Dedication to Professor Roger F. C. Brown

Abstract

Roger Brown died on 1 September 2013 after a lifetime of developing new organic chemistry, nearly all of which was published in Aust. J. Chem., and it is fitting that the Journal is paying tribute to his contributions (Fig. 1). Roger Brown’s patronymic heritage stems from his greatgrandfather, George Brown (1835–1917), Wesleyan Missionary, author and explorer in the Pacific Islands, who settled in Sydney in 1880. George’s daughter, Elizabeth, established an academic ideal for the family, completing a B.A. at Sydney University in 1885. George’s son, Frederick Brown worked in real estate in the early 1900s when the North Shore was being subdivided after the railway had been opened. He established a comfortable home in Chatswood where his son, Herbert Brown (1898–1971), played tennis with his future bride, Ruth Carver (1899–1981). Roger’s father, Herbert, did his schooling at Shore and, in 1917, went to the new Wesley College at Sydney University, but enlisted and was embarked for France when World War I ended abruptly and the ship did not sail. He completed his B.A. in 1921, taught for two years and went to Oxford to study history in 1923. He returned in 1925 and, in 1926, married Ruth, Roger’s mother, who in the meantime had trained as a nurse. Unsettling experiences in teaching ended as the Depression began, and Herbert used his writing skills to earn a living in advertising. Herbert brought to the family a delight in academic study, while Ruth brought a strong ambition for the future careers of her three sons in better economic times. Roger Brown was born in 1931 and had two younger brothers, Jules (1936) and Michael (1938–1997). Being somewhat older than his brothers, he had to find friends and enthusiasms outside the family. As the boys grew, they were encouraged to follow their own interests: Roger, at age 14, had come across organic structural formulae in an old text and developed an interest in chemistry – he set up his own laboratory and continued to make model aeroplanes, a lifetime hobby; Julian had engineering interests, and he later studied physics and became a physical chemist; Michael, the future rebellious artist, kept bees. In succession, they attended Shore (SydneyChurch of England Grammar School) which was begun in 1889 and took the motto ‘Vitai Lampada Tradunt’ (‘They hand on the torch of life’), a quote from Lucretius. The poem, ‘Vitai Lampada’, written by Sir HenryNewbolt in 1892, usedwidely in Australian schools in the early 20th century and familiar for its refrain ‘Play up, play up and play the game’, expounded the selfless commitment to duty expected of each new generation of young men. Sport, the Empire, the classics, and established religion had been the 19th century formula for expansion. The attitudes engendered by such training were severely dented by World War I and became decidedly unappealing at the end of World War II, when colonial empires were about to contract. Nevertheless, the school provided an excellent education and Roger did exceptionally well in chemistry and, although not achieving the result he hoped for in English, his originality and abilitywere demonstrated convincingly by having three poems published in the Sydney Bulletin in 1950–51. Sydney University, when Roger attended in 1949, was a much wider world than that previously encountered, where people struggled to understand what had led to the horrors of the previous decade and why the world was again dividing on Fig. 1. Roger Brown.