John Read (17 February 1884 – 21 January 1963) was a British chemist and scientific author.

Life

He was born on 17 February 1884 at

Maiden Newton Maiden Newton is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county, county of Dorset in south-west England. It lies within the Dorset (unitary authority), Dorset Council administrative area, about north-west of the cou ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, the son of John Read (1814-1889) a farmer, and his wife, Bessie Gatcombe (1854-1904). His father was 70 years old when he was born but his mother was only 30. His father died when John was five years old. He was educated at

Sparkford Sparkford is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. The parish includes the village of Weston Bampfylde. It is situated near the junction of the A303 road, A303 from London to Exeter and the A359 road, A359 from Frome to Yeovil. In 1 ...

village school then Sexey's School in

Bruton, Somerset Bruton ( ) is a small market town, and civil parish in Somerset, England, on the River Brue and the A359 between Frome and Yeovil. It is south-east of Shepton Mallet, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill, north-west of Gillingham ...

. Around 1900 he obtained a Diploma in Science from

Finsbury Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the southeastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manorialism, Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as ''Vinisbir'' (1231) and means "manor of a man c ...

Technical College and won a place at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

studying Chemistry, graduating in 1907. He then went to

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

as a postgraduate gaining his first doctorate (PhD). In 1908 he began as an assistant in the Chemistry Department at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. The university gave him a further MA in 1912. In 1916 the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

offered him the post of Professor of Organic Australia and so he emigrated to Australia. However he returned to Britain in 1923 as Professor of Chemistry at

St Andrews University The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, t ...

. In April 1923 he visited the author

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

. In 1924 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 Sir James Colquhoun Irvine, Sir

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical and theoretical biology, travelled on expeditions to the Bering Strait ...

Herbert Stanley Allen Herbert Stanley Allen FRSE FRS (29 December 1873 – 27 April 1954) was an English physicist from Cornwall noted as a pioneer in early X-ray research, working under J. J. Thomson at the University of London and alongside Nobel laureate Charles ...

and

Herbert Turnbull Herbert Westren Turnbull (31 August 1885 – 4 May 1961) was an English mathematician. From 1921 to 1950 he was Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews. Life He was born in the Tettenhall district, on the outskirts of ...

. He resigned in 1928. In 1935 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

. According to his application citation his work covered: "'' wide and important fields, including (a) Optical activity; (b) Formation of halogenohydrins from unsaturated compounds; (c) Investigation of Australian products, including eucalyptus oils, marine fibre, Papuan petroleum; (d) Terpene chemistry''". He was also credited with building and developing the Sydney organic chemistry school. He received the

Dexter Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry The HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry (2013–present) is given by the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award was originally known as the Dexter Award (1956–2001) an ...

from the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

in 1959. He died in

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

on 21 January 1963.

Family

In 1916 he married Ida Suddards. The ship that she rode to join him in Australia evaded pursuit by a German submarine. They had two sons, Arthur, a mathematician and mountaineer, and Jan, a movie writer, author and photographer. A grandson,

Richard Read Richard Read (born 1957) is a freelance reporter based in Seattle, where he was a national reporter and bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times from 2019 to 2021. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he was a senior writer and foreign correspondent fo ...

, went on to become an American journalist.

Publications

*''A Textbook of Organic Chemistry'' (1926) *''Alchemy and Alchemists'' (1933) *''Prelude to Chemistry'' (1936) *''Explosives'' (1942) *''Humour & Humanism in Chemistry'' (1947) *''A Direct Entry to Organic Chemistry'' (1948) *''From Alchemy to Chemistry'' (1957)

References

External links

John Read (1884–1963)
1884 births 1963 deaths People from Dorset Academics of the University of St Andrews Alumni of the University of London British chemists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Chemical Society {{UK-chemist-stub