Bertram Dillon Steele | |
|---|---|
 Steele in 1911 | |
| Born | 30 May 1870 Plymouth, Devon, England |
| Died | 12 April 1934 (aged 63) |
| Alma mater | Victorian College of Pharmacy, University of Melbourne, |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemist |
Bertram Dillon Steele FRS [1] (30 May 1870 – 12 April 1934) was an Australian scientist, foundation professor of chemistry at the University of Queensland . [2]
Steele was born in Plymouth, England, the son of Samuel Madden Steele, a surgeon, and his wife Hariette Sarah, née Acock. [2] Steele was educated at the Plymouth Grammar School; he then began an apprenticeship with his father. Steele migrated to Australia in 1889, where he qualified as a pharmaceutical chemist at the Victorian College of Pharmacy where he won a gold medal in 1890. [3] He then practised as a pharmacist.
Steele enrolled in medicine before transferring to the science course at the University of Melbourne in 1896, [2] being then nearly 26 years of age, and did such distinguished work that when still only a second year student he was appointed tutorial lecturer in chemistry at the three affiliated colleges, Trinity, Ormond and Queen's. Steele graduated BSc in 1898 with first-class honours in chemistry, having during his course won exhibitions in chemistry, natural philosophy and biology, and the Wyselaskie and university scholarships in chemistry. In 1899 Steele was appointed acting-professor of chemistry at the University of Adelaide, married Amy Woodhead of Melbourne, and at the end of that year went to Europe with an 1851 scholarship.
Steele worked with Professor J. Norman Collie at London and did research work under Professor Abegg at Breslau, Germany. Returning to London he did research work with Sir William Ramsay, and then went to Canada and became a senior demonstrator in chemistry at McGill University, Montreal. The University of Melbourne granted him a D.Sc. in absentia, in 1902. Steele returned to Europe to become assistant professor of chemistry at the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh.
In 1905 Steele was appointed senior lecturer and demonstrator in chemistry at the University of Melbourne. While in this position Steele, working in conjunction with Kerr Grant (who later became professor of physics at the University of Adelaide), constructed a micro-balance that was sensitive to 4 nanograms. [2] An account of this balance written by Steele and Grant was published in Vol. 82A of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1909. As a result of their work the remarkable researches of Dr Whytlaw Gray and Sir William Ramsay on the direct estimation of the density of the Radium emanation was made possible. [4]
On 20 December 1910 Steele was appointed professor of chemistry at the newly established University of Queensland. He was elected president of the board of faculties and his experience was of great use in setting the university on its course. Steele's academic work was interrupted by World War I; from June 1915 he was working for the Ministry of Munitions, London. Steele had a new type of gas mask which he had invented, and an invention to be used against submarines, both of which were presented to the British government. While working for the government he was able to show that synthetic phenol could be produced for less than half the price then being paid for it. He worked out an entirely new process, and designed and had erected a large government factory for its production. While working for the government he refused an offer to go to America at £5000 a year and when it was suggested that an honour might be conferred courteously intimated that he was glad to work for his country without either additional salary or honours. Later on he did important work for the government in connection with poison gases.
On leaving England at the end of the war Steele received letters of thanks from Mr Winston Churchill and Lord Moulton for the great services he had rendered. He took up his university work again in 1919 and in that year was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London. [5]
Steele had overworked during the war and his constitution never fully recovered from the strain. He resigned his chair in 1931 and lived in retirement at Brisbane until his death. His wife would survive him. They had no children.
Steele was a man of medium height with a frank and open countenance, with an unselfish outlook on life, and a personality that attracted both his students and his associate workers. He was a tireless worker and an ideal researcher – honest, patient, imaginative and cautious. Circumstances prevented him doing a large amount of original work, but much of the work he did during the war years was of a secret nature, the value of which cannot be estimated. Earlier in his career he did research in connection with the determination of transport numbers of electrolytes and the electrochemistry of non-aqueous solutions. The heavy workload of organising and carrying on a new department at the University of Queensland left him little time for research, but as chairman of the Royal Commission for the control of prickly pear he was associated with the successful solution of a problem which was a great danger to Queensland.
A major building fronting the Great Court of the University of Queensland is named for him. An annual lecture is given in his name at the university, since 1982. [6]
Frederick Soddy FRS was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. He also proved the existence of isotopes of certain radioactive elements. In 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes". Soddy was a polymath who mastered chemistry, nuclear physics, statistical mechanics, finance and economics.
Otto Hahn was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium, protactinium and uranium. He also discovered the phenomena of atomic recoil and nuclear isomerism, and pioneered rubidium–strontium dating. In 1938, Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission, for which Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Nuclear fission was the basis for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
Sir William Ramsay was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air" along with his collaborator, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics that same year for their discovery of argon. After the two men identified argon, Ramsay investigated other atmospheric gases. His work in isolating argon, helium, neon, krypton, and xenon led to the development of a new section of the periodic table.
Friedrich Ernst Dorn was a German physicist who was the first to discover that a radioactive substance, later named radon, is emitted from radium.
Robert H. Whytlaw-Gray, OBE, FRS was an English chemist, born in London. He studied at the University of Glasgow and University College London and was Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Leeds. He and William Ramsay isolated radon and studied its physical properties.
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Thomas Howell Laby FRS, was an Australian physicist and chemist, Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Melbourne 1915–1942. Along with George Kaye, he was one of the founding editors of the reference book Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants and Some Mathematical Functions, usually known simply as "Kaye and Laby".
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Sir Leslie Harold Martin, was an Australian physicist. He was one of the 24 Founding Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science and had a significant influence on the structure of higher education in Australia as chairman of the Australian Universities Commission from 1959 until 1966. He was Professor of Physics at the University of Melbourne from 1945 to 1959, and Dean of the Faculty of Military Studies and Professor of Physics at the University of New South Wales at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra from 1967 to 1970. He was the Defence Scientific Adviser and chairman of the Defence Research and Development Policy Committee from 1948 to 1968, and a member of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission from 1958 to 1968. In this role he was an official observer at several British nuclear weapons tests in Australia.
Great Court is a heritage-listed university colonnade at the University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by John (Jack) Hennessy and built from 1937 to 1979. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 8 March 2002.
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Herbert Edmeston Watson was Ramsay Memorial Professor of Chemical Engineering at University College London and the inventor of the low voltage neon glow lamp.
Hardman-Knight, A; University of Queensland (1935), A tribute to a great scientist : Bertram Dillon Steele foundation professor of chemistry in the University of Queensland, s.n, retrieved 23 July 2014 – available online
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