| Authorised form of name | Hill; David Keynes (1915 - 2002); physiologist and biophysicist |
| Dates | 1915 - 2002 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 23 July 1915 |
| Place of death | England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 18 August 2002 |
| Occupation | Physiologist and biophysicist |
| Research field | Biophysics |
| Physiology |
| Activity | Education:
Culcheth Hall (1920); Bowdon College (1922); Byron House School (1923); Highgate School (1928-1934); Trinity College, Cambridge (1934)
Career:
Early career following that of his father; wartime operational research (associations with PMS Blackett and BF Schonland) Senior Lecturer (1949-1962 Reader in Biophysics (1962-1975); Royal Postgraduate Medical School Hammersmith ( 1970-1976); Professor of Physics (1975-1982).
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 16/03/1972 |
| Age at election | 56 |
| Relationships | Parents: Archibald Vivian Hill FRS 1918 and his wife Margaret Hill, daughter of John Neville Keynes and sister of John Maynard Keynes.
Siblings: Polly Hill, distinguished economist; Janet, a doctor; Maurice Neville Hill FRS 1962
Spouse: (m. 1949) Stella Humphrey, sister of the immunologist John Humphrey FRS 1963
Children: Two daughters. |
| OtherInfo | Made many important and highly individual contributions to the experimental study of muscle. These include studies of the scattering, diffraction and absorption of light during contraction; the localisation of adenine nucleotides, phosporylcreatine and other substances within the muscle fibre by histochemical and autoradiographic methods; the discovery and investigation of non-linear mechanical properties which are likely to be of major importance in unravelling the movements of the various component parts of the fibril. All these have been pioneering investigations, in which he worked alone with little or no help from previous investigations.
Has also made many investigations of a more conventional kind, on heat production, oxygen consumption and pH changes.
Discovered an optical change in nerve when it is stimulated, and showed that it is due to a change of volume of the fibres.
Son of Archibald Vivian Hill FRS 1918, elder brother of Maurice Hill FRS. |
| 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 | Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 2003 vol 49 pp 197-212, plate, by Sir Andrew Huxley
Huxley, A. David Keynes Hill (1915–2002). Nature 419, 800 (2002) [URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/419800a; last accessed: 17/09/2025] |
| Code | NA4486 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1972/18 | Hill, David Keynes: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| MM/22/70 | Letter from David Keynes Hill, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, University of London, to Igor Kaye, Librarian, The Royal Society | 16 June 1972 |
| IM/GA/GRS/6083 | Hill, David Keynes | nd |