| Authorised form of name | Aston; Francis William (1877 - 1945); physicist |
| Dates | 1877 - 1945 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Church Lane, Harborne, Birmingham, England |
| Date of birth | 01 September 1877 |
| Place of death | Evelyn Nursing Home, Cambridge, England |
| Date of death | 20/11/1945 |
| Occupation | physicist |
| Research field | Spectroscopy |
| Physics |
| Activity | Education:
Harborne vicarage school; Malvern College (1893); Mason College (later Birmingham University). MA (Camb); DSc (Birm) (1914).
Career:
Forster Scholar studying optical rotation (1898-1900); chemist in a Wolverhampton brewery (1900-1903); research student in John Henry Poynting's (FRS 1888) physics department, University of Birmingham (1903); travelled the world (1909); research assistant to Sir Joseph John Thomson (FRS 1884), Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge (1910); Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough (1914-1918); Research Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1920).
Medals and prizes:
Mackenzie Davidson Medal 1920
Nobel Prize (Chemistry) 1922
John Scott Medal 1923
Paterno Medal 1923
Duddell Medal and Prize 1944
Memberships:
Academy of sciences of the USSR 1925
Accademia dei Lincei 1926
British Association (1935) |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 12/05/1921 |
| Age at election | 44 |
| Proposer | Frank Dyson |
| Charles Thomson Rees Wilson |
| Frederick Alexander Lindemann |
| John Sealy Edward Townsend |
| Joseph Larmor |
| Frederick Soddy |
| Owen Willans Richardson |
| John William Nicholson |
| Joseph John Thomson |
| William Pope |
| Ernest Rutherford |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Hughes Medal 1922; Royal Medal 1938
Lectures:
Bakerian 1927 |
| Relationships | Parents: William Aston, gun manufacturer, and Fanny Charlotte, daughter of Isaac Hollis, gunmaker. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 25584
RCN R84035
RCN 25585
RCN 25586 |
| OtherInfo | Detected a new 'primary cathode dark space, known as the Aston Dark Space.
Remembered for his work on isotopes, specifcially the Whole Number Rule and the mass spectroscope.
Keen sportsman who pursued winter sports.
Held an interest in astronoy, joining several solar eclipse expeditions between 1925 and 1936. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB
AssocMaterial:
NCUACS 101/6/01. Papers deposited Cambridge University Library (covering the period 1911-1945)
Obituaries:
Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1945-1948 vol 5 pp 635-650, plate, by G Hevesy |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/32095482 |
| Code | NA6125 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1921/08 | Aston, Francis William: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| RR/37/34 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'Aston's pakcing fractions and their interpretation' by A C Burton | July 1928 |
| NLB/61/130 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS; Trinity College, Cambridge | 18 May 1921 |
| RR/41/11 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'X-ray studies of the structure of hair, wool, and related fibres.- I. General' by W T Astbury and A Street | 1930 |
| NLB/60/210 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS; Cavindish Laboratory, Cambridge | 22 December 1920 |
| RR/44/130 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'The atomic weight of xenon' by Robert Whytlaw- Gray and Hubert Sutton Patterson | August 1931 |
| NLB/60/300 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS; Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge | 13 January 1921 |
| RR/20/10 | Referee's report by Charles Vernon Boys, on a paper 'A simple form of micro-balance for determining the densities of small quantities of gases' by Francis William Aston | November 1913 |
| NLB/60/665 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS; Trinity College, Cambridge | 11 March 1921 |
| RR/65/286 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'The separation of isotopes for the investigation of nuclear transmutations' by E Leighton Yates | 1938 |
| RR/57/61 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'An automatic ionization spectrometer' by W A Wooster and A J P Martin | [January 1936] |
| NLB/61/828 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to H. F. Baker Esquire; Walcott, Storey's Way, Cambridge | 1 November 1921 |
| NLB/63/788 | Copy letter from Sir David Prain, Treasurer of the Royal Society and FRS; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 15 December 1922 |
| RR/65/222 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'Nitrogen, argon and neon in the earth’s crust with applications to cosmology' by Robert John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh | February 1939 |
| NLB/63/561 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society and FRS; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 04 November 1922 |
| NLB/68/450 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr [Francis William] Aston, FRS, Secretary of the Cambridge Philosophical Society | 13 July 1925 |
| NLB/64/515 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 30 April 1923 |
| NLB/65/504 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Lord Rayleigh [Robert John Strutt], FRS | 9 November 1923 |
| NLB/67/123 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Dugald Clerk, KBE, FRS; also sent to [Sydney] Chapman FRS; [Frederick George] Donnan FRS; [Francis William] Aston FRS; [George Clarke] Simpson FRS; [Henry Hallett] Dale FRS; [James Hartley] Ashworth FRS; [Frederick Frost] Blackman FRS; [John Beresford] Leathes FRS | 30 October 1924 |
| NLB/70/658 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 21 June 1927 |
| NLB/68/955 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr [George William Clarkson] Kaye, OBE; National Physical Laboratory, Teddington | 8 December 1925 |
| NLB/73/81 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 22 November 1930 |
| NLB/73/328 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Francis William] Aston, FRS | 5 June 1931 |
| NLB/65/823 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Lord Rayleigh [Robert John Strutt], FRS | 11 January 1924 |
| IM/000147 | Aston, Francis William | nd |
| NLB/52/549 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Francis William Aston Esquire; Farnborough | 11 January 1916 |
| NLB/38/196 | Copy letter from Archibald Geikie, to Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, Fellow of the Royal Society | 25 June 1908 |
| NLB/60 | New Letter Book volume 60, copy letters sent from Royal Society administration | 2 December 1920-26 April 1921 |
| NLB/65/766 | Copy letter from James Hopwood Jeans, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Lord Rayleigh [Robert John Strutt], FRS | 21 December 1923 |
| IM/002442 | Group Photograph | nd |
| RR/48/83 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'The electrical condition of hot surfaces. Part VI.—A gold surface catalysing the combustion of carbonic oxide' by George Ingle Finch and B W Bradford | [November 1933] |
| RR/51/85 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'The electrical condition of hot surfaces during the adsorption of gases. Part V.—The charging up of hot surfaces' by J C Stimson | [November 1933] |
| RR/28/62 | Referee's report by Francis William Aston, on a paper 'The behaviour of gases in contact with glass surfaces' by D H Bangham and F P Burt | 5 December 1923 |
| ACS/1/3/4/5 | Letter from [George Gascoigne] Blake, 8 & 10 Onslow Road, Richmond, Surrey, to Mr [Alan Archibald] Campbell Swinton, F. R. S., M. I. E. E, 40 Chester Square, London, S. W. 1 | 4 January 1927 |
| MS/603/1/35 | Letter from F W [Francis William] Aston, 1 Portugal Place, to Sir Joseph Larmor | 22 October 1913 |