Richard Whiddington correspondence and papers
Contains digital mediaDetails
Type of record: Archive
Title: Richard Whiddington correspondence and papers
Classmark: MS 334
Original reference: CSAC 7.1.74
Creator(s): Whiddington, Professor Richard - University of Leeds School of Physics (1885-1970)()
Date(s): 1907-1963
Language: English
Size and medium: 48 items in 3 boxes; manuscript papers
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/7998
Description
Comprises broadly: (1) Biographical material; (2) Manuscript notes for lectures Whiddington attended at Cambridge including those given by G. F. C. Searle and C. T. R. Wilson, 1907-1908; (3) Manuscript notes for Whiddington's own lectures given at Leeds; (4) Some laboratory and other notebooks; (5) Correspondence relating to 'Science at War' (with J.G. Crowther), HMSO, 1947, and Whiddington's Royal Society memoir of J. W. Ryde.
Biography or history
Richard Whiddington was born in London and educated at the William Ellis School, Highgate and St John's College, Cambridge where he read for the Natural Sciences Tripos specialising in physics. He began research at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1908 and was appointed Demonstrator there the following year. He was elected to a Fellowship at St John's College in 1911. During the First World War he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough on radio telegraphy and telephony research and design. After the war he moved to Leeds University as Cavendish Professor of Physics, 1919-1951. He was seconded to government service for the whole of the Second World War, working with the Admiralty Scientific Service on the development of radar equipment for the Navy and then for the Ministry of Supply as Deputy Director of Scientific Research. His successor as Cavendish Professor was E. C. Stoner. He was elected FRS in 1926.
Provenance
Professor Whiddington discarded most of his papers when he moved to Norfolk following his retirement from the University of Leeds in 1951. This collection was received from his widow, Katherine Whiddington. It was received for cataloguing by (the Chief Scientific Advisor's Committee (CSAC) in 1973.
System of arrangement
The material is arranged as follows: Biographical, Cambridge notes, Laboratory notebooks, Lectures and experiments, War work, Publications, Leeds University, Index of correspondents
Access and usage
Access
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