Prof. Irvine Masson, M.B.E

Abstract

As announced elsewhere in this issue (p. 1112) Prof. Irvine Masson has been elected to the office of vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield, which is about to become vacant owing to the retirement of Dr. A. W. Pickard-Cambridge. Prof. Masson was born in 1887, the son of the late Sir David Orme Masson, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, and grandson of Prof. David Masson, the well-known professor of English at Edinburgh. He has been professor of chemistry and head of the Department of Pure Science in the University of Durham since 1924. He was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, the University of Melbourne, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of London, and is a doctor of science of the University of Melbourne. He was lecturer and reader in chemistry at University College, London, before and after the Great War, while in 1915–19 he was at the Research Department, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. From 1921 until 1924 Prof. Masson was secretary of the Chemical Society, and he was a member of the Senate of the University of Durham in 1930–36. He is a member of the Council of the Institute of Chemistry and of the Council of the Universities' Bureau. He gave the Alexander Pedler Lecture of the British Science Guild in 1931, when he spoke on “Problems in the National Teaching of Science”. His published work includes “Three Centuries of Chemistry” (1925), papers on physical, inorganic and organic chemistry in the journals of the Royal Society, Chemical Society, etc., and occasional bibliographical studies in the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society.