National Coal Board: Director-General of Research

Abstract

DR. W. IDRIS JONES, in accepting the post of director-general of research for the National Coal Board, becomes the chief executive officer of Sir Charles Ellis, the scientific member. The Board is composed of functional members responsible respectively for production, marketing, labour, finance and scientific work. The scientific member's responsibility embraces problems ranging from day-to-day investigations connected with quality control to long-term research. Dr. W. Idris Jones, who is forty-six years of age, has wide scientific and technical experience to help him in this important appointment. He graduated at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He was a Rhondda and Frank Smart research student of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and took his Ph.D. (Cantab.) degree in 1925. After leaving Cambridge, he joined the research staff of Messrs. Synthetic Ammonia and Nitrates, Ltd, (later I.C.I. (F. and S.P.), Ltd.), at Billingham-on-Tees, and was later appointed a group manager in the Oil Division, where he was concerned with the development of the coal hydrogenation process. He was appointed director of research of the Powell Duffryn Co. in April 1933, an appointment which he has held until now.