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 letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This so ...
(24 November 1907 – 9 January 1996) was a leading British physical chemist who worked in the
Physical Chemistry Laboratory
The Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory (PTCL) is a major chemistry laboratory at the University of Oxford, England. It is located in the main Science Area of the university on South Parks Road. Previously it was known as the Physical ...
at the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a 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 world's second-oldest university in contin ...
.
Life
Ronald Percy Bell was the eldest child of Edwin Alfred Bell and his wife Beatrice Annie (née Ash), teachers at an elementary school. He was born on 24 November 1907 at Willowfield, Court House Road,
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England, on the southwestern bank of the River Thames. It had an estimated population of 70,374 and forms part of the border with southern Bu ...
; he had a brother, Kenneth, and an adopted sister, Margaret.
From age 11 Bell attended Maidenhead County Boys’
School, where F. Sherwood Taylor was chemistry master, and a great influence on Bell; from there he went up to Balliol to read chemistry in 1924. Bell obtained a first-class honours degree in 1928. Unusually, he published two papers as sole author in his final year.
Bell was awarded an Oxford University senior studentship in 1928 to work with Brønsted in Copenhagen, and in 1930 the Goldsmiths' Company gave him a senior studentship, enabling him to work on the thermodynamic and kinetic behaviour of non-aqueous solutions. He fell in love with Denmark and it language and became proficient enough to translate books in later life, and to be of value to the Scandinavian Section of the Foreign Research and Press Service during the war.
Bell returned to Balliol in the autumn of 1932 and was awarded a tutorial fellowship there in the following year. He stayed until 1966, having missed election to be Master of Balliol by a narrow margin. Bell's career continued as Professor of Chemistry at the
University of Stirling
The University of Stirling (, gd, Oilthigh Shruighlea (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built ...
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.
...
. In 1944, Bell was elected a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
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, r ...
and in 1956 he was elected President of the Faraday Society.
Family
Ronnie Bell married Margery Mary West on 16 April 1931 in Maidenhead. They lived for the first year or so in a flat in Copenhagen, and then returned to Oxford in 1932. Their only child, Michael, was born there in 1936.
Ronald Percy Bell died on 9 January 1996 at the Kingston Nursing Home in Leeds. Margery died in York on 5 December 1999.
Publications
Bell was the author of ''The Proton in Chemistry'' dealing with acid-base reactions. The second edition (1973) was reviewed as giving a comprehensive coverage of proton transfer-equilibrium,
chemical kinetics
Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in ...
,
catalysis
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycl ...
reaction mechanism
In chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical change occurs.
A chemical mechanism is a theoretical conjecture that tries to describe in detail what takes place at each stage o ...
Journal of Chemical Education
The ''Journal of Chemical Education'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal available in both print and electronic versions. It is published by the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society and was established in 1924 ...
'' (1975) vol. 52, p. A132.
Other publications include:
*''Acid-Base Catalysis'' (1941)
*''The Tunnel Effect in Chemistry'' (1980)