Catalogue description Catalogue of papers and correspondence relating to Robert Spence CB, FRS, (1905-1976)

Comprises mainly recollections by colleagues. There are a few items relating to Spence's early career; they include MS 727/1 a copy of his 'Final report to the Commonwealth Fund' on his three-year tenure of a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton, 1928-31, which is an account of his views on Britain and America.

Most of the material, however, consists of letters, narratives and addresses assembled by E. Glueckauf for his memoir of Spence (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 23, 1977), often containing recollections of or information about Spence additional to those directly quoted in the published text. Some of the documents are original letters or typescripts, some are photocopies. Many bear Glueckauf's pencil annotations or editorial indications for use in the Memoir.

The material was received via the Records Officer, AERE, Harwell.

Original catalogue record compiled by Jeannine Alton and Peter Horper

The work of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and institutions:

The Biochemical Society

The Charles Babbage Foundation for the History of Information Processing

The Institute of Physics

The Institution of Electrical Engineers

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers

The Nuffield Foundation

The Rhodes Trustees

The Royal Society of London

The Wolfson Foundation

The material is arranged as follows: Biographical, Early career, Later recollections

Spence, Robert, 1905 - 1976, chemist

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• Chemistry

Robert Spence was born and went to school in South Shields. He graduated from the University of Durham in 1926 and began his research career there on oxidation reactions. A formative event was the award in 1928 of a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship which took him to Princeton for three years (see Item 1). He was appointed lecturer in physical chemistry at Leeds University in 1931, and served during the Second World War as Chemical Warfare Adviser to the R.A.F. on various projects. In July 1945 he joined the atomic research team in Montreal to lay the foundations for plutonium and fission product separation processes, becoming the team leader in January 1946; playing an important part in the design of a chemical separation plant for the U.K. atomic energy programme and preparing staff and buildings for the opening of the research division at Harwell. Spence was the head of the Chemistry Division from 1946, and was appointed Chief Chemist in 1948, Deputy Director in 1960 and Director from 1964 to 1968. Projects with which he was especially associated at Harwell include research on polonium and proactinium, the attempt to extract uranium from sea water, and the development of a rotary extractor.

In 1968 Spence resigned from Harwell and accepted an invitation from the University of Kent at Canterbury to go there as Professor of Chemistry and Master of Keynes College. He retired in 1973.

Spence was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1953 and elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1959.