Wyndham John Albery. 5 April 1936—3 December 2013

Abstract

John Albery was one of the most creative, innovative and distinguished physical chemists of his time. He was particularly noted for his pioneering work in electrochemistry and electroanalytical chemistry, proton transfer kinetics and isotope effects, and enzyme kinetics. His DPhil studies on rotating disc electrodes led to seminal papers in the 1960s on ring-disc electrodes, which laid the basis for the extensive development of a powerful tool for electrochemical diagnostics. Those doctoral studies also involved work on the mechanisms of proton transfer reactions, a subject that remained very dear to his heart, and later resulted in the application of Marcus theory to provide understanding of physical organic reactions. In a separate strand on kinetic processes, he developed the theory of enzyme catalysis, which gave important insights into reaction kinetics of biological catalysts. He was a marvellous teacher and an inspiration to generations of his students, both undergraduate and post-graduate. His legacy reached far and wide, with a scientific family that included more than a dozen professorial ‘offspring’. His talents were not only restricted to science but extended to the theatre and entertainment, with writing for the satirical programme That was the week that was , the production of two musicals and of numerous departmental and college cabarets and irreverent annual revues. John Albery had an irrepressible joie de vivre and was the instigator of and participant in many occasions that were full of fun and laughter and live on in the memory. But it was not all fun and games; he had a keen sense of social justice. He led the assault to admit women to the previously men-only colleges of Oxford, and in the 1970s he mounted a vigorous and successful campaign to secure permission for the great Jewish electrochemist Benjamin Levich to leave the Soviet Union.