| Authorised form of name | Roberts; Lewis Edward John (1922 - 2012); nuclear chemist |
| Dates | 1922 - 2012 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | 125 Whitchurch Road, Gabalfa, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 31 January 1922 |
| Place of death | John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 10 April 2012 |
| Occupation | Nuclear chemist |
| Research field | Chemistry |
| Thermodynamics |
| Solid state chemistry |
| Activity | Education:
St. Hilda’s private primary school (1927-32); Swansea Grammarschool (1932-39); Jesus College, Oxford (1943)
Career:
Worked on Tube Alloys, Britain's atomic bomb project investigating factors affecting the life of the metal membranes used to enrich uranium by gaseous diffusion (1943); went to Canada to work under John Cockcroft, on uranium enrichment and plutonium production via irradiated fuel (1945); accompanied Cockroft on his return to Britain, where he set up the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell (1947); appointed director in succession to Walter Marshall (1976); board member of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (1979); tasked with finding a method and site for British nuclear waste disposal and was lead witness in two public inquiries seeking permission for work at two possible disposal sites, Ayr (1979) and Newcastle (1980); left Harwell (1986); Wolfson chair of environmental risk assessment at the University of East Anglia (1986-1990); died in hospital of pneumonia.
Honours:
CBE 1978 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 18/03/1982 |
| Age at election | 60 |
| RSActivity | Lectures:
Rutherford Memorial 1992 |
| Relationships | Parents: Revd William Edward Roberts (1889–1933), minister in the Presbyterian Church of Wales, and Lillian Lewis, née John (1887–1953), schoolteacher.
Spouse: (m. 30 July 1948) (Eleanor) Mary Luscombe (1922–2010), primary school teacher, and daughter of Robert Luscombe, schoolmaster.
Children: Matthew Roberts |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 13022
RCN R60979
RCN 10006
RCN 13011 |
| OtherInfo | Made notable contributions to solid state chemistry, particularly to the thermodynamics and phase equilibria of the actinide oxides and to the role of surface chemistry and defect structure in solid state processes such as the oxidation of uranium dioxide. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Image | 
|
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/8777571 |
| Code | NA5057 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/003847 | Roberts, Lewis Edward John | 1988 |
| IM/003845 | Roberts, Lewis Edward John | 1983 |
| EC/1982/33 | Roberts, Lewis Edward John: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1980 |