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 Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FRIC (8 August 1916 – 23 April 1977) was a British chemist, who served as Professor of Chemistry at the

University of Dundee The University of Dundee is a public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a university college in 1881 with a donation from the prominent Baxter family of textile manufacturers. The institution was, for most of its ...

. 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 ge ...

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 Loughborough Grammar School is a 10–18 Private schools in the United Kingdom, private boys' school in the town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, founded in 1495 with money left in the will of Thomas Burton (merchant), Thomas Burton. To ...

, 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 Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th c ...

, 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-CH=CH2. 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 ...

diacetylene Diacetylene (also known as butadiyne) is the organic compound with the formula or . 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. Occurre ...

and

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

; 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 in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

, 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 The University of Dundee is a public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a university college in 1881 with a donation from the prominent Baxter family of textile manufacturers. The institution was, for most of its ...

, then a part of the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

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

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, a ...

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 (RSE) 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 establis ...

. His proposers were Ernest Geoffrey Cullwick,

George Dawson Preston George Dawson Preston FRSE (8 August 1896 – 22 June 1972) was a 20th century British physicist specialising in crystallography and the structure of alloys. He was one of the first to use x-rays and electron diffraction to study the crystal struc ...

John Meadows Jackson Dr John Meadows Jackson FRSE FIMA FRAS (1907–1998) was a British mathematician. Life He was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on the edge of Manchester on 8 February 1907. His mother died during his birth and he was raised by his grandparents. He wa ...

, Alexander Murray MacBeath 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 an ...

. 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