Sir
Robert Robinson was born at Rufford, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire on September
13th, 1886, the son of William Bradbury Robinson, a surgical dressing manufacturer
who invented his own machines for the production of lint, bandages, etc., and
the cardboard boxes for packaging them. He was educated at the Chesterfield Grammar
School, Fulneck School, near Leeds, and at Manchester University where he graduated
B.Sc. in 1906 and D.Sc. in 1910.
In 1912, he was appointed the first
Professor of Pure and Applied Organic Chemistry in the University of Sydney. He
returned to Britain in 1915 to take the Chair in Organic Chemistry at the University
of Liverpool until 1920 when he accepted an appointment as Director of Research
at the British Dyestuffs Corporation. One year later, he became Professor of Chemistry
at St. Andrews and in 1922 he took the Chair in Organic Chemistry at Manchester
University until 1928 when he accepted a similar post in the University of London.
In 1930, he was appointed Waynflete Professor of Chemistry, Oxford University,
where he remained until his retirement in 1955 when he was appointed Emeritus
Professor and Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College. He has been a Director of the
Shell Chemical Company and a chemical consultant since 1955.
Sir
Robert has been a member of over thirty Government Committees and chairman of
some of them. He was a United Kingdom delegate to the first Conference of UNESCO
in 1947. He was knighted in 1939 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1949.
Robinson's extensive researches in organic chemistry have dealt not only
with the structure and synthesis of many organic bodies, but also with the electrochemical
mechanism of organic reactions. His interest in the chemical constitution of plant
dyestuffs (anthocyanins) soon extended to another group of vegetable bodies, the
alkaloids, where the whole series of his researches are remarkable for their brilliant
syntheses. He contributed greatly towards the definition of the arrangement of
atoms within molecules of morphine, papaverine, narcotine, etc. These discoveries
led to the successful production of certain antimalarial drugs (they are reported
in numerous scientific papers, mainly in the Journal of the Chemical Society).
Sir Robert, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and of the Royal
Society was President of The Chemical Society, 1939-1941; of the Royal Society,
1945-1950; of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1955; and
of the Society for the Chemical Industry, 1958. He is a Commandeur de la Légion
d'Honneur and holds Honorary Doctorates of over twenty British and foreign universities.
He has been honoured by The Chemical Society (Longstaff, Faraday and Flintoff
Medals), the Royal Society (Davy, Royal and Copley Medals) and the Swiss, American,
French and German Chemical Societies; he has also been awarded the Franklin Medal
of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the Albert Gold Medal of the Royal
Society of Arts and the Medal of Freedom (U.S. sex Robert download Robinson - horse Sir horse - Robert Sir download sex Robinson - Robinson Sir in sex alleged rape Robert london gang pictures female Robinson Sir - lingerie Robert of models - Robinson real mom incest son Sir Robert Взрывозащищенный - ВАО Robinson электродвигатель Sir Robert 11113 Волга Robinson Тюнинг Sir ОКА Robert Салон Диски ВАЗ разное - Акустика ГАЗ 3110 Government). Sir Robert is Corresponding
Member, Honorary Fellow, Foreign Member, Associate or Correspondant of almost
fifty British and foreign learned societies.
In 1962, The Chemical
Society honoured Sir Robert by establishing a Robert Robinson Lectureship, to
be delivered biennially in lieu of the usual Presidential Address.
In 1912 Sir Robert married Gertrude Maud Walsh, a fellow student at Manchester
University. They collaborated in several fields of chemical research, notably
in a survey of anthocyanins. She died in 1954; they had one son and one daughter.
In 1957, he married Stearn Sylvia Hillstrom (née Hershey) of New
York.
In his younger days, Sir Robert was a keen mountaineer, having
climbed in the Alps, Pyrenees, Norway and New Zealand, and he is an ardent chess
player being President of the British Chess Federation, 1950-1953. His hobbies
also include photography and music.
From Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
 
Sir Robert Robinson died on February 8, 1975.