William Hume-Rothery

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

FRS (15 May 1899 – 27 September 1968) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sci ...

and materials scientist who studied the constitution of

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductility, ...

Early life and education

Hume-Rothery was born the son of

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicito ...

Joseph Hume-Rothery in

Worcester Park Worcester Park is a suburban town in South West London, England. It lies in the London boroughs of Sutton and Kingston, and partly in the Surrey borough of Epsom and Ewell. The area is southwest of Charing Cross. The suburb's population was 1 ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. W ...

. His grandfather, William Rothery, was a clergyman. His campaigning grandmother, Mary Hume-Rothery, was the daughter of

Joseph Hume Joseph Hume Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (22 January 1777 – 20 February 1855) was a Scottish surgeon and Radicals (UK), Radical Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), MP.Ronald K. Huch, Paul R. Ziegler 1985 Joseph Hume, the People's M.P. ...

, a Scottish doctor and

Radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

Member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members ofte ...

. William spent his youth in Cheltenham and was educated at

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent SchoolDay and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...

. In 1917 he was made totally deaf by a virus infection. Nevertheless, he entered

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 ...

, and obtained a first class Honours degree in chemistry. He also attended the

Royal School of Mines The Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London. The Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and parts of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Bioe ...

and was awarded a PhD.

Career

During World War II, he supervised numerous government contracts for work on aluminium and magnesium alloys. After the war he returned to Oxford "''to carry on research in intermetallic compounds and problems on the borderland of metallography and chemistry''" and remained there for the rest of his working life. In 1938 he was appointed lecturer in metallurgical chemistry. In his research, he concluded that the microstructure of an alloy depends on the sizes of the component atoms, as well as the valency electron concentration, and electrochemical differences. This led to the definition of the

Hume-Rothery rules Hume-Rothery rules, named after William Hume-Rothery, are a set of basic rules that describe the conditions under which an element could dissolve in a metal, forming a solid solution. There are two sets of rules; one refers to substitutional solid ...

. In the 1950s he founded the Department of Metallurgy (which is now the Department of Materials) at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and was a fellow of

St Edmund Hall St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university ...

, Oxford. He was also involved in founding the '' Journal of the Less-Common Metals'', which developed out of an international symposium on metals and alloys above 1200°C that he organised at Oxford University on 17-18 September 1958. The papers presented at the symposium "The study of metals and alloys above 1200°C" were published as Volume 1 of the ''Journal of the Less-Common Metals''. He was a member of the Oxford Philatelic Society.

William Hume-Rothery Award

The William Hume-Rothery Award has since 1974 been awarded annually by

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) is a professional organization for materials scientists and engineers that encompasses the entire range of materials and engineering, from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic r ...

Honours and awards

*Hume-Rothery was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

in May, 1937 *Awarded the Francis J. Clamer Medal in 1949.

Personal life and retirement

He married Elizabeth Fea in 1931; they had a daughter Jennifer in 1934. He retired in 1966 and died in 1968.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hume-Rothery, William 1899 births 1968 deaths People from Cheltenham British metallurgists Officers of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Isaac Wolfson Professors of Metallurgy Fellows of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society Deaf people from England