Obituary: Harold Reginald Thirsk (1915–1995)
✍ Scribed by A.K. Covington
- Book ID
- 103068268
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1995
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 59 KB
- Volume
- 40
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0013-4686
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The death was announced on 13 February 1995 of Harold Reginald Thirsk, Emeritus Professor of Electrochemistry in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Reg Thirsk was born in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, in 1915. After school in Ashby de la Zouche, he studied chemistry at Imperia1 College, London, where he remained to do research for a Ph.D., with G. I. Finch, on the application of electron diffraction, then in its infancy, to surfaces. A 1940 paper with E. J. Whitmore on electron diffraction studies of the reaction of nickel oxide with corundum to form nickel spine1 is still cited.
After a period at ICI Nobel Division at Ardeer, Ayrshire, he was appointed Lecturer in Chemistry to King's College, Newcastle uponTyne by W. F. Kenrick Wynne-Jones in 1948. There, Reg continued his research on the structure of metallic films by electron diffraction as an aid to the understanding of the electrocrystallisation and corrosion processes at the surfaces of metal electrodes. He also introduced the first electron microscope service. Together with Wynne-Jones, he formed a strong electrochemistry group in Newcastle which included, notably, inter&a: