Michael S Spencer, Catalytic Physical Chemist
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OBITUARY
Michael S Spencer, Catalytic Physical Chemist 15 February 1932–3 April 2020 Martyn V. Twigg1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Michael Staines Spencer was generous in giving his time to helping others. Always conscientious he had an appetite for knowledge and immensely enjoyed his scientific career. He was born in Pinner in Middlesex and later the family moved to Epsom in Surrey. Growing up through the war was not easy and during a night air raid when his fireman father was on duty some stubbornness was apparent as he refused to get out of bed to go to a neighbour’s air raid shelter. Desperately his mother insisted they sheltered under a table and the event was fortunate because the air raid shelter took a direct hit. He attended Epsom County Grammar School for Boys (now Glyn School) from 1943 to 1951 and inspiring teachers cultivated his aptitude for science. He excelled and when seventeen took science “Higher School Certificate” examinations and did well. Next year he obtained distinctions in chemistry, pure mathematics and applied mathematics. He applied to Cambridge and Oxford Colleges and on 21 December 1950 there was a telegram: “Congratulations you have been awarded a major scholarship at Emmanuel College – Senior Tutor”. A wonderful Christmas Present, a place at Cambridge University with a £100 scholarship— then a considerable amount of money! He went up to Cambridge for the 1951 Michaelmas term and was first in his family to go to university. Like many undergraduates he enjoyed Cambridge freedoms and he is playing jazz trumpet in 1952 photographs of the Emmanuel College group in the University Rag procession. He was a member of the Thomas Young Club and at one time on the organising committee. Thomas Young was a former Emmanuel College scientist famous for establishing the wave theory of light, the development of the theory of capillary phenomena and Young’s Modulus. He did not do well * Martyn V. Twigg [email protected] 1
Twigg Scientific & Technical Ltd, Caxton, Cambridge CB23 3PQ, UK
in the 1953 Part I Examinations so he focused on studying and in 1954 obtained an upper second class degree in Chemistry enabling him to do research for a PhD supervised by Sandy Ashmore in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory led by Ronald Norrish; both Emmanuel College Fellows. He studied the gas phase reversible dissociation of NOCl and effects of NO and NOCl on the chlorination of C HCl3. He had three papers, one in Nature and two in Transactions of The Faraday Society. After completing his PhD and getting married they moved to the North East of England in 1957. They lived in Norton Village near Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Billingham site where he was a “Technical Officer” in the Research Department. There first coal then naphtha before North Sea gas became abundant was used in the increasingly large scale catalytic synthesis of ammonia. He worked with Dennis Dowden on topics far from gas phase research at Cambridge. Within a year he completed work on selec
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