William Thomas Astbury, 1898-1961

Abstract

With the death of William Thomas Astbury on 4 June 1961, there passed one of the most characteristic figures of what may be called the heroic age of crystal structure analysis—the first generation to follow the Braggs—but he was more than this. He was a founder of what is now one of the most exciting growing points of science, molecular biology. Known to all as Bill Astbury, he was one of the great characters of British science in the twentieth century. Although always associated with Leeds where he worked for thirty-three years, he was born on 25 February 1898, the fourth of seven children, at Longton in the Stoke district where his father, W. E. Astbury, was a potter’s turner. Bill Astbury retained to the end of his life the directness and simplicity of the Five Towns. But he early showed his intellectual gifts as well, encouraged by his mother and by a succession of schoolmasters who recognized his promise. He received all his education by scholarships, a difficult achievement in those days. He won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, in chemistry, physics and mathematics. He went up in 1917 but his stay in Cambridge was interrupted by the war; he served in the R.A.M.C. in Cork where he met his future wife. In 1919 he returned to Cambridge and completed his course, reading chemistry, physics and mineralogy in Part I and physics in Part II, achieving first classes in both.