu of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of ...

in France on a train from Paris to London of a heart attack. He is buried beside his wife in Stow of Wedale, Scotland.

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