Crystallographers

The number of Crystallographers supported by ACL over its lifetime was quite high. Most of them had a long and active involvement in the subject during their whole career. Others changed direction. A few examples are:

• Nat Alcock: Warwick University. Nat is now Emeritus Reader in the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick. He is also an authority on Midlands architectural history. He has worked for many years recording vernacular buildings, compiling house histories and reconstructing households and lifestyles. Among his publications are Documenting the History of Houses and People at Home. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a past President of the Vernacular Architecture Group. He was awarded an OBE in 2011 for voluntary service to Vernacular Architecture. He is the author of many books on the topic including Cruck Construction: An Introduction and Catalogue published in 1981 by The Council for British Archaeology. A more recent one is Tracing History Through Title Deeds: A Guide for Family and Local Historians which was published in 2017 by The Council for British Archaeology.
• David C Liles: Polytechnic of North London. Currently at the University of Pretoria.
• Mary C McPartlin: Polytechnic of North London. After getting her PhD in 1966, working on the X-ray crystallography of coordination compounds at the University of New South Wales, she rose to Professor at the Polytechnic of North London before moving to a Chair at the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University. At the time, two of Britain's three female professors of chemistry were crystallographers.
• David Povey: University of Surrey. Retired in 2012 after 40 years at the University. He was responsible for the Computer Aided Chemistry course at the University.
• Peter Tasker: University of Warwick. Later moved to the Polytechnic of North London before joining ICI in 1985. He held an honorary Professorship and taught at Manchester University whilst working for ICI. In 1996 Peter took up the Chair in Industrial Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and has been an Emeritus Professor since 2009. He was President of the Dalton Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry between 2010 and 2013. Much of his research has involved coordination chemistry and the design of simple molecules to bind strongly and selectively to metal ions or to mineral surfaces.
• Ian Tickle: Birkbeck. Ian graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford in 1969 and received his D.Phil in Crystallography in 1972. He was a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Crystallography, Birkbeck College with research interests that included the development of methods and software for structure solution and refinement of macromolecular structures by X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy, and the analysis of correlated atomic motions in protein structures. He continued having a strong interest and involvement with SERC after the move of the Microdensitomer facilities and Chrystallography support from Chilton to Daresbury. He became the Director of X-ray Technology at Astex Technology in 2001.