Derek Harold Richard Barton
In 1969, Derek Harold Richard Barton was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, a recognition that marked the culmination of decades of work as a chemist and university teacher.
Born on 8 September 1918 in Gravesend, Barton received his early schooling at Gravesend Grammar School, The King's School in Rochester, and Tonbridge School. He went on to study at Imperial College London and the University of London, where his formation as a chemist took shape. A citizen of the United Kingdom, he built a career that combined research with teaching, working in both capacities over the course of his professional life.
The honours Barton accumulated across his career reflect the breadth of recognition he received from the scientific community. Alongside the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he was awarded the Davy Medal, the Royal Society Bakerian Medal, the Tilden Prize, the Corday-Morgan Prize, the Robert Robinson Award, the Ernest Guenther Award, and the Copley Medal. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Taken together, these awards span multiple decades and represent recognition from institutions in both Britain and beyond.
Barton died on 16 March 1998 in College Station, having received the Copley Medal — one of the most distinguished awards the Royal Society can bestow — among the last major honours of his career. That final recognition serves as a fitting endpoint to a life spent in chemistry, from his schooling in Kent through to his death in Texas.
Quotes by Derek Harold Richard Barton
It does not seem, however, that organic chemists were much worried about barriers to rotation in organic molecules in general at that time because there was no technique available to demonstrate the phenomenon experimentally.
Many transition states have a well-defined preferred geometrical requirement.
X-Ray crystallography is nowadays an accurate and rapid method of determining conformation in the crystal lattice, which conformation usually corresponds to the preferred conformation in solution.