Trevor Illtyd Williams Explained

Trevor Illtyd Williams (16 July 1921 – 12 October 1996) was a British chemist; a historian of science; a science author; and a journal editor. He sat on a number of science advisory committees, steering groups and related bodies.

Education

Clifton College, Bristol. Queen's College, Oxford: BSc, MA, and DPhil on the isolation of helvolic acid and other antibiotics.^[1]

Career

Williams was an author and the editor of a number of science journals and a member of several science advisory committees, steering groups and councils.^[2]

Author

Trevor Williams was an author on a range of scientific topics, particularly chemistry.^[3] His most significant contribution is considered^[4] to be his A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists (1968). His book The Chemical Industry Past and Present (1953) was republished as an Open University set book for science and technology courses. In his foreword to A History of the British Gas Industry he states that ‘I have been interested in the history of science and technology, both as a discipline in its own right and as a complement to political, economic and social history’. He goes on to say that the British gas industry ‘has a particular appeal’ for there are few industries which so clearly ‘illustrate the consequences of the interplay of all these factors’.^[5]

Editor

Williams was editor of the following journals:

• Endeavour, (deputy editor then editor), 1945–94
• Annals of Science, (editor), 1966–74
• Outlook on Agriculture, (editor), 1982–89

Other posts

He was appointed by ICI Ltd as an Academic Relations Advisor, 1962–74, where he was involved in the distribution of postdoctoral fellowships and research grants, and took part in negotiations between universities, industry and government.

Williams was a member of the following organisations:

• Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, chair, 1967–86
• English Language Book Society, Steering Committee member, 1984–90
• Science Museum, advisory Council member, 1972–84
• World List of Scientific Periodicals, chair, 1966–88
• Council of University College Swansea, member, 1965–83

Awards and achievements

Williams received the Dexter Award of the American Chemical Society in 1976, for his contribution to the history of chemistry.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).

Publications

Williams was the author of the following books:^[6]

• An Introduction to Chromatography, Blackie, London, 1946
• Drugs from Plants, Sigma, London, 1947^[7]
• The Soil and the Sea (ed), Saturn Press, 1949^[8]
• The Chemical Industry Past and Present, Penguin, 1953
• The Elements of Chromatography, Blackie and Son, 1954
• A History of Technology: volumes I to V (ed), Oxford University Press, 1954–58
• Alchemy, 1957
• A Short History of Technology (with Thomas K Derry), Oxford University Press, 1960
• Science and Technology: chapter III in New Cambridge Modern History, volume XI, Cambridge University Press, 1967
• Alexander Findlay’s A Hundred Years of Chemistry (ed), 1965
• A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists (ed), A and C Black Ltd, 1968 & 1994
• Alfred Bernhard Nobel, 1973
• James Cook, Priory Press, 1974,
• Man the Chemist, Priory Press, 1976,
• A History of Technology, volumes VI and VII: The Twentieth Century (ed), Oxford University Press, 1978
• A History of the British Gas Industry, Oxford University Press, 1981,
• A Short History of Twentieth Century Technology, Oxford University Press, 1982,
• European Research Centres (ed), 1982
• This is Industrial Research in the United Kingdom: a Guide to Organisations and Programmes (ed), FT Pharmaceuticals, 1983,
• Howard Florey: penicillin and after, Oxford University Press, 1984,
• The Triumph of Invention, Little Brown Book Group, 1987,
• Robert Robinson, Chemist Extraordinary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990,
• Science: invention and discovery in the twentieth century, Chambers, 1990,
• Our Scientific Heritage: an A-Z of Great Britain and Ireland, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1996,

Personal life

Williams was born on 16 July 1921 in Bristol, the son of Illtyd Williams (a Physics lecturer at Bristol University) and Alma Mathilde Sohlberg. He married in 1945, in London, Minnie L Margolis; divorced 1952. He married secondly in 1952, in Westminster London, Sylvia Irène Armstead. They had five children: four sons and one daughter. He gave his recreations as gardening and hill walking.

Trevor Illtyd Williams died on 12 October 1996 at the John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford, following an operation. His estate was valued at £1,097,876 in January 1997.^[9]

Notes and References

1. Book: Who was who, Trevor Illtyd Williams . 10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U182801 .
2. Web site: Obituary Williams, Trevor Illtyd 1921-1996 . Science Museum.
3. Williams, Trevor Illtyd . 10.1093/ref:odnb/63294 . 2004 . Morris . Peter J. T. .
4. Web site: Trevor Illtyd Williams (1923-1996) . 6 January 2024 . American Chemical Society.
5. Book: Williams, Trevor I . A History of the British Gas Industry . Oxford University Press . 1981 . 9780198581574 . ix.
6. Morris . Peter . Obituary Trevor Illtyd Williams . 10.1016/S0160-9327(97)01031-4 . Endeavour . 1997 . 21 . 1 . 1–2.
7. 10.1086/397615 . Drugs from Plants. Sigma Introduction to Science, 10. Trevor Illtyd Williams . June 1950 . Hill . Albert F. . The Quarterly Review of Biology . 25 . 2 . 228 .
8. Pendleton, Robert L.. review of The Soil and the Sea edited by Trevor I. Williams. The Quarterly Review of Biology. 25. 1. March 1950. 68–69. 10.1086/397391.
9. Probate granted 6 January 1997