John Stuart Anderson FRS, FAA, (9 January 1908 – 25 December 1990) was a British and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

who was Professor of

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

and Professor of

Inorganic Chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with chemical synthesis, synthesis and behavior of inorganic compound, inorganic and organometallic chemistry, organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subj ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

.Hyde and P Day (1992): "John Stuart Anderson".
''Historical Records of Australian Science,'' Volume 9 Number 2 pp. 127–149. Published online as ''Biographical Memoirs of Deceased Fellows, Australian Academy of Science'': "John Stuart Anderson 1908–1990". Accessed 1 November 2007. He was born in

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, the son of a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

cabinet-maker, and attended school in the area but learned most of his chemistry at the Islington Public Library. His tertiary education was at the Northern Polytechnic Institute,

Imperial College Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...

and the

Royal College of Science The Royal College of Science was a higher education institution located in South Kensington; it was a constituent college of Imperial College London from 1907 until it was wholly absorbed by Imperial in 2002. Still to this day, graduates from t ...

, all in London. Anderson's most important research work was: * on the application of

Raman spectroscopy Raman spectroscopy () (named after physicist C. V. Raman) is a Spectroscopy, spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Ra ...

to valence problems * accounting for the composition ranges of

non-stoichiometric compound Non-stoichiometric compounds are chemical compounds, almost always solid inorganic compounds, having elemental composition whose proportions cannot be represented by a ratio of small natural numbers (i.e. an empirical formula); most often, in s ...

s by combining the ideas of Schottky and Wagner with those of Fowler and Lacher * his use of field-emission and

field ion microscopy The field-ion microscope (FIM) was invented by Müller in 1951. It is a type of microscope that can be used to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a sharp metal tip. On October 11, 1955, Erwin Müller and his Ph.D. student, Kanwar ...

to study surface reactions at the atomic level *his use of the

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing it ...

to solve problems of reaction mechanisms in

solid state chemistry Solid-state chemistry, also sometimes referred as materials chemistry, is the study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials. It therefore has a strong overlap with solid-state physics, mineralogy, crystallography, ceram ...

* on the conditions of equilibrium of 'non-stoichiometric' chemical compounds. In addition he carried out practical investigations on the composition of

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): M ...

mined in Australia, assisted on one project by Masters candidate Ken McTaggart who went on to be a senior research officer at CSIRO. He developed a love of the

Australian bush "The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where it is largely synonymous with hinterlands or backwoods. The fauna and flora contained within the bush is typically native to the regi ...

and, with his family, a lifelong attachment to the country. Anderson was co-author with Harry Julius Emeléus of the seminal textbook ''Modern Aspects of Inorganic Chemistry'', first published in 1938, which went through numerous editions and translations for over thirty years.Emeléus, H. J., and Anderson, J. S. (1952): ''Modern Aspects of Inorganic Chemistry, second edition''. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. John Stuart Anderson died from cancer in

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

on Christmas Day, 1990. In memory of John, the University of Melbourne created the JS Anderson Prize awarded to a promising research student in the area of Chemistry.

Research and teaching posts

*1930–1938 Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer at

, London *1931 Travelling scholarship to work with Walter Hieber on metal carbonyls at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

*1938–1947 Senior Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry,

*1947–1954 Senior Principal and Deputy Chief Scientific Officer,

Atomic Energy Research Establishment The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), also known as Harwell Laboratory, was the main Headquarters, centre for nuclear power, atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned ...

, Harwell *1954–1959 Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne *1959–1963 Director of the National Chemical Laboratory, Teddington (closed 1965) *1963–1975 Professor of Inorganic Chemistry,

*1975–1981 Honorary Professorial Fellow of University College, Aberystwyth *1981–1990 Visiting Fellow, Research School of Chemistry,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

, Canberra ''Source''

Awards and honours

*1944 H.G. Smith Medal, Royal Australian Chemical Institute *1945 Syme Research Prize, University of Melbourne *1953 Elected FRS *1954 Elected FAA *1965 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture *1973

Davy Medal The Davy Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry". Named after Humphry Davy, the medal is awarded with a monetary gift, initially of £1000 (currently £2000). Re ...

Royal Society 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, re ...

of London *1974–1976 President of the Dalton Division of the

Chemical Society The Chemical Society was a scientific society formed in 1841 (then named the Chemical Society of London) by 77 scientists as a result of increased interest in scientific matters. Chemist Robert Warington was the driving force behind its creation. ...

*1975 Award for Solid State Chemistry,

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

*1975 Longstaff Medal,

*1978 Honorary Fellow,

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and List of Nobel laureates, Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it ...

*1979 Hon. DSc,

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

*1980 Hugo Muller Medal/Lecture,

''Source''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, John Stuart 1908 births 1990 deaths 20th-century Australian chemists 20th-century English chemists Academics of Aberystwyth University Academics of Imperial College London Academics of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the Australian National University Academic staff of Heidelberg University Academic staff of the University of Melbourne Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of the Royal College of Science Alumni of the University of North London Directors of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) English emigrants to Australia English people of Scottish descent Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Fellows of the Royal Society People from Islington (district) Scientists from London Scientists of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) Solid state chemists