Ronald George Wreyford Norrish FRS (9 November 1897 – 7 June 1978) was a British

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

who was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

in 1967.

Education and early life

Norrish was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and was educated at

The Perse School (He who does things for others does them for himself) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = Nondenominational Christian , president = , head_label = Head , he ...

and

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

. He was a former student of

Eric Rideal Sir Eric Keightley Rideal, (11 April 1890 – 25 September 1974)Rideal, Sir Eric Keight ...

. From an early age he was interested in chemistry, walking up and down Cambridge University chemical laboratory admiring all the equipment. His father encouraged him to construct and equip a small laboratory in his garden shed in his garden and supplied all the chemicals he needed to conduct experiments. This apparatus now forms part of the Science Museum collections - reference shows copper water tank He used to enter competitions for the analysis of mixtures sent round by the Pharmaceutical Journal and often won prizes. In 1915 Norrish won a Foundation Scholarship to Emmanuel College in Cambridge, but by adding a little to his age joined the

Royal Field Artillery The Royal Field Artillery (RFA) of the British Army provided close artillery support for the infantry. It came into being when created as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 1 July 1899, serving alongside the other two arms of t ...

and served as a Lieutenant, first in Ireland and then on the Western Front.

Career and research

Norrish was a prisoner in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and later commented, with sadness, that many of his contemporaries and potential competitors at Cambridge had not survived the War. Military records show that 2nd Lieutenant Norrish of the Royal Artillery went missing (captured) in 21.3.18. Norrish rejoined Emmanuel College as a Research Fellow in 1925 and later became Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. For many years, the Department of Physical Chemistry occupied the left-hand side of the

Lensfield Road Lensfield Road is a road (part of the A603 road, A603) in southeast central Cambridge, England. It runs between the junction of Trumpington Street and Trumpington Road to the west and the junction of Regent Street, Cambridge, Regent Street and H ...

building with the other (and separate) department of 'Chemistry' (which encompassed organic, theoretical and inorganic chemistry) led by (Lord)

Alexander R. Todd Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd (2 October 1907 – 10 January 1997) was a British people, British biochemist whose research on the structure and biosynthesis, synthesis of nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the N ...

being accessed by turning right at the main entrance. Both departments had separate administrative, technical and academic personnel until they merged to form one chemistry department under John Meurig Thomas in the early 1980s. Norrish researched photochemistry using continuous light sources (including after the war, searchlights). The skill which Norrish displayed in his laboratory work problems marked him out amongst his contemporaries as an unusually gifted and energetic experimentalist, capable of making significant advances in photo-chemistry and gas kinetics.

Awards and honours

Norrish was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1936. As a result of the development of

flash photolysis Flash photolysis is a pump-probe laboratory technique, in which a sample is first excited by a strong pulse of light from a pulsed laser of nanosecond, picosecond, or femtosecond pulse width or by another short-pulse light source such as a fla ...

, Norrish was awarded the

in 1967 along with

Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen (; 9 May 1927 – 6 February 2019) was a German Biophysical chemistry, biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in ...

and

George Porter George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham (6 December 1920 – 31 August 2002) was a British chemist. 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 ...

for their study of extremely fast chemical reactions. One of his accomplishments is the development of the

Norrish reaction A Norrish reaction in organic chemistry is a photochemical reaction taking place with ketones and aldehydes. Such reactions are subdivided into Norrish type I reactions and Norrish type II reactions. The reaction is named after Ronald George Wreyfo ...

. At Cambridge, Norrish supervised

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, co ...

, future DNA researcher and colleague of

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...

and

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...

, and experienced some conflict with her.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. , p. 72

References

External links

* including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1967 ''Some Fast Reactions in Gases Studied by Flash Photolysis and Kinetic Spectroscopy'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Norrish, Ronald George Wreyford 1897 births 1978 deaths People from Cambridge People educated at The Perse School Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge Nobel laureates in Chemistry British Nobel laureates English physical chemists World War I prisoners of war held by Germany Faraday Lecturers Fellows of the Royal Society English Nobel laureates British World War I prisoners of war Professors of Physical Chemistry (Cambridge)