In memoriam 1 2
Emeritus Professor Robert F Hudson, FRS (1922-2012) Professor Vojin Dimitrijevi´ c
Obituary Emeritus Professor Robert F Hudson, FRS (1922 – 2012) Bob Hudson, an exceptionally talented physical organic chemist, was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Kent, Canterbury, between 1967 and 1985. He was born on 15th December, 1922, and died on 19th August, 2012. Following his education at Brigg Grammar School, in Lincolnshire (1933-1940), Bob took an accelerated (18-month!) course leading to a first class honours BSc degree in Chemistry at Imperial College, London, completing his PhD degree there in 1945. He then continued at Imperial as an Assistant Lecturer until 1947 before joining Queen Mary College, London, as a Lecturer in Chemistry for twelve years (19471959). Having already established a number of industrial consultancies, at this point Bob took the rather bold step of leaving academia to become Group Director (Theoretical Organic Chemistry) at the Cyanamid European Research Institute, Geneva, Switzerland, during the period 1960 to 1966. In the later stages of this appointment he commenced his move to Canterbury, but although he was involved with planning the original secondand third-year courses for the Honours Chemistry BSc degree and with appointing the group of Chemistry teaching staff who joined in October 1966, Bob himself did not formally take up his position at Kent until January 1967. Professor Hudson’s early scientific work was concerned with the study of wool, and his book Wool – Its Physics and Chemistry, (Chapman Hall 1954, 2nd Edn. 1960) was co-authored with P. Alexander. However, Bob’s most significant contributions were concerned mainly with pioneering the applications of quantum mechanical methods to the study of the mechanisms of organic chemical reactions, with particular reference to the chemistry of organophosphorus compounds, which resulted in his seminal text Structure and Mechanism in Organophosphorus Chemistry (Academic Press, 1965). This line of research continued actively at Kent, involving many graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting international collaborators. The outstanding quality of Bob’s
work was recognised in 1982 by his election to the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal Society, to-date the only serving staff member at Kent ever to have been accorded this honour. During his tenure as the Chair of Organic Chemistry, Bob Hudson did much to establish and foster the international reputation of Chemistry at Kent, and he held a succession of visiting professorships at Rochester (NY), Bergen, Paris, Calgary, Mainz, and Queen’s University, Ontario. He was also very active professionally, serving various terms as a member of the Councils of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and of the Dalton (ie Inorganic) and Perkin (Organic) Divisions of that Society. Between 1970 and 1976 he was also VicePresident of the Institute of Science and Technology, the professional body representing technical and managerial scientific staff. In his personal life Bob was very much a caring family man, and he and his late wife Monica, who tragically died in 2000, are survived by their son Martin and twin daughters Sally and Mary, together with grandchildren Claire, Alison and Mark, to whom our sympathies go out at this sad time. Those who knew Bob will remember him fondly as a cheerful, highly enthusiastic, stimulating and loveable, if sometimes irascible, colleague, who always demanded high standards both of himself and of others. John F J Todd
Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic (1932 – 2012)
Vojin, a professor of law at Belgrade University in 1998 when the government imposed a ‘Law of Universities’ enabling it to purge independent researchers and critics of the state, joined colleagues in striking, was suspended, and, when reinstated, retired. At that point he was able to commit himself fully to the Belgrade Centre, which he had established in 1995, and led it in its campaigns to educate the public in democracy, rights and the rule of law and to resist human rights violations in Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Vojin authored and co-authored numerous books and textbooks on international law and human rights and published more than 250 articles in Serbian and English. At the time of his death friends and family were commenting on the irony that the fifth of October was the twelfth anniversary of the resignation of Miloševi´ c, a resignation forced by mass demonstrations against his rule. Vojin became a member of the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission in 2000, joined the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2001, and was a commissioner on, and then a member of the board of directors of, the International Commission of Jurists. In July 2002 Kent made Vojin, who had worked closely with Professor John Groom and myself and whose son and daughter in law had carried out post-graduate research at the university, a Doctor of Civil Law. Elizabeth Cowie and I had the pleasure of being with Vojin and his family at the time of his death. The photograph below, taken at a family barbeque on the preceding day, indicates that the joie de vivre which impelled his full life was with him till his sudden and unexpected end. Glenn Bowman
Professor Vojin Dimitrijevi´ c, Yugoslav Human Rights activist, Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Kent in 2002, passed away in Belgrade in October at the age of 81. Professor Dimitrijevi´ c was Director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and a key figure in mobilising the forces of law against the violence of the regime of Slobodan Miloševi´ c.
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