Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Peter Victor Danckwerts, 14 October 1916 - 25 October 1984

1986; Royal Society; Volume: 32; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1098/rsbm.1986.0004

1748-8494

K. G. Denbigh,

Historical and Architectural Studies

Peter Danckwerts was born at Emsworth in Hampshire and was the oldest among two other brothers and two sisters. His father, Victor Danckwerts, C.M.G., died on active service as a Vice-Admiral in 1943, but Peter’s mother, née Joyce Middleton, survived him and was 97 at the time of Peter’s death. On the father’s side the family were of German extraction but for some generations had lived in Britain. A grandfather had been a highly successful Q.C. and an uncle became a Lord Justice of Appeal. Having this naval and legal background it is perhaps surprising that Peter chose a very different career. It seems that from an early age he knew that he wanted to become a chemist and, while still a schoolboy, he created for him self a laboratory in one of the attics at his home. There he prepared samples of gunpowder and nitrogen iodide, and also constructed a Wimshurst machine. His fascination with explosives was to stand him in good stead during World War II. In his own autobiographical notes Peter spoke of spending many weary hours at school on Latin and Greek. Nevertheless he was grateful to his ‘prep-school’ and to Winchester College for having given him an excellent grounding in chemistry and physics, together with the writing of English.