| Authorised form of name | Rushton; William Albert Hugh (1901 - 1980); neurophysiologist |
| Dates | 1901 - 1980 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | London, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 08 December 1901 |
| Place of death | His home at Shawms, Conduit Head Road, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 21 June 1980 |
| Occupation | Neurophysiologist |
| Research field | Photochemistry |
| Psychobiology |
| Physiology |
| Neurophysiology |
| Activity | Education: Gresham's School, Holt, at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1921–8); University College, London (1932–5); PhD (1928)
Career:
Awarded a visiting fellowship with Detlev Bronk at the Johnson Foundation, Philadelphia (1929–31); elected research fellow of Emmanuel College (1932) and (1935); appointed to a university lectureship at Cambridge (1935); staff fellow and director of medical studies at Trinity College (1938-1980); Professor of visual physiology at Cambridge (1966); research professor in psychobiology in Tallahassee (1968-1971)
Memberships:
Beit Memorial Fellowship 1931
Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1968
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1968
Honorary DSc of Case Western Reserve University 1969
Society for Psychical Research (President 1970)
MRCS
LRCP
Awards/Medals:
Prentice medal of the American Academy of Optometry 1963
Feldberg prize 1967
Proctor medal 1971 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 18/03/1948 |
| Age at election | 46 |
| Proposer | Archibald Vivian Hill |
| John Carew Eccles |
| Francis Hugh Adam Marshall |
| Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews |
| John Zachary Young |
| Edward George Tandy Liddell |
| Charles Scott Sherrington |
| Carl Frederick Abel Pantin |
| Edgar Douglas Adrian |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Royal Medal 1970
Lectures:
Ferrier 1962 |
| Relationships | Parents: William Rushton, dentist from Liverpool, and Alice Louise Jane Amsler, granddaughter of the Swiss engraver Samuel Amsler.
Spouse: (30 July 1930) Marjorie Glasson (b. 1903/4), geography lecturer, daughter of William Norman Kendrick, colliery sales manager of Cardiff.
Children: Five, of whom one died in infancy. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 20628
RCN 20371 |
| OtherInfo | Distinguished for his researches into the process of excitation in nerve and muscle.
His earliest work on the effects of currents flowing at different angles to a nerve gave a new precision to some of the principles governing excitation.
Laid the groundwork upon which Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley built the ionic theory of nervous conduction.
His Principle of Univariance is of seminal importance in the study of perception.
Held an interest in parapsychology.
He played the bassoon, viola, and violin. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Source | DNB
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1986 vol 32 pp 421-459, plate, by H B Barlow |
| Code | NA1975 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1948/20 | Rushton, William Albert Hugh: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| RR/63/82 | Referee's report by Hamilton Hartridge, on a paper 'A graphical solution of a differential equation with application to hill’s treatment of nerve excitation' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | May 1937 |
| RR/63/81 | Referee's report by Archibald Vivian Hill, on a paper 'Initiation of the propagated disturbance' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | September 1937 |
| RR/69/170 | Referee's report by Charles Galton Darwin, on a paper 'The electrical constants of a crustacean nerve fibre' by Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and William Albert Hugh Rushton | 1945 |
| RR/68/498 | Memoranda, on a paper 'Action potentials from the isolated nerve cord of the earthworm' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | 21 June 1944 |
| RR/68/500 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Reflex conduction in the giant fibres of the earthworm' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | [1944] |
| RR/68/499 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Action potentials from the isolated nerve cord of the earthworm' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | [1944] |
| IM/GA/WS/3144 | Rushton, William Albert Hugh | nd |
| RR/69/171 | Referee's report by Archibald Vivian Hill, on a paper 'The electrical constants of a crustacean nerve fibre' by Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and William Albert Hugh Rushton | 1945 |
| RR/80/40 | Referee's report by William Albert Hugh Rushton, on a paper 'Variations of the latent period of vision' by G B Arden and R A Weale | 6 October 1953 |