A Brief History of the School of Chemistry

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD

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THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

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THE YEARS BEFORE “WITS”

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WITS AT MILNER PARK: INCEPTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

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THE 1950S

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THE 1960S

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THE 1970S

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THE 1980S

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THE 1990S

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THE 21st CENTURY

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OUR ACADEMIC STAFF

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OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE

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OUR SUPPORT STAFF

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INFRASTRUCTURE

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OUR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMMES

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SOCIAL LIFE AND STUDENT INITIATIVES

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EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON THE SCHOOL

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IMPACT OF THE SCHOOL ON THE SCIENCE COMMUNITY

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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FOREWORD | By Dean Brady

The centenary year of both the University of the Witwatersrand and the School of Chemistry itself seems the appropriate milestone to capture the history of our School. For this I would like to thank the many contributors, but in particular Emeritus Professors Helder Marques, Joseph Michael and Neil Coville who have compiled this wonderful history from earlier documents, annual reports and the reminiscences, anecdotes and recollections of many alumni. The final product is a delight. The School’s alumni have gone on to be highly successful across the globe in extraordinarily diverse roles. Here you will see the scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner, Fellows of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as inventors, leaders of industry, government advisors, those knighted for their services, a science fiction author, a World War II pilot and even a spymaster.

But this is not the final product – for when you reach the end you will no doubt say that this history was really fascinating but they forgot to mention some really interesting bits, so we would really appreciate it if you could write to us to tell us what we inadvertently omitted in this version.

After nearly a decade as the Head of School, I will soon passing the baton on to my successor, with the knowledge that I have been privileged to be a small part of this splendid history.

Dean Brady

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THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, also known as Wits, is home to one of the top chemistry departments in South Africa. The 100th Anniversary of the founding of the University, on 1st March 1922, seems an appropriate time to update the history of the department. This is an update of articles published by Professor Trevor Letcher in ChemSA (November 1976. pp. 192-195), and by Dr Dick Copperthwaite in the same journal (December 1982, pp. 162-164) on the occasion of Wits’ 60th anniversary. We trace here the origins of Wits and its chemistry department, and reflect on the current state of what is now called the School of Chemistry. In addition to the two ChemSA articles, we have shamelessly borrowed from Bruce Murray’s two fine volumes on the history of Wits, The Early Years, 1896-1939 (1982) and The “Open” Years, 1939-59 (1997), published the University Press. We must emphasise that this is very much work in progress, and we invite all readers to inform us of any errors and omissions.

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THE YEARS BEFORE “WITS” At the turn of the century, university education in South Africa was controlled by the University of the Cape of Good Hope (established 1873) which was a non-teaching, degree-awarding body.

A smaller number of institutions prepared students for the diploma and degree examinations of that University, the best known being the South African College (SAC) in Cape Town (1829), the Victoria College in Stellenbosch (1866) and the South African School of Mines in Kimberley (1896), Fig. 1. The mining course was split into a two-year theoretical course taken at SAC in Cape Town, while the practical course (two years) was done at Kimberley.

Although very few students received its Mining Diploma (seven in 1902), the SA School of Mines established a pattern of training which was to be continued by its successors. The South African War (the Second Boer War, 1899-1902), the decline in demand for diamonds, the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and the rise of Johannesburg (1886), led to the relocation of the mining school from Kimberley to Johannesburg in 1903 and its renaming as the Transvaal Technical Institute (TTI). Its purpose was to train students in all branches of engineering. It occupied the premises of an old cigar factory at the corner of Gold and Kerk Streets (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1. The South African School of Mines in Kimberley (c. 1900)

Fig. 2. The original site of the Transvaal Technical Institute (TTI). The photograph was taken when the building housed the Government School for Boys, after the TTI moved to the “Tin Temple” (Fig. 4).

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The building had housed the Government High School for Boys, from which developed King Edward VII High School (KES). Chemistry was an important subject at the Institute, and in 1904, J. A. Wilkinson, M.A. (Cantab), Fig. 3, formerly a master at Rugby School, was appointed to teach chemistry and physics. In 1905 the TTI moved to a temporary wood and iron building known as the “Tin Temple” on the corner of Plein and Rissik Streets (Fig. 4).

Fig. 3. J. A. Wilkinson

Unfortunately the Institute did not have university status, although it did have a number of highly qualified staff and provided professional training in engineering, surveying, architecture and law. In 1906, in answer to the demand for higher education, the Institute became known as the Transvaal University College (TUC). Theoretical and practical courses were given in Inorganic and Organic Chemistry by Wilkinson. In 1909 a new building, in the then fashionable and imposing “Greek revival” style, opened at the north end of Eloff Street (Fig. 5), although the “Tin Temple” was still to be used for classes right up to the early thirties. The inscription “Transvaal University College” can still be seen above the Eloff Street entrance.

Fig. 4.The “Tin Temple”, which housed the Transvaal Technical Institute (TTI) from 1905.

Fig. 5. The TUC moved to its new building \ in Eloff Street in 1909.

Rivalry between Pretoria and Johannesburg for higher education facilities led to the TUC being split between the two centres. In 1910, the two sections became independent institutions, the one in Johannesburg named the South African School of Mines and Technology, while the one in Pretoria retained the name Transvaal University College (TUKKIES, now the University of Pretoria). Owing to public demand, the School of Mines increased the number of subjects and degrees offered and no longer restricted itself to mining and technology. In 1917, a BSc degree was offered for the first time.

There were many demands for a university in Johannesburg during the 1910s after the formation of the Union of South Africa. The demands were fortunately accompanied by a few generous bequests, by loans raised by the Witwatersrand University Committee, and by government loans. For an interim period (1919 to 1922) the “University College of Johannesburg” replaced the School of Mines and Technology and finally on 1st March, 1922, it became the University of the Witwatersrand, often referred to simply as Wits, with Professor Jan Hofmeyr as its first Principal.

Student numbers increased at a rapid rate: in 1916 the students numbered 77; in 1920 there were 625; by 1922 the number had increased to 1030.

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WITS AT MILNER PARK: INCEPTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

Fig. 6. The Milner Park campus, ca 1930.

The building of the new campus at Milner Park (also in the Greek revival style) commenced in 1922 (Fig. 6), although the block that was to house Chemistry and Physics was only completed in 1924, with the securing of an additional government loan for that

Fig. 7. The first building to house the Department of Chemistry on the Milner Park campus.

The building is now home to the School of Physics.

purpose. In 1925, Wilkinson’s two departments of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, and Analytical and Research Chemistry, moved from Eloff Street to their new building. The building today houses the School of Physics (Fig. 7).

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The Analytical Department, with the senior lecturer Mr HR Adam as its head, had been associated with the Department of Metallurgy before 1922 and was a service department to the University’s research groups.

It was nevertheless responsible for much of the research in chemistry at Wits at that time. Minerals flotation was a major research endeavour – work that was subsequently to continue in what eventually became the Government Metallurgical Laboratory, now Mintek.

Most of the research done in the Department between 1922 and 1926 was published in the local journals and was mainly of an analytical or mining nature, with some research in organic chemistry. Examples include: “The Nature of Organic Matters Extractable from Coal

by Pyridine” (Robertson 1924), “The Estimation of Nitrates

by Electrometric Titrations” (Robertson and Pelling 1924), “The Preparation of Gold Crystals” (Adam, 1924), “Salt Pans in South Africa” (Pelling 1925) and “Alkyl Hypochlorites” (Backeberg 1925). In 1922, the first-year course in chemistry was a general service course taken by students of several faculties, including Medicine, Engineering and Agriculture.

Apart from the three-year BSc degree, a four-year degree in chemical technology was also offered. These courses laid the foundation for our present 3-year BSc, 4-year BSc Hons, 4-year BScEng (Chem

Eng) and the 5-year combined degrees BSc/ BScEng (ChemEng). According to Murray’s book (vol. 1, p. 152), Wilkinson was an affable fellow. He was friendly, an inspired and inspiring lecturer, and “more of a teacher than an academic”. In 1926 Professor Henry Stephen OBE (see collage in Fig. 19) joined the Department and in 1927 became head of the newly created Department of Organic Chemistry.

His arrival apparently made life somewhat difficult for Wilkinson. He is described in Murray’s book as “vital, vigorous, an outstanding chemist with an established international reputation”.

performed the duties of a demonstrator in one of the first-year chemistry labs one morning a week. The building that houses the School of Chemistry at present (completed in 1960, Fig. 9) was named after him. Murray writes that Stephen had a major influence on Raikes, and hence on the policies the University was to adopt.

He was also “determined, single-minded and appears to have developed the reputation of being an arch intriguer”. At this time the teaching staff of the Chemistry Departments consisted of five members. In addition to the two professors, Wilkinson and Stephen, there were Dr J. B. Robertson (senior lecturer in inorganic chemistry) and Drs G. J. R. Krige and O. G. Backeberg, lecturers in physical chemistry and organic chemistry, respectively.

Backeberg first joined the department in 1923 as a junior lecturer. A Rhodes Scholar, he obtained his MSc at Oxford in 1926, and a DSc from Wits in 1934. He was to become Head of Department in 1954. In 1928, Dr Humphrey Raikes A.F.C. (Fig. 8) was appointed ViceChancellor and Principal of the University.

Fig. 9. The Humphrey Raikes Building, home to the Department/ School of Chemistry since 1960.

Fig. 8. H. R. Raikes

He had had a distinguished career as a Physical Chemist at Oxford, where he had worked on the electrical conductivity of ionic solutions. He was to serve as Principal for over 25 years. During the early years of his principalship he gave a short course of lectures to the third-year chemistry class and

The research done by Stephen and Backeberg, the organic chemists on the staff, dominated the research of the Department for many years. Most of their work was published in the Journal of the Chemical Society, and covered a broad spectrum of organic chemistry. Their work included such topics as a new method of reducing aromatic nitro-compounds (Stephen and de Kiewiet, 1931), the synthesis of hydroxylaromatic ketones (Stephen and Israelstam, 1932), anilinoquinaldine derivatives (Backeberg, 1932, Fig. 10) and the action of acid chlorides on anilides (Backeberg, 1938). There is a reaction named after Stephen: the Stephen reaction, which describes the preparation of aldehydes from nitriles with the help of tin(II) chloride and hydrochloric acid.

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Fig. 10. One of Backeberg’s early papers (J. Chem. Soc., 1932, pp 1984-1986).

Wilkinson died at the age of 61 in 1934.

He had been a tireless worker for matters affecting the interest and status of chemists. A memorial window was placed in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, by his widow and son shortly after his death. Stephen succeeded Wilkinson as Head of Department. The Departments of Chemistry and Organic Chemistry were amalgamated, and became the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. The department consisted of only five members in 1934: Stephen, Robertson, Backeberg, Krige and Segal.

Stephen was awarded the OBE for his work during World War I on mustard gas and as one of His Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives.

His research work was internationally recognized and started the strong tradition of strength in research in organic chemistry for which Wits became well known.

Backeberg was appointed as the first reader (in microchemistry) in the University in 1948.

Under Stephen’s headship, great emphasis was placed on research. Between 1935 and 1939, the Department produced eight MSc graduates. Wilkinson died at the age of 61 in 1934. He had been a tireless worker for matters affecting the interest and status of chemists. A memorial window was placed in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, by 7

his widow and son shortly after his death. Stephen succeeded Wilkinson as Head of Department. The Departments of Chemistry and Organic Chemistry were amalgamated, and became the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. The department consisted of only five members in 1934: Stephen, Robertson, Backeberg, Krige and Segal. Stephen was awarded the OBE for his work during World War I on mustard gas and as one of His Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives. His research work was internationally recognized and started the strong tradition of strength in research in organic chemistry for which Wits became well known. Backeberg was appointed as the first reader (in microchemistry) in the University in 1948. Under Stephen’s headship, great emphasis was placed on research. Between 1935 and 1939, the Department produced eight MSc graduates.

During World War II, at the request of General Jan Smuts, some of the staff and senior students under Stephen and Sam Israelstam (who was later to play a major role in departmental and university affairs) were engaged in wartime chemistry research, in particular in the fields of chemical warfare agents, ethylene, ethylene glycol and mustard gas. Among the senior students working on these projects was Morris Karnovsky, who was to become Professor of Pathological Anatomy at Harvard Medical School. Another distinguished graduate of that time was Stanley Mandelstam

THE 1950s

Fig. 11. Stanley Mandelstam

(Fig. 11) who was the first graduate of Wits to obtain an FRS, awarded for his contribution to research in theoretical physics. Mandelstam focussed on his first love: mathematical physics, becoming a giant in the field of string theory.

While a Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley, he devised the Mandelstam variables, numerical quantities that encode the energy, momentum, and angles of particles in a scattering process.

He passed away in 2016 at the age of 87.

After his retirement in 1954, Stephen settled in England, where he was appointed as the first editor of the journal Tetrahedron. His widow, Theodora (neé de Kiewiet), who had been one of his research students, continued with the editorship after his death in 1965. She was a temporary lecturer in the Department during the last few years of her husband’s term of office. Backeberg succeeded Stephen as Professor of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Department in 1955, ending, according to Murray, the period of sturm und drang characteristic of the Stephen era. Backeberg was a charming, affable and democratic Head, possessed of a great sense of humour, and he remained a genial and well-respected figure in the department until well into his 80s.

After the war, the University, and in particular the Department of Chemistry, did much to help the ex-servicemen complete their studies. For example, lectures and laboratory sessions were duplicated at night without extra staff being appointed, to accommodate the many students.

The second Chair of Chemistry, which had been in abeyance during Stephen’s term of office, was renamed the Chair of Physical Chemistry and was briefly filled in 1954 by Professor John O’M. Bockris. He relocated to the United States, where he held positions at Pennsylvania and at Texas A&M. A renowned electrochemist, he coined the term “hydrogen economy” in 1970. He co-wrote, with Amulya Reddy, the classic textbook on electrochemistry, Modern Electrochemistry (Springer), widely known simply as Bockris & Reddy. His later career was shrouded in controversy, with extraordinary claims of advances in cold fusion and the transmutation of the elements.

In 1949 Mr Frank Hawke, who was to become Research Director at AECI, and Mr J. L. C. (Tim) Marais, who was to become an Associate Professor in the Department, were awarded the first PhDs from the Department. They had joined the teaching staff as junior lecturers in 1939 and 1942, respectively. Other early PhD graduates who became long-serving senior members of staff were Drs Sam Israelstam (1950) and Ben Staskun (1954). The PhD degree, or “junior doctorate”, awarded for supervised research, was introduced in 1949. Prior to that, only the DSc, or “senior doctorate”, for original, self-directed research, was available.

In 1955 the Chair was filled by Professor Felix Sebba (PhD from UCT), whose appointment did much to stimulate interest in surface chemistry and flotation research in the Department. It was also, apparently, a conscious decision by Backeberg to appoint a non-Wits graduate to counter the “inbreeding” prevalent until then.

Sebba’s expertise was in surface chemistry and he did much work of importance to the mining industry, such as on froth flotation. Indeed, an article appeared in The Star newspaper at that time stating that his goal was to extract gold from sea water! Sebba was to initiate the 8

move away from the emphasis on classical, descriptive organic chemistry towards a more holistic approach to the discipline employing more analytical and theoretical methodologies. In 1958, Sam Israelstam was one of the first three persons in the University to be promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. The trio of Backeberg, Israelstam and Marais emphasised organic chemistry in the department, somewhat at the expense of physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, which were taught by Dr D. J. Schoeman and Dr J. D. Simpson, respectively, both Wits graduates.

Israelstam taught legions of first-year medical students, using a traditional approach to his teaching from which he never wavered. He was an outstanding administrator, actively involved in many facets of University life, including President of Convocation and Director of Alumni Affairs. In 1976 Israelstam was appointed to an ad hominen Professorship in Chemical Education, and he retired in 1977. A distinguished graduate of the University from the era who did some undergraduate.

After his retirement in 1954, Stephen settled in England, where he was appointed as the first editor of the journal Tetrahedron.

His widow, Theodora (neé de Kiewiet), who had been one of his research students, continued with the editorship after his death in 1965. She was a temporary lecturer in the Department during the last few years of her husband’s term of office. Backeberg succeeded Stephen as Professor of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Department in 1955, ending, according to Murray, the period of sturm und drang characteristic of the Stephen era. Backeberg was a charming, affable and democratic Head, possessed of a great sense of humour, and he remained a genial and well-respected figure in the department until well into his 80s.

The second Chair of Chemistry, which had been in abeyance during Stephen’s term of office, was renamed the Chair of Physical Chemistry and was briefly filled in 1954 by Professor John O’M. Bockris. He relocated to the United States, where he held positions 9

at Pennsylvania and at Texas A&M. A renowned electrochemist, he coined the term “hydrogen economy” in 1970. He co-wrote, with Amulya Reddy, the classic textbook on electrochemistry, Modern Electrochemistry (Springer), widely known simply as Bockris & Reddy. His later career was shrouded in controversy, with extraordinary claims of advances in cold fusion and the transmutation of the elements.

In 1955 the Chair was filled by Professor Felix Sebba (PhD from UCT), whose appointment did much to stimulate interest in surface chemistry and flotation research in the Department. It was also, apparently, a conscious decision by Backeberg to appoint a non-Wits graduate to counter the “inbreeding” prevalent until then. Sebba’s expertise was in surface chemistry and he did much work of importance to the mining industry, such as on froth flotation. Indeed, an article appeared in The Star newspaper at that time stating that his goal was to extract gold from sea water! Sebba helped to change the Department’s emphasis on classical, descriptive organic chemistry towards a more holistic approach to the discipline employing more analytical and theoretical methodologies.

In 1958, Sam Israelstam was one of the first three persons in the University to be promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. The trio of Backeberg, Israelstam and Marais emphasised organic chemistry in the department, somewhat at the expense of physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, which were taught by Dr D. J. Schoeman and Dr J. D. Simpson, respectively, both Wits graduates. Israelstam taught legions of first-year medical students, using a traditional approach to his teaching from which he never wavered. He was an outstanding administrator, actively involved in many facets of University life, including President of Convocation and Director of Alumni Affairs. In 1976 Israelstam was appointed to an ad hominen Professorship in Chemical Education, and he retired in 1977. A distinguished graduate of the University from the era who did some undergraduate work in chemistry is Sir Aaron Klug (Fig. 12), Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1982 “for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes”. Klug entered Wits intending to study microbiology, but graduated with a BSc majoring in Physics and Mathematics. He then went to UCT

to start a PhD in crystallography, but left with an MSc after being offered a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he completed his doctorate in 1953. He received an FRS in 1969, was President of the Royal Society from 1995 to 2000, and was knighted in 1988. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 92.

Fig. 12. Sir Aaron Klug

THE 1960s During the 1950s the chemical engineers’ contribution to research in the Department had increased considerably and in 1960 a separate Department of Chemical Engineering was formed with the arrival of Professor O. B. Volckman as Head. In 1966 the Department of Chemistry was expanded to include Biochemistry – a union that lasted until 1975, when the new Department of Biochemistry (now part of the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology) was created with Professor J. D. Balinsky as its first Head.

As was mentioned previously, in 1960 the Department of Chemistry obtained its own building – the Humphrey Raikes Building (Fig. 9). This thoughtfully-planned building, officially opened in June 1960, contained three large lecture theatres, four teaching laboratories (including the ground-floor first-year laboratory, supposedly, at the time, the largest in the southern hemisphere to contain an unsupported ceiling), many research laboratories, numerous offices and a huge basement suite for the chemicals and apparatus stores.

A generous donation of £20 000 from AECI helped to defray the costs of the building.

The symbols in relief on the east wall of the building (Fig. 13) were devised by the staff of that time. The move into the new building brought physical unity to the Department which, between 1928 and 1960, had been physically split among its original building (Fig. 7), and offices and laboratories of the organic section in the southwest corner of the present South West Engineering building (1928–1938) and later in the Hillman building (1938–1960). In 1965 Backeberg retired as Head of Department and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Chemistry.

He continued to work in the Department, including demonstrating in the laboratory to first year students, well into his 80s.

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He passed away on 3 March 1988, and in his will, he bequeathed a generous sum to the Department of Chemistry as capital towards the purchase of research equipment. Backeberg was succeeded as Head of Department by Sebba, who occupied the post until his retirement in 1979. After his retirement, Sebba continued to work actively in the Chemical Engineering department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, until his death in 1989. Sebba’s lengthy tenure as Head of Department saw the appointment of many new staff members, some of whom will receive individual mention below.

A major expansion of universities and staff occurred in the 1960s worldwide. This also impacted on the Department, which saw the arrival of many new staff. Among them was Professor Guido Perold, who in 1965 succeeded Backeberg as Professor of Organic Chemistry.

Perold, who moved from a professorial post at the University of South Africa, was a superb experimentalist who was well respected for his work on plant metabolites, including natural products from liverworts and the Proteaceae.

In recognition of his research and services to chemistry the South African Chemical Institute (SACI) honoured him in 1982 with the Gold Medal, its premier award.

One of the earliest appointments of the 1960s was a physical chemist, Dr (later Professor) Tom Pinfold, who was widely considered to be a future successor to Sebba. In the event, he did little research but remained a popular teacher on the staff for over 30 years until his retirement in 1992.

Also appointed in this period was Dr Bill Davies.

Dr Leslie Glasser was a Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in the Department between 1960 and 1966 before leaving for Rhodes University. He revamped many of the general chemistry and physical chemistry laboratories, and Davies revolutionised the first-year laboratory course.

Fig. 13. The logos on the eastern façade of the Humphrey Raikes Building.

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Later arrivals of note were Drs John Bradley, Gus Gerrans, Arthur Howard (organic), Humphrey Farrer (analytical), Trevor Letcher (physical), Dennis Rouvray (theoretical) and Tim MoelwynHughes. Moelwyn-Hughes (inorganic) went on to establish the University’s Staff Development

Centre in the 1980s. He was the first genuine inorganic chemist to be appointed, his predecessors having been analytical chemists who taught inorganic chemistry. The new staff (many from abroad or with experience there) had been trained in modern methodologies and novel areas of chemistry, and this impacted on the research and teaching directions of the School.

A new energy swept the Department; for example, Perold, as Chair of Organic Chemistry, was caught between the views of the new and enthusiastic young organic chemists who championed the electronic theory of organic chemistry and reaction mechanisms, and the old guard who resisted changes and stuck to the “catalogue” treatment of the subject. Many of our graduates from the 60s went on to carve names for themselves. One such is Sir David King (Fig. 14), who did his undergraduate and

Honours degrees (1956–1959) and PhD under Sebba (1960–1963) in the Department (Fig. 15).

King later became the Cambridge University 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry, and Master of Downing College from 1995 until 2000.

In 2000 he took on the post of Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government under both Tony Blair and, later, Gordon Brown. Subsequently he served under David Cameron and Theresa May in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the UK’s Climate Envoy, 2013–2017. He was knighted in 2003 for his services to the UK Government. Together with Gerhard Ertl and Gábor Somorjai, King made fundamental contributions to our understanding of heterogeneous catalysis.

He was the Founder and Chair of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, where he is currently working.

Fig. 15. The Physical Chemistry academic staff and postgraduate students, 1960. King is on the far right of the photograph. Others we have been able to identify are Sebba (front row, centre), Chris Hope and Terence Cotton (right of Sebba); John Hoy (Glasser’s MSc student, far left); Dr Leslie Glasser (back row, behind Sebba), Dr Tom Pinfold (back row, to the right of Glasser), and Dr Jack Zlotnick (back row, behind King). In the front row, left of Sebba, we believe are John Frost and Theo Groenewald.

Fig. 14. Sir David King

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THE 1970s

Fig. 16 . The 1975 Chemistry Honours and Applied Chemistry IV Class.

In the early days the Department was influenced by the British sense of a university.

This is reflected in the staff appointments prior to the 1970s; many were either born in the UK or obtained their training and degrees there. In the 1970s the arrival of many young SA-born chemists who had obtained PhDs in the UK (Wally Orchard, John Field), or others trained outside the UK (Neil Coville, Ray von Wandruszka) now occurred.

In addition, several non-SA chemists to join the staff arrived from the UK (John Pratt, Dave Baldwin, Tony Ford and Tony Markwell) and the USA (Bob Hasty, Eberhard Neuse). Joseph Michael, who had obtained his PhD at Wits in 1975 with Howard and Gerrans as supervisors, joined the staff in 1978 after having spent two 13

years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge. The Department’s first-year remedial teaching activities were also boosted by the appointment in 1973 of Mina Staskun as Tutor, then Senior Tutor, a post she occupied until her retirement in 1997. Some of the staff mentioned above, and below, are shown in Fig. 16. Sebba initiated the BSc Industrial Chemistry programme in 1966. In 1972, Professor Bob Hasty, with qualifications in both chemical engineering and chemistry from the University of Texas, as well as experience in industry (General Electric and Pacific Northwest Laboratories of the Battelle Memorial Institute) and academia (University of California, Berkeley and Montana State University), was recruited for this program from MSU. The program evolved

to become the BSc Honours in Applied Chemistry in 1977. He was appointed Ad Hominem Professor of Analytical Chemistry in 1985. Bob Hasty moved to UNISA in 1986 as Professor of Analytical Chemistry to take on the challenge of distance education in an experimental science and was appointed Head of Department in 1994.

He was appointed Emeritus Professor after his retirement in 1996. The third Chair, and the first Chair in Inorganic Chemistry, was filled in 1974 with the arrival of Professor John Pratt. Pratt graduated from Oxford and spent a short time at ICI before coming out to South Africa. He left Wits in 1984 to take up the Headship of Chemistry at the University of Surrey. Active to the end of his life, he passed away in 2018, aged 84. Pratt introduced the then novel area of research, bioinorganic chemistry, to Wits, and it is to this day an active area of research in the Department. His book, The Inorganic Chemistry of Vitamin B12, published in 1972 was a seminal contribution to the discipline and is still widely quoted. The Bioinorganic Lab (Lab 328) became a vibrant research hub with input from members of the inorganic section, Dr Dave Baldwin and Dr Tony Markwell, and several postdoctoral fellows who followed Pratt to Wits. The group attracted many students who went on to establish their own careers in chemistry.

These include Tim Egan, who became Jameson Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Head of Department at UCT until his untimely passing in 2022; Eric Betterton, who is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at Arizona; and Helder Marques, who became Head of the Department (later the School) of Chemistry at Wits, and Dean of the Faculty of Science (see later). Orde Munro graduated with a PhD under Marques’s supervision in 1996, went on to become a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg, before returning to Wits as the holder of a DSI/ NRF South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) Chair of Bioinorganic Chemistry.

Preeti Vashi (another Marques graduate, PhD 2004) is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley publication European Journal of

Inorganic Chemistry. One of Sebba’s ambitions was to introduce a programme in polymer chemistry. To this end, he recruited Professor Eberhard Neuse, who joined the Department in 1971 (Fig. 17). As a young man, Neuse was involved in the closing stages of the Second World War as a Luftwaffe fighter pilot. He was one of the first to fly the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet plane flown in combat. After the war he enrolled at the Technical University of Hanover, graduating with a PhD in organic chemistry in 1953. Prior to joining Wits he worked in the R&D Missile and Space Systems division of McDonnell-Douglas Astronautics Company in California, where he spent a decade working on materials and processes for the space programs, including on ablation polymers, the critical components of the heat shield that protects space capsules on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. He brought new insights into the world of polymers, plastics, fibres, elastomers and coatings to Wits and to the country.

Fig. 17. Prof. E. W. Neuse 14

He worked tirelessly until his retirement in 1991, graduating numerous students. One of Neuse’s many postdoctoral fellows, Laurence Carlton, was to join the permanent staff and was key to taking NMR spectroscopy to levels where it became a cornerstone technique for many research programmes in the Department. In his later years Neuse continued to run an active research group that worked mainly on platinum anti-cancer drugs, until his passing in 2014 at the age of 88. A special issue of the Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials (Vol. 25, 2015) was published in his memory.

By the mid-1970s the staff complement had increased to 24. To accommodate the expansion, two new office floors were added in 1975 to the Humphrey Raikes Building – apparently to the chagrin of the original architect, who felt that the addition detracted from the building’s aesthetics. A proposal to add an entire new floor of laboratories was rejected – short-sightedly, in retrospect – on the grounds of cost. However, the barn-like Backeberg Laboratory for organic chemistry research was subdivided into several smaller, more manageable, laboratories.

THE 1980s The 1980s saw enormous growth in both the staff complement and the research activities of the Department. Professor Leslie Glasser, who had been a Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in the Department between 1960 and 1966 before leaving for Rhodes University (see above), returned in 1980 and succeeded Sebba as Professor of Physical Chemistry.

He subsequently followed Perold as Head of Department in 1982, a position he occupied until 1984. Glasser’s research interests included proton conductivity in solids, dielectric studies of solutions, computer simulations of molecular systems, and the role of computers in chemistry. He was the prime mover in the introduction of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) into the Department, and helped to establish a computer teaching laboratory that was equipped with the Apple microcomputers that were in vogue at the time. He retired in 2000 as Professor Emeritus and now lives 15

in Australia, where he is an Adjunct Research Professor at Curtin University, Perth.

Dr George Brink, a physical chemist from Natal, joined Glasser at Wits. Brink later became the Department’s first official director of firstyear studies. He passed away in 2009 after a long illness. Professor Jan Boeyens joined the Department in 1981 as Professor of Theoretical Chemistry. He succeeded Glasser as Head of Department in 1985, and served as such until he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science in 1991. His research interests were mainly in the field of crystallography and the theory of molecular structure. A key change in direction occurred with his arrival. During his headship, a focus on research in the Department took priority. During this time new activities took hold in bioinorganic chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, organometallic chemistry, catalysis and chemical education. However, analytical chemistry was controversially regarded by Boeyens as mere data collecting, an area that should be carried out at Technikons, and was not encouraged. During this time strong support from industry (Sasol, AECI and others) also took place. Indeed, the 1980s were somewhat of a “Golden Era” in the Department.

During this time the first black postgraduates were passing through the system. The changes set in place in the administrative structures in the School also assisted in creating a cohesive cohort of researchers. The emergence of the FRD (now the NRF) as a source of research funding enabled the growth of activities. The changes led to an increase in postgraduate numbers.

When Professor John Pratt returned to the UK in 1984, the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry initially remained vacant. However, Dr Robert Hancock, who had joined the Department as a Senior Lecturer from Mintek in 1980 and reached the rank of Professor in 1987, subsequently became the second occupant of the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry. Hancock left for the USA in 1993 to work in industry. Since 2002 he has been Professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where he remains active. He has made many distinguished contributions to the design of novel ligands for the selective

coordination of metal ions, separation of metal ions in extractive metallurgical applications, and metal ions in biomedical applications.

One of Hancock’s PhD students, Patrick Ngwenya (PhD 1989) was one of the first black students in the Department to obtain a PhD. After a stint overseas as a postdoctoral fellow, he also became the first black member of the permanent academic staff of the Department.

He unfortunately did not stay long, and was recruited by the chemical industry. Another Hancock student, Vivienne Thöm (PhD 1985) was, from 2010 to 2015, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security for the Australian Government, with oversight of the six agencies of the Australian Intelligence Community. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2016 for her services to the country. Professor Guido Perold retired in 1982.

As Emeritus Professor and Honorary Research Professorial Fellow, he maintained his research activities until 1999, when ill health forced him to abandon his beloved research. He passed away on 15 May 2002. Perold’s successor as Chair Professor of Organic Chemistry was David Reid, who joined Wits in 1984 from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Reid’s main interest was the heterocyclic chemistry of less common main group elements. One of his major contributions to the Department was the complete revision of the third-year organic chemistry laboratory course, the essential structure of which remains to this day. The organic chemistry team during Reid’s tenure included Ben Staskun, Gus Gerrans, Arthur Howard, Jo Michael and the recently appointed (1983) Roger Hunter. Roger spent five and a half whirlwind years in the Department until he left in 1988 to become an Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town.

In 2004 he was appointed to the Mally Chair of Organic Chemistry at the same institution, a post he held until his retirement in 2019.

Roger recounts that those years at Wits were extremely exciting, both academically and spiritually, and that “the parties were second to none”. During that period, apart from his mainstream interests in organic

synthesis methodology, he forged a productive collaboration in heterogeneous catalysis with Graham Hutchings (see below). In 2021, Roger published a sci-fi thriller, Quantum Zero, that allowed him finally to reveal some of his crazy ideas.

Professor Antonio (Tony) Pizzi joined the Department in July 1989 from the CSIR (where he had been director of the Chemical Processing Division), as Professor of Polymer Chemistry. He held this position until his departure to France in 1994, when he was appointed as Professor of Industrial Chemistry at the University of Lorraine. He is now a Professor Emeritus at that institution and still active in research. He was Head of the Department of Chemistry at Wits from 1991 to 1994. Pizzi’s field of expertise is in industrial chemistry and applied polymer chemistry, in particular applied to adhesives technology. He shares the unusual honour to be the only scientist to have twice gained the Descartes Science Prize, the top Science Prize of the European Commission.

Catalysis research has been carried out in the Department since initial studies by Sebba in the 1950s, David King being one of the products of these studies. In 1969 Sebba had appointed John Davidtz, a South African-born PhD graduate from Purdue University who had later worked on zeolites at Exxon Mobil, to help with the promotion of catalysis research, but he left after a few years to take up a post at Potchefstroom University. Then in the 1980s, through the developments in organometallic chemistry, homogeneous catalysis studies emerged at Wits. Heterogeneous catalysis as a major research strength in the Department came into being in 1984 with the arrival of Graham Hutchings as a Lecturer from AECI (originally ICI in the UK). All the pieces were in place to enable a leading unit on catalysis to be established as there were people on the staff with very strong research interests in the area.

These included Dr Dick Copperthwaite (surface science), Professor Neil Coville (homogeneous catalysis), Dr Roger Hunter (organic chemistry) and Dr Wally Orchard (electrochemistry).

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Hutchings was welcomed by Glasser and given two empty labs with a fume cupboard and a lot of cobwebs. Within a year these labs were full of new equipment and the strong collaborative links with the Wits team had been established. An early success was to use ozone-enriched oxygen to remove coke from a zeolite to permit reactivation of the zeolite at low temperatures. It was picked up by the Citizen newspaper, which reported it with a half page spread and a picture of the project team (Fig. 18). The reporter wrote that the team were using a second-hand toaster for their work, which they found greatly amusing.

Fig. 18. The Ozone Team. From left to right: Wally Orchard, Dick Copperthwaite, Graham Hutchings and Peter Johnston, who was doing research as an undergraduate project.

Early successes in grant income were essential for catalysis to grow. Hutchings and his team were successful in getting support from the National Energy Fund as well as Sasol, AECI and others, and this enabled catalysis at Wits to be firmly established. Key to the scientific success was research on the Fischer–Tropsch and the methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) processes. The Hutchings team, using the novel approach at the time of using model reactants, instigated by Hunter, were able to make seminal discoveries on the mechanism of the reactions, information that is still relevant today. Hutchings had made important discoveries in gold-catalysed acetylene hydrochlorination chemistry while at AECI and some of this work was later carried out at Wits by Bongani Nkosi, the first black PhD in catalysis in the country. Interestingly, Peter Johnston (Fig. 17), also a PhD student with Hutchings and Coville, later joined Johnson Matthey and continued this work with Hutchings. This work was later commercialised in China in 2015, with Johnston being the lead person in Johnson Matthey’s securing of this commercialisation. So, research that started in South Africa in the 1980s was commercialised about 30 years later!

Hutchings left the country towards the end of 1987 to take up a post at the University of Liverpool.

In 1997 he moved to the University of Cardiff, as Professor of Physical Chemistry and Head of the Department of Chemistry. He was elected as FRS in 2009, and awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2018. After his departure, research in catalysis continued with both the arrival and departure of staff members who remained on the staff for relatively short periods. Of note was the appointment of Professor Valery Sokolovskii to an ad hominem chair in catalysis in 1991.

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He came to South Africa from the excellent Catalysis Centre in Novosibirsk, Russia, after the fall of the Berlin wall. In 1996 he emigrated to the USA, where he moved into industry.

Owing to his expertise, his short stay had an enormous impact on the Wits catalysis group.

New directions, particularly in heterogeneous catalysis, was made possible by the major financial support from Sasol to the group and the strong collaboration that occurred with the School of Chemical Engineering at Wits (Professors David Glasser and Diane Hildebrandt) from the early 90s. A major collaborator at the CSIR, and later at the Anglo American research laboratories, was Dr Mike Scurrell, who joined the School in 2001 as Professor of Physical Chemistry on the retirement of Glasser. The Wits Catalysis team members played a key role in the development of CATSA (Catalysis Society of South Africa) in the early 90s and this continues to this day.

Another key funding source for the group was the establishment of the NRF–DST Centre of Excellence in Catalysis, a government initiative to support catalysis in South Africa. Coville remains from the original team. Together with new staff with an interest in new areas of catalysis, he still carries the catalysis torch forward today. Several other staff appointments of the 1980s are notable for their impact on the Department (later the School) of Chemistry.

The contributions of Professor Helder Marques, appointed in 1987, will be given in more detail below. Professor Demetrius (Demi) Levendis, who obtained his PhD with Boeyens in 1985, was appointed to a lectureship in 1988 after having spent several years at the CSIR’s National Chemistry Research Laboratory in Pretoria and two years at the Brookhaven National Laboratories and State University of New York, USA. He has risen steadily through the ranks since then, and has carried the torch for physical chemistry and X-ray crystallography to the present day.

retirement in 2009, and he passed away on 20 December 2020. Special mention must be made of Dr Penny Huddle, who obtained her PhD with Perold in 1978. She was appointed as a tutor in 1982, and quickly established herself as a dedicated teacher. She had achieved the rank of Senior Lecturer by the time of her untimely death in 2000. In memory of her dedication to the teaching enterprise, the Department of Chemistry established the Penny Huddle Memorial Awards, which are presented annually to the year’s best student tutors and demonstrators.

The expansion of research activities in the 1980s meant that the Department began to outgrow the available space. After some negotiation, laboratory space was allocated on the 8th floor of the adjacent Gate House building. Research instrumentation, initially Tony Ford’s infrared spectrometer, was moved across. Most importantly, however, equipment for the burgeoning X-ray crystallography section has found its permanent home in Gate House, which has also subsequently housed equipment for surface analysis, electrochemistry and environmental analytical chemistry together with several offices for staff.

In addition, a section of the Humphrey Raikes basement stores was reconfigured for the growing nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy facility to house the Department’s newly acquired 200 MHz instrument that saw many years of service before its replacement by a number of more powerful modern instruments.

Also directly affecting the Department of Chemistry was the move of the physical sciences library from its cramped quarters in the Physics Building to a new home in the recently constructed Oppenheimer Life Sciences building.

Professor Fabrizzio (Fabri) Marsicano, another Wits PhD graduate (1973, with Letcher), joined the staff in 1988 from the University of KwaZulu Natal. A dynamic and popular lecturer, he also served a term as Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Science. Ill health forced his early 18

THE 1990s Professor Neil Coville, who had joined the Department of Chemistry in 1976, was promoted to Professor of Organometallic Chemistry in 1987.

He became Head of Department (1994–1997) and during this time succeeded Hancock to the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry. He retired in 2010 but continues with his various research interests, which centre on heterogeneous catalysis (including FisherTropsch synthesis and the preparation of novel catalysts) and materials science.

Notable honours among his numerous accolades was the Gold Medal of the South African Chemical Institute (1997); the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award, which he received in 2005; the award from the NSTF for capacity development (2005) and the NRF award: Champion of Research Capacity Development at South African Higher Education Institutions (2013).

Professor Jan Boeyens began a brief second term as Head in 1997, but retired from Wits in 1998.

In recognition of his immense contributions to the Department, the Faculty, the University and the profession, the University Council agreed to the naming of the 8th floor suite in Gate House as the Jan Boeyens Structural Chemistry Laboratory.

After his retirement, Boeyens joined the Unit for Advanced Study at the University of Pretoria as Professor Extraordinary, where he continued to make significant contributions to science until his passing on 26 August 2015.

Always a thinker outside the box, he was the author of eight sometimes controversial books with titles ranging from New Theories for Chemistry to Chemical Cosmology, Number Theory and the Periodicity of Matter (with Demi Levendis) and Quantum Gamble.

He had developed an extensive interest within the mathematical, chemistry and biology fields, and colleagues described him as a “universal chemist”. In recognition of his contributions to chemistry, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the South African Chemical Institute in 1983. Professor Helder Marques served as Acting Head of the Department of Chemistry in 1998 when Boeyens went on study leave to Germany. He 19

was then appointed as Head of Department in 1999 after Boeyens had retired. Marques, a graduate of this Department, obtained his PhD in Bioinorganic Chemistry in 1986 under the supervision of Professor David Baldwin. He joined the permanent staff in 1987 and reached the rank of Personal Professor in 1998. His research interests are centred on the biological and coordination chemistry of cobalt and iron, and on computational chemistry. Among his numerous honours was the rare “double” of the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award (1989), and the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award (1992), as well as the Gold Medal of the South African Chemical Institute (2015).

Professor Ignacy Cukrowski joined Wits in 1992 as a Senior Lecturer (PhD from University of Maria-Curie Sklodowska, Poland, and quickly established a vibrant electrochemistry research group with particular emphasis on the study of metal-ligand equilibria by voltammetry.

He was instrumental in establishing the Electrochemical Society of SA (ElectrochemSA).

Cukrowski was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2001, and left Wits to head the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pretoria. He has since retired, but continues working on one of his main interests, the theory of chemical bonding.

Professor David Reid retired in 1993 but, like many of the past organic chemists, remained an active researcher until a few years before his passing on 8 January 2022 at the age of 93.

Professor Jo Michael succeeded Reid as Chair Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1994. Two noteworthy appointments in this decade were of Charles de Koning (1991), and Ewa Cukrowska (1999). The significant contributions of these three staff members to the Department (later School) of Chemistry in the new century are described later. Among other staff movements in the 1990s, the contributions of a long-serving colleague, Professor Ben Staskun, are of note.

Ben first joined the Department of Chemistry as a Junior Lecturer in 1953, and remained a loyal member of the Department until his retirement in 1992. His research, largely carried out as a one-man show throughout his career, earned him promotion to Reader (1969), Associate Professor (1973), and a DSc degree

(1992). After his wife Mina retired from her Senior Tutorship in 1997, the couple moved to Australia to be closer to family. Ben remained an active researcher after his emigration, and held an honorary position at Macquarie University in Sydney from 2003 to 2016.

Chemical Education Ever since the 1970s there had been growing concern over the ever-widening gap between the knowledge skills of students emerging from our national secondary education system and the demands of the undergraduate curriculum. To try to address this, Israelstam was a driving force behind the establishment of the Pre-University School in 1976 and was its first Director. Professor Gus Gerrans took over from him in 1978, carrying on until 1997 when he retired. Gerrans also set up three Summerbridge programmes in Science, Engineering and Social Sciences, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In 1979 Gerrans extended the scope of Glasser’s CAI initiative by raising funds from the South African Chemical Foundation to open a study and a resource centre primarily for use by underprepared students in need of support, but open to all. The former involved a room where students could work, while the latter had a large collection of text and tutorial books as well as learning aids such as programmed-learning manuals, audio- and audio-visual tapes and molecular models. After retiring in 1996 Gus worked for the Chemical and Allied Industries Association as Director of Information and Education Resources for three years before accepting an invitation from the University of Virginia to join the staff of the Chemistry Department. He worked there for a further 11 years full time and six years part time and was the recipient of the University of Virginia All University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011.

Sam Israelstam established the Information Centre on the Chemical Industry which did much good work in making teachers aware of the chemical industry and its contributions to the national economy. The growing concerns about the school–university gap also led to the introduction of an intermediate year to bridge the gap. This initiative came way before any others in South Africa and it was partially

catalysed by the presence of teacher education practitioners in the Department such as Dr Paddy Lynch. Lynch was soon joined by Gerrans and Professor John Bradley who, together with science educators in other departments, gradually built up an (informal) School of Science Education where chemistry education played a prominent role.

There was also input from Professor David Daniels, appointed as Professor of Chemistry Education in the late 1970s, although he did not remain for long. Because of their location in the Department, the researchers placed an emphasis on the importance of subject matter knowledge in science education and soon started postgraduate programs for chemical educators in the Department (usually tutors) and for lecturers at teacher education colleges.

The initiation of an intermediate year also finally led to the introduction of a four-year curriculum for under-prepared students.

In this way Wits became a leader in the field in the offering of extended curriculum programs which are now a prominent fixture in South African universities. The four-year program was formalized as the “College of Science” from 1991 when the Chemistry part of this program was coordinated by Dr Marissa Rollnick. A great deal of the tutorial and laboratory resources developed by the tutor members of the academic staff, especially Pam van Zyl, Margie White, Gail Green, Marie Brand and Frances Burgin, was used with much success for many years. John Bradley was promoted to Professor of Science Education in 1996. Among his achievements was the founding in 1990 of the RADMASTE Centre (website: radmaste.org.za).

He initiated the conception, development and adoption of small-scale laboratory kits and experiments for use primarily in high schools (The RADMASTE Microscience System). The advantages included the low cost of the equipment and the chemicals, and reduced waste disposal. With the support of IUPAC and UNESCO, Bradley conducted workshops in many countries around the world demonstrating the advantages of these kits. These have been adopted by UNESCO 20

and used worldwide. After retiring Bradley has been, and still is, actively involved in the Faculty of Humanities, where he teaches chemistry to students training to become teachers of Physical Science.

courses, and continues with his research on aspects of computational chemistry as applied to chemical bonding.

Succeeding Marques as Head of School in 2008 was Jo Michael, who led the School during a period of relative stability. Michael was well known for his research, which centred on synthetic methodology and nitrogen heterocycle chemistry, with a focus on alkaloid synthesis.

He was also a highly effective teacher and communicator, and he undertook extensive revision of the higher-year organic chemistry teaching curriculum. His service to the University included a term as Assistant Dean for Postgraduate Affairs in the Faculty of Science (1996–2001).

The College of Science was abandoned in the 2010s, with Wits’ commitment to becoming a research-focused institution and greater emphasis being placed on postgraduate programmes. The 15 years or so following the early 1990s saw a lively chemical education group, which produced numerous publications in the education field. Between 1996 and 2009, six of the ten Chemistry Education Medal awards made by the SACI went to members of this group. Unfortunately, when Rollnick took up a Chair in the Wits School of Education, the He, too, has been a recipient of the Gold Medal of ‘research in chemistry education’ component the South African Chemical Institute (2001), and of the School stopped. the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award (2002).

His term as Head ended at the beginning Nevertheless, there remains a robust body of 2013, when the present incumbent, Dean of research from this period when Wits Brady, took over the reins. Although Michael Chemistry housed a leading centre for retired in December 2014, he has remained chemical education. active in the School of Chemistry’s research and administrative life. A collage showing all of the Heads of the Department/School of Chemistry from Wilkinson to Brady is given in Fig. 19.

ST

THE 21 CENTURY THE HEADS OF SCHOOL

The restructuring of the University in 1999– 2000 saw the Department of Chemistry become the School of Chemistry in 2001.

Helder Marques was the first Head of School (2001–2005) and was reappointed for a second term in 2006. He also took over from Coville in 2010 to become the fourth Discipline Leader (Chair) of Inorganic Chemistry. He stepped down from the Headship at the end of 2008 on being appointed to a DST/NRF SA Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry at Wits until he relinquished the Chair to become Acting Dean and then Dean of the Faculty of Science (2013– 2017). Professor Orde Munro has subsequently taken over the SARChI Chair in Bioinorganic Chemistry. Although Marques retired at the end of 2020, he still teaches some advanced

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Professor Dean Brady, a PhD graduate of Rhodes University (1993), was employed at the CSIR prior to his appointment as Head of the School of Chemistry in February 2013. A biochemist by training, he is a specialist in biocatalysis and “green” chemistry, and has made important contributions to the use of enzymes for facilitating many useful chemical transformations.

His background has helped to forge strong links with both the School of Molecular and Cell Biology and with industry.

Under his leadership the School has seen an expansion in the academic staff as well as several important infrastructural changes (see later), as well as navigating the challenges of the two years of the fees-must-fall protests, the two year Covid-19 global pandemic and the chronic electrical power crisis. He was appointed to a second term of office for the period 2018–2022.

Fig. 19. The Heads of the Department/School of Chemistry from 1904 to the present.

OUR ACADEMIC STAFF From the mid-1980s, the concept of an established Chair was gradually abandoned by the University, and ad hominem promotion to full professorship (which had been difficult but not impossible until then) became much more common, and more so since 2001 with the devolution of many administrative responsibilities to Faculties. However, the establishment of Chairs (Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry) were retained in the School until well into the 2000s, although the professors in these sections are now usually referred to as Discipline Leaders. For example, Professors Demi Levendis and Charles de Koning are now the Discipline Leaders of Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, respectively, while Professor Luke Chimuka is the Discipline Leader of Analytical Chemistry.

The current academic staff of the School of Chemistry is given in Table 1. Some of the staff, and the Honours class of 2019, are shown in Fig. 20. The demography has improved over the years, with over 50% of the staff female, and 50% black – well above world trends. As older academic members retire or relocate, the staff profile has become even more representative of the population in Gauteng and South Africa.

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Table 1. The academic staff of the School of Chemistry (2022) Name

Field

Academic Rank

Billing, Prof. DG

Solid State/Materials

Professor

Bode, Prof. ML

Organic

Professor

Brady, Prof. D

Biocatalysis

Professor

Chimuka, Prof. LK

Environmental Analytical

Professor

Hildebrandt, Prof. D

Catalysis/Energy

Distinguished Professor

de Koning, Prof. CB

Organic

Professor

Lemmerer, Prof. A

Physical/Structural

Professor

Levendis, Prof. DC

Physical/Structural

Professor

Moloto, Prof. N

Materials/Inorganic

Professor

Munro, Prof. OQ

Inorganic

Professor

Ozoemena, Prof. KI

Material Science

Professor

Sheldon, Prof. RA

Biocatalysis/Organic

Distinguished Professor

Fernandes, Prof. MA

Physical/Structural

Reader

Billing, Prof. C

Physical

Associate Professor

Humphries, Prof. MS

Environmental Geochemistry

Associate Professor

Rousseau, Prof. AL

Organic

Associate Professor

Swarts, Prof. AJ

Inorganic

Associate Professor

Kotzé, Dr IA

Inorganic/NMR

Senior Lecturer

Makatini, Dr MM

Organic

Senior Lecturer

Moma, Dr JA

Catalysis

Senior Lecturer

Ngwira, Dr KJ

Organic

Senior Lecturer

Pillay, Dr L

Environmental Geochemistry

Senior Lecturer

Richards, Dr HL

Environmental Analytical

Senior Lecturer

van Wyk, Dr JL

Inorganic

Senior Lecturer

Forbes, Dr RP

Materials Science

Senior Researcher

Mathura, Dr S

Bioinorganic/Inorganic

Lecturer

Mubiayi, Dr P

Material Science

Lecturer

Ngubeni, Dr G

Material Science

Lecturer

Ntsimango, Dr S

Organic

Lecturer

Nowakowska, Dr M

Bioinorganic

Lecturer

Zimuwandeyi, Dr M

Organic/NMR

Lecturer

Brankin, Ms GT

Principal Tutor

Principal Tutor

Meirim, Ms MG

Principal Tutor

Principal Tutor

Gqoba, Dr SS

Materials/Lab Superintendent

Senior Tutor

Butsi, Ms K

Organic

Associate lecturer

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Name

Field

Academic Rank

Professors Emeriti Coville, Prof. NJ

Inorganic/Catalysis

Professor Emeritus

Cukrowska, Prof. EM

Environmental Analytical

Professor Emeritus

Marques, Prof. HM

Bioinorganic/Computational

Professor Emeritus

Michael, Prof. JP

Organic

Professor Emeritus

Scurrell, Prof. M

Physical/Industrial

Professor Emeritus

Bezuidenhout, Prof. DI

Inorganic

Honorary Professor

Carlton, Prof. L

Inorganic/NMR

Honorary Reader

Etale, Dr A

Environmental

Honorary Researcher

Kebede, Prof. MA

Physical

Hon Assoc Professor

Linganiso, Dr EC

Material Science

Honorary Researcher

Maubane-Nkadimeng, Dr MS

Material Science

Honorary Researcher

Mkwizu, Dr T

Physical

Honorary Researcher

Pienaar, Dr DP

Organic

Honorary Researcher

Potgieter-Vermaak, Prof SS

Environmental

Hon Assoc Professor

Saad, Dr D

Environmental

Honorary Researcher

Tetana, Dr ZN

Material Science

Honorary Researcher

Varadwaj, Prof. PR

Computational

Honorary Reader

Yang Prof. X

Material Science

Honorary Professor

Honorary Appointments

Many of our staff have been honoured by SACI with awards including the Gold Medal (as mentioned), the Raikes Medal, the Merck Medal, the Chemical Education Medal, and the Mischa Mrost (Analytica) Prize. A full list of recipients can be found on the SACI website.

Fig. 20. The Honours Class of 2019. Left to right:

Front row: M. Nowakowska; M. Bode; D. Barrett; D. Brady; K. Ngwira; E. Cukrowksa; M. Makatini.

Second Row: H. Richards; M. Fernandes; A. Rousseau; K. Ozoemena; O. Munro; R. Forbes; L. Chimuka; L. Pillay.

Third Row: P. Mubiayi; C. de Koning; M. Zimuwandeyi; D. Levendis; H. Marques.

Fourth Row: G. Ngubeni; J. van Wyk; I. Kotzé; H. Tutu; D. Bezuidenhout; J. Moma.

Fifth Row: S. Khoosal; N. Manana; C. Mollo; T. Khoza; M. Rampya; E Mposa; L Magagula; T. Lau; M. Dlamini; L. Ndhlovu.

Sixth Row: K. Masemola; A. Vidov; P. Nyembe; A. Gani; S. de Matos; J. Mhlongo; E. Spector.

Back Row: I. Minnie; T. Ramalepe; S. Qokomisa; K. Zimba; K. Somandi; D. Pillay; D. Fynn

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OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE

At the present time, no fewer than 19 members of the academic staff have been granted research ratings by the National Research Foundation (NRF). One scientist is A-rated (Sheldon), six have B ratings (Coville, de Koning, Hildebrandt, Marques, Michael, Ozoemena), one has a Y rating (Swarts), and the remainder have C ratings. In addition, the School hosts three DSI/NRF South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) chairs: the Chair in Bioinorganic Chemistry (Professor Orde Munro), the DSI-NEDBANK SARChI Chair in Energy Materials (Professor Nosipho Moloto), and the SARChI Research Chair in Materials Electrochemistry and Energy Technologies (Professor Kenneth Ozoemena).

The various areas of expertise in the School, and the staff undertaking research in these areas, are outlined below.

A. ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY Analytical chemistry in the department had languished somewhat until the arrival of Ewa Cukrowska, who revitalised the discipline in the new century. Analytical chemistry had been taught as an undergraduate subject by people such as Rowan Smit, Humphrey Farrer, Bob Hasty and Avin Pillay, most of whom were active in research and graduated a number of higher degree students. Cukrowska, as leader of the Environmental Analytical Chemistry Research Group, together with her team initiated a coherent, fundamental but environmentally and industrially important research area that attracted substantial funding (more than R30 M over the years) from industry and the funding agencies. She was appointed to a Senior Lectureship in 1999, promoted to an Associate Professorship in 2001 and to a full 25

Professorship in 2008 – the first female full professor in the School. She retired in 2017, but is now a Professor Emeritus in the School and is still active in research. Two members of Cukrowska’s team have themselves attained positions of eminence in the School. Professor Luke Chimuka first joined the group for a oneyear postdoctoral appointment in 2002. After a stint at the University of Venda, he joined the permanent staff in the School in 2006 and was promoted to full Professor in 2013. He took over as Discipline Leader of Analytical Chemistry on Cukrowska’s retirement.

Professor Hlanganani Tutu first joined the academic staff as a tutor in 2005, converted to the lecturer track after the award of the PhD in 2006, and has risen through the ranks, attaining the rank of ad hominem Professor in 2020. The group was joined in 2016 by Dr Heidi Richards (a joint appointment with the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences), who has considerable industrial and commercial experience. The arrival of Dr Marc Humphries (2011) and Dr Letitia Pillay (2016) expanded the scope of research in analytical chemistry with their interest in environmental geochemistry. Humphries was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2018.

B. INORGANIC CHEMISTRY The SARChI Chair in Bioinorganic Chemistry was taken up by Professor Orde Munro in 2015.

A PhD graduate from Marques’ group in 1996, Munro rose to the rank of Professor at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg.

Munro is the fifth Discipline Leader (Chair) of Inorganic Chemistry. The main thrust of his current programme is centred on the design of novel preclinical metallodrug candidates for cancer chemotherapy as well as treating drug-resistant bacterial infections.

His group is particularly interested in metal chelates designed to inhibit key enzymes that regulate the structure and function of DNA such as topoisomerases, gyrases, and polymerases, both in vitro and in malignant cells and bacteria. Small- and macromolecular computer simulations in combination with advanced spectroscopic and biophysical

techniques, as well as X-ray crystallography, are used in efforts to delineate the mechanisms of action of promising new compounds, which can be especially tricky with metal chelates. In recent years the inorganic chemistry section of the School has seen several staff members come and go. Professor Laurence Carlton, a coordination chemist who was very largely concerned with the running of the NMR facility, retired in 2013, but has remained associated with the School as an Honorary Reader. A conspicuous gap in organometallic chemistry research was briefly filled in 2016 by Associate Professor Daniela Bezuidenhout, who resigned in 2018 to take up a post at the University of Oulu, Finland.

Current members of the inorganic chemistry staff include Drs Juanita van Wyk and Izak Kotzé (both appointed in 2013), whose research is principally in aspects of coordination chemistry.

Dr Andrew Swarts joined the staff in April 2021 to fill the gap in fundamental and applied organometallic chemistry research that was left with the departure of Professor Bezuidenhout.

Recent members of the inorganic chemistry section, Drs Monika Nowakowska and Sadhna Mathura, both of whom recently obtained their PhD degrees with Marques, contribute mainly to the School’s teaching activities.

blocks for synthesis. In 2007 de Koning became the first South African recipient of the Nature Mid-Career Creative Mentoring Award from the prestigious journal Nature; and he received the Gold Medal of the South African Chemical Institute in 2020. The contributions of Professor Dean Brady as Head of School and ad hominem Professor have already been mentioned. Among the various other appointees to the organic chemistry section over the past two decades, Dr Willem van Otterlo (PhD 1999, with de Koning and Michael) stands out. After his appointment as a lecturer in 2002, he rose rapidly to the rank of Associate Professor before he moved to Stellenbosch University as Professor of Organic Chemistry.

Expertise in synthesis as applied to medicinal chemistry has been introduced to the School with the appointments in 2011, from posts at the CSIR, of Professors Moira Bode and Amanda Rousseau. Dr Maya Makatini, who joined the staff from Mintek in 2015, has brought expertise in aspects of peptide synthesis. Currently, the organic chemistry section also includes recent PhD graduates Kennedy Ngwira, Memory Zimuwandeyi and Songeziwe Ntsimango.

C. ORGANIC CHEMISTRY The traditionally strong area of organic chemistry has continued to flourish under the leadership of Professor Charles de Koning, who obtained his PhD from the University of Cape Town in 1988.

After joining Wits as a lecturer in 1991, he quickly established himself as a popular teacher and inspiring researcher who recruited numerous postgraduate students. He was promoted to an ad hominem Professorship in 2005, and took over as Discipline Leader of Organic Chemistry from Jo Michael in 2015. He also served as Assistant Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science from 2017 to 2021. His research focus is on the development of new routes for the synthesis of aromatic and heteroaromatic systems, and their applications to the assembly of aromatic natural products. Recent developments have been on the use of biomass waste as building Fig. 21. Professor R. A. Sheldon

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There is no doubt, however, that the most eminent appointee in the organic chemistry section is Professor Roger Sheldon, FRS (Fig. 21), who joined the School in 2017 with the rare title of Distinguished Professor.

Sheldon, who is also Emeritus Professor of Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is internationally renowned for his contributions to green and sustainable chemistry.

He is the originator of the widely used E (for Environmental) Factor for the overall efficiency of chemical processes. This metric takes into account not only atom economy but also anything that can be regarded as “waste”, including unused reagents, solvent losses, spent catalysts and supports, and energy usage.

D. PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY AND MATERIALS SCIENCE The last formally appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry was Michael Scurrell, who took over the Chair of Physical Chemistry in 2001 after Glasser’s retirement. He led the catalysis group at the CSIR from 1983 until 1994, when he joined the Anglo American Research Laboratories as the Applied Research Manager prior to his appointment at Wits in 2000. Scurrell’s research involved fundamental studies on industrial projects of importance to South Africa in methane partial oxidation, Fischer– Tropsch synthesis and zeolites, among other areas. He has latterly investigated the use of microwave radiation to modify catalysts for many of the above reactions. He was the first Chair of CATSA, organised numerous catalysis meetings and worked closely with industrial partners throughout his career. He took early retirement in 2010, but continues his association with the School as an Emeritus Professor.

The most recent appointment in the catalysis area is Professor Diane Hildebrandt, who joined the School on Chemistry in 2021 as a Distinguished Professor. Hildebrandt has a joint appointment with the Wits Business School.

Her career has focused on Process Engineering, an area in which she is a world expert, and other topics of importance to the chemical industry. She has written text books on the topic 27

and published widely in the field. She is also the Director of the International Laboratory for New Energy at the Hebei University of Science and Technology (HBUST), China. She was previously the South African Research Chair of Sustainable Process Engineering and a co-director of the Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa from 2005 to 2013, and Director of the Institute for the Development of Energy for African Sustainability (IDEAS) and a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Africa (2013-2021).

After setting up a strong foundation in crystallography and theoretical chemistry during the years 1980-2000, Professor Jan Boeyens succeeded in acquiring South Africa’s first area detector diffractometer in 1996, which propelled the science into the 21st century. Professors Demi Levendis, Manuel Fernandes and Andreas Lemmerer . all Wits PhD graduates, have advanced the field of single-crystal X-ray diffraction with studies into solid-state organometallic and organic solid-state reactions, thermosalient crystals, polymorphism, phase transformations and high-pressure crystallography over the past twenty years. The Jan Boeyens Structural Chemistry Laboratory houses three operational diffractometers, including a brand-new dual-wavelength D8-BIO machine partially paid for from an NRF grant motivated

by Professor Orde Munro. The laboratory also continues to be the National Affiliated Centre in South Africa for the Cambridge Crystallographic Structural Database (CSD). A related facility under the direction of Professor Dave Billing is the powder X-ray diffraction laboratory, which currently houses four operational instruments and provides measurements of particular value to the burgeoning area of materials sciences.

The discipline of materials science, which mainly draws from the traditional areas of physical and inorganic chemistry, has arisen as a result of changes worldwide, brought about by the era of nanotechnology. In the School it started from an interaction between physics, metallurgy and chemistry, and it was supported by de Beers, which saw a need for the production of materials scientists in this

country. This grouping provided the nucleus for the eventual creation of a DST–NRF Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials (COE-SM), which came into existence in June 2004 under the aegis of the School of Physics. The COE-SM has provided excellent financial support to the School of Chemistry for students, equipment and running costs for more than 15 years. The chemistry component of the COESM was initially focused on carbon nanotubes, but has since grown to include inorganic nanomaterials. While chemists have always led these activities, they also now also play a role in many of the other subgroups in the Centre and continue to enjoy excellent interactions with the School of Physics. The focus in the School has been on the synthesis and study of materials for use in heterogeneous catalysis, electrochemistry and energy applications, among others. Specific interests include applications in solar cells, sensors, quantum dots, fuel cells and batteries, semiconductors, biomass conversion and water treatment. Many staff members in the School conduct research into aspects of materials science, including Professors Caren and Dave Billing, Neil Coville, Nosipho Moloto and Kenneth Ozoemena, and Drs Dean Barrett, Roy Forbes, Siziwe Gqoba, John Moma, Pierre Mubiayi and Grace Ngubeni, while MSI associates Drs Ella Linganiso, Manoko Maubane-Nkadimeng and Zikhona Tetana from the Wits Microscopy Unit collaborate on a number of projects. Among the numerous international interactions enjoyed by our materials chemists can be mentioned membership of the DST-IBSA (India–Brazil– SA) Nanotechology initiative; collaborations on synchrotron characterisation of materials with the Brazilian National Synchrotron Light Source (LNLS), Brookhaven National Laboratories (BNL, USA), the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Stanford, USA), the Canadian Light Source and the Diamond Light Source laboratories (Harwell, UK); and battery research with several universities around the world.

As was mentioned previously, the two holders of SARChI Chairs in the physical chemistry and materials sciences areas are Professors Nosipho Moloto and Kenneth Ozoemena. Moloto is a Wits graduate who obtained her PhD with Coville in 2011. She joined the School’s 28

academic staff in the same year, and has risen rapidly through the ranks. She was promoted to a full professorship in 2018, the year in which she was awarded the SARChI chair.

Her interests are in the synthesis and characterization of novel nanomaterials, and their use in water, energy, biomedical, and sensor applications. Ozoemena obtained his PhD in 2003 from Rhodes University, after which he worked at the CSIR in their Electrochemical Energy Technologies, Materials Science and Manufacturing Unit. He joined Wits as a full professor in 2017, and was awarded his SARChI Chair in 2020. His highly multi-disciplinary research activities span several areas of materials science and electrochemistry, including synthetic inorganic chemistry, electrochemical sensing, electrocatalysis and electrochemical energy storage. Ozoemena won the Vice Chancellor’s Research Award for 2022.

E. THE MOLECULAR SCIENCES INSTITUTE When the Department of Chemistry was reorganised in line with a University-wide rationalisation of Faculties and Departments, the research activities within the newly constituted School of Chemistry were also reconsidered.

As a result, a proposal for the establishment of the Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI) as the research arm of the School of Chemistry was put forward to the University Research Committee, which sanctioned the development. The MSI was created in January 2001, with Professor Neil Coville as its first director.

The institute was formed from two existing research centres in the former Department of Chemistry: the Centre for Applied Chemistry and Chemical Technology (which had been headed by Coville), and the Centre for Molecular Design (headed by Professor Jan Boeyens).

Subsequent directors of the MSI were Professors Jo Michael (2004-2006), Mike Scurrell (2007-2009), Helder Marques (2010-2012) and Dean Brady (2013 to date).

The MSI facilitates collaborative research in thrusts centred on chemistry and its related disciplines. Its avowed purpose is to bring to29

gether workers from a range of different chemistry backgrounds, to foster interdisciplinary research, and to facilitate contact with industry, other academic institutions, and even schools and school teachers. There are research thrusts in Analytical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry, and Materials Science. A broad outline of the research activities in these areas has been given above.

Membership of the MSI is voluntary, but nearly all research-active academic staff in the School are members. The MSI also has several associate members from other University departments and external institutions. Membership has grown from 15 in 2001 to 34 in 2021. By the end of 2021 there were also 92 PhD and 77 MSc part-time and full-time students in training, while over the last 10 years an average of 12 PhD and 14 MSc students graduated each year. Publications in peer-reviewed international journals, conference proceedings and books have risen steadily over the years, ranging from 40 in 2001 to almost 140 in 2021.

OUR SUPPORT STAFF Underpinning every School is the administrative and technical assistance provided to the staff and students. In the 1960s and 1970s the Department still had an old-fashioned system of support. Chemical orders for teaching and research, for example, were done on an ad hoc basis by the departmental administrator, while secretarial staff served as personal assistants to the Chair Professors as well as handling typing for staff and performing general office work. This started changing in the 1980s as research gained momentum in the Department.

Buker’s successors included John Hughes, Barry Fairbrother (retired 2008) and Steven Gannon (retired 2009). The current incumbent is Tapuwa Dzara (appointed 2008). Over the years the glassblowing service has been used less frequently as more glassware has become commercially available. However, the demands from both chemistry and other departments for custom-made glassware and for repairs mean that the facility is still operational – one of the last in Johannesburg and, in fact, an increasingly rare craft in the country.

The role of the Departmental (later School) Senior Administrator, however, has remained critical to the smooth operation of the enterprise. Our Senior Administrators since the early 1970s were Bernard Leahy, Fritz Knoth, Frieda Julyan and Rowena Birrell. Agnes Pointeer, who ran the show from her appointment in 1998 until her retirement in 2015, was a charismatic but feisty Scot who also operated an informal Friday-afternoon pub for chemistry’s staff and postgraduate students.

She passed away in 2016, but is still fondly remembered by many members of the School.

The current SeniorAcademic Administrator is Khwezi Ndawonde, who was appointed in 2016 after having worked as Agnes’s second-in command since 2011; while Ms Sadiya Ooni joined as the Senior Administrator (Finances) for the School in the same year.

Staff have also required the services of a workshop and personnel with expert skills in electronics, electrical equipment, gas lines and similar services. In the 1970s Steve van der Schyff was in charge of a small machine shop in the School.

This workshop was amalgamated with the Physics workshop in the late 1980s, and eventually relocated to the Physics building, its present location. The amalgamation provided the School with a larger cohort of technical assistance. Steve was the Chief Technician in charge of the joint Physical Sciences Workshop until his retirement in 2001. He was succeeded by John Augustine, who retired in 2021. Another colourful workshop character was Basil Chassoulas, who joined the School in the 1980s.

The Department (and now the School) has always had glassblowers to assist with laboratory and research activities. Indeed, in the 1960s the Honours students had to take a glassblowing course as part of their degree requirements.

In those days students had to build their own vacuum lines, produce simple pieces of glassware and carry out minor repairs. Mr Rinus Buker, a superb craftsman, was first employed in the 1960s and left his mark on the School until he retired two decades later. His son René worked alongside him until leaving to become the first glassblower at the newly established Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg).

He was initially responsible for building many of the catalysis reactors used by the Hutchings group, and he trained many, many students in practical skills before his retirement in 2010. The growth of personal computers from the 1980s onwards initially required the appointment of technicians to assist staff and students with aspects of the technology. Glasser was a major force in setting up a local area network for use by students in tackling tutorial problems, and the computer room was heavily used until, more recently, the advent of relatively cheap laptop computers has rendered it largely redundant.

Central University and Faculty of Science computer laboratories are available and used for our classes when needed. Although the role of computer technicians in the School has diminished as both hardware and software have become more intuitive to use, 30

Ernest Maluleke is the current administrator of this still important facility. Secretarial and administrative staff numbers have fluctuated since the 1960s. In the early days, secretaries did the typing of manuscripts for staff, while graphics experts were available for producing the artwork for staff publications. The advent of the personal computer, word processing and graphics programmes has meant that this chore is now largely undertaken by the staff and students themselves. Thus, secretaries and artwork experts have gradually been replaced by administrative and bookkeeping personnel. The role of the School Administrator, described above, has become ever more important, especially after the devolution of many responsibilities to Faculties and Schools after the restructuring of the University in the early 2000s. However, as the School grew the administrative, purchasing and accounting responsibilities have been separated, and several persons are employed for these roles today.

to make room for our ever-expanding research activities. As mentioned previously, in 2011 the machine shop and related technical facilities were moved to the Physics building, the powder X-ray laboratory taking over the vacated space.

In 2012, in response to the growing chemistry class sizes, a new 1700 m2 chemistry teaching laboratory was completed as part of the new Wits Science Stadium on West Campus, the splendid modern laboratory providing space for 384 students (Fig. 22). Sponsorship by AECI contributed significantly to the laboratory construction. The relocation of the first year teaching laboratory consequently freed up space in the Humphrey Raikes building. Therefore 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate laboratories each moved to the more spacious premises on the ground and first floors, respectively, and about 800 m2 of new Inorganic Bioinorganic, Nanotechnology and Organic Chemistry laboratories were constructed from 2013 to 2017 in the spaces vacated.

A pivotal role in the servicing of undergraduate laboratories is provided by our laboratory assistants, who work under the direction of the Laboratory Superintendent. Among the more flamboyant individuals to have filled this post until her retirement in 1999 was Mrs Ellen Mahomed, whose motherly attentions influenced several generations of first-year students. The current Laboratory Supervisor is Dr Siziwe Gqoba, who is a Senior Tutor on the academic staff as well as being an active researcher in materials chemistry. Her staff includes three Senior Technicians: Nandi Msimang (first-year laboratory), Ignatia Khumalo (second-year laboratory) and Joyce Gama (third-year laboratory), as well as a number of laboratory assistants. The School also employs two storemen, David Moloto and Elias Valoyi, who oversee the day-to-day provision of chemicals and equipment to both the teaching and the research laboratories.

Most of the funding was provided by the Department for Higher Education.

Furthermore, these moves resulted in doubling of the Environmental Chemistry laboratory space.

New electrochemistry, battery and geochemistry laboratories were also created in Gate House. After many years of lobbying, in 2015 the School was able to take over and modify the old electrical substation building adjacent to Humphrey Raikes in order to relocate the solvent and chemical stores from their hazardous location in the basement. This move permitted redevelopment of the 400 m2 basement into new analytical laboratories by 2019, as well as upgrades to the adjacent Mass Spectroscopy laboratory. Refurbishments were also made throughout the remainder of the teaching and research laboratories in the Humphrey Raikes building and the top floor of Gate House. These refurbishments modernised the laboratories (many of which had become quite dilapidated through constant use) and brought them more in line with modern safety requirements by providing additional conventional and walk-in fume hoods, waste chemical stores, emergency showers and eyewash stations. Investment in new

INFRASTRUCTURE Over the last decade there has been considerable expansion of the School and renewal of infrastructure, principally 31

Fig. 22. The Science Stadium, opened in 2012, and one portion of the AECI undergraduate chemistry laboratory.

instrumentation for the laboratories was substantial during that period, including significant investments in instruments for nanotechnology, mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and both single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction. In 2020 modifications to the lower three stories of Gate House commenced, which will provide additional lecture rooms for the neighbouring Schools, including Chemistry. Setting up specialist and inter-School laboratories in Flower Hall on the West Campus is currently being mooted. The impact on machine learning

and artificial intelligence on Chemistry also suggest a future in which more of our work will be performed in virtual laboratories.

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We currently offer Chemistry and Applied Chemistry as majors in the Faculty of Science’s BSc degree. The programme we offer is well aligned with the recommendations of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society. We also deliver service courses to students in the Faculties of Engineering & the Built Environment, and Health Sciences. Our first year Chemistry course to students in the Faculty of Science caters for some 900 students. Together with the services courses, we teach annually around 2500 first year students.

OUR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMMES

The current Director of First-Year Studies is the long serving Mrs Gaby Meirim. There are typically 120 students in our second year Chemistry Major courses; 20 students in Applied Chemistry II; 80 students in Chemistry III Major; and 40 students in Applied Chemistry III. We also offer a one year full-time Honours degree in Chemistry, which includes several compulsory core topics as well as a number of electives that permit a degree of specialisation.

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Honours students also undertake two research projects, which for most students act as appetisers for subsequent MSc and PhD research. The Honours class usually comprises between 20 and 30 students, with 30 being an upper limit for logistical reasons. Professor Demi Levendis took on the role of Director of Senior Undergraduate Studies in Chemistry in 2017 to oversee the studies of the undergraduate students from second year upwards.

A major initiative in the Department, introduced in the 1980s by Bradley and Gerrans, was to replace one lecture a week by peer-group tutorials overseen by postgraduate student tutors.

The philosophy underlying this move was to encourage students, working in teams of three or four, to help one another in tackling a variety of chemical problems. The concept was initially trialled with the first-year students, but was later extended to higher years. While the operation worked well initially, it proved to be labour-intensive and too reliant on the abilities and enthusiasm of the tutors. Although the group-tutorial approach is still important in the School to this day, it has been modified over time in the interests of practicability and efficiency.

In 2008 we introduced a BSc Chemistry with Chemical Engineering option as a joint programme with the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering. This is a five year programme – unique in South Africa – that leads to a BSc (majoring in Chemistry) followed by a BScEng (Chem Eng). Students take various Engineering subjects during their BSc degree and on successfully completing the BSc degree enter the third year of the BScEng programme. They will therefore graduate with two degrees in five years. However, those who change their minds can, after the BSc degree, go on to the BScHons and higher degree work in Chemistry. Students are therefore not locked into the five-year option, but its BSc graduates will emerge with at least a fundamental knowledge of chemical engineering principles.

We also offer (in a joint programme with the Schools of Physics, and Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering) an undergraduate programme in Materials Science. Uptake has been low and the viability of the programme is in question.

SOCIAL LIFE AND STUDENT INITIATIVES

Fig. 23. The 2019 team of postgraduate students and staff in the Lenn Smith ‘Round the Campus’ Inter-School race.

The School has always prided itself in being a friendly, welcoming and cohesive environment. This was especially so during the 1970s when the staff complement was relatively small. Annual Christmas lunches and other get-togethers were often held at the home of the Head of Department. The School has a vibrant Student Chemical Society, ChemSoc, which has existed in various guises, waxing and waning with the enthusiasm of the students involved. The late 1970s to mid-1980s saw a particularly active ChemSoc, generously funded by the Department Heads, Sebba and then Perold. There were many evening film shows, and lectures by invited speakers from industry, invariably followed by cheese and wine parties that tended to go on well into the night. There was an annual dinner-dance, usually at the Bozzoli Pavilion.

In the 1980s the ChemSoc also organised a series of away trips (as far away as Namibia), allegedly to visit chemical companies, mines, etc. Many of the students and staff who went on the escapades remember them fondly, for the lively (not to say riotous) social interactions.

More recently ChemSoc has been particularly active in presenting fun demonstrations, the Whizz-Bang Show, to high school visitors to our campus, and presenting their shows at schools as well. They have also recorded demonstration videos, very useful for showing incoming students basic laboratory procedures. They hold regular tutorial sessions before critical tests and exams to assist their members with revision.

the UK in 1974, noticed that a typical informal pub culture was missing on campus. Together with Dave Baldwin and others from the School, they arranged with the Wits administration to provide a building close to Yale Road (the old Mintek building site) for a PG home. This PG club (called the PiG) has continued its life in a nearby location, and still provides a place for staff and post graduates from all the Faculties to interact.

Many Chemistry staff and students still frequent the PiG. During the 1980s the School had soccer teams in the university league, and both staff and students participated in these events. There was even a famous rugby game between staff and students in 1988 – a never-to-be repeated event because of the competitiveness of the staff. Several staff vs student soccer games were also held. In the late 1980s a ‘Round the Campus’ Inter-School running race was initiated by Lenn Smith of the School of Metallurgy. Chemistry has participated in this event ever since its start. When Lenn retired, the Physical Science Workshop personnel and Coville took over the race administration.

Steve van der Schyff was in charge of the race marshals while the local running club, Varsity Kudus, undertook the more technical duties, such as the timing. The Chemistry teams have always excelled at the event, winning individual, men’s and women’s team prizes multiple times.

Race numbers grew over the years, starting from a number in the teens to over 300 in a typical race in 2019 (Fig. 23). The Covid pandemic, alas, saw the race stopped for the first time in 2020, The postgraduate (PG) club at Wits owes its but it was successfully resurrected in 2022 and existence to an initiative from Professor John Team Chemistry won the first prize for women Pratt from the School. Pratt, who arrived from and the second prize for men.

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EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON THE SCHOOL It was rumoured that the bomb exploded at Park Station by school teacher Frederick John Harris in 1964, killing a person, was stored in an office or laboratory at Wits.

Things also became more volatile when the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was set up in 1967 to compete with Wits in Johannesburg.

Their first building was in Jan Smuts Avenue across from the Wits campus and near the School. Clashes between Wits students and the police resulted. The 1970s and 1980s saw a continuation of the Wits versus government struggle as society changed. This had an impact on all. Despite Wits’s anti-apartheid stance, there was a concerted effort from many parts of the world to boycott South African science and scientists which, was understandable. We made our view very clear on where the staff members stood on the issue (Fig. 24). From Chemical and Engineering News, January 1986. The 1990s saw the political and social changes commence in SA that impacted on the School

Fig. 24. From Chemical and Engineering News, January 1986.

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(and all at Wits) and that continue to this day.

From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s the School lost many of its top researchers through emigration (Arthur Howard, Graham Hutchings, Wally Orchard, Ray van Wandruszka, Tony Pizzi, Rob Hancock, Valery Sokolovskii). The University, after the 1994 election, also saw internal strife within the Wits Executive. Together with the public perception that Wits was ‘lowering its standards’, this resulted in a difficult period for both the University and the School.

The loss of staff, together with weak funding and declining numbers of chemistry students impacted on morale. Fortunately, stabilization occurred in the early 2000s to put the School back on track. However, changes to make the University more ‘business-like’ meant that a more managerial approach was put in place.

This was not unique to Wits, but part of the changes that were occurring worldwide. However, it meant that Senate meetings, that used be a place of discourse, became meetings increasingly devoted to discuss managerial issues, while increasing bureaucracy saw staff having to devote more and more time to administration and paperwork. Changes throughout the larger world have impacted on the School. Up until the 1990s staff would have been predominantly white and male. It is easy to forget that Government laws limited or prohibited many students from attending the University because of their ethnicity. Indeed, the honours class photographs readily portray the changes that have occurred since the mid-1990s. Since 1994 the School has changed to better reflect its environment in South Africa. Most of the undergraduate, and importantly the postgraduate, students are now black and female. What has been particularly noticeable is the growth in numbers of female and black students who have been trained at Wits, many of whom now play important roles in academia, government, and industry. By the end of 2021 women constituted about 60% of our postgraduate (Honours, MSc and PhD) cohort. The current academic staff complement is also very different from that of 100 years ago: white males form only 29% of the academic complement, while 46% of the staff are women and the number of black staff has steadily increased.

IMPACT OF THE SCHOOL ON THE SCIENCE COMMUNITY

Standing: D.H. FINE R.O. PERRY, V.M LOVELL, D.S VAN DER MERVE, T. VENABLES, W. PRINZ. Sitting: Miss A A. WALLACE, Prof. F. SEBBA (M.Sc., PhD.), Prof. O. G BACKEBERG (M.A., D.Sc.) Prof. S S. ISRAELSTAM (M.Sc., Ph.D), Miss G. T. F. GALASKO.

Fig. 25. The Final Year Chemistry Honours students and academic staff 1963. Fine is on the top left of the photograph.

As you can see, the School of Chemistry has a proud and interesting history – and we have little doubt it will continue with its significant contributions to the creation of new science and scientists for many years into the future.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this account of the story so far. The School since its existence has been involved with the local chemistry industry and the South African Chemical Institute (SACI). Many of the staff have played important roles in obtaining funding from local companies that included AECI, Sasol, Merck and many others. This support has provided financial support for both research and education over the decades.

The SACI celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012. It was founded on the 26th January 1912; it is thus older than the School. Its headquar-

ters moved to the School of Chemistry in 2001 and the office, currently run by Ms Laila Smith, is still to be found in the School today. Many staff have played important roles in SACI; over the decades: several staff members have served as Presidents of SACI, while others have served on SACI’s executive and other committees, worked as Editors on the South African Journal of Chemistry, and organised conferences and workshops.

The focus of much chemistry education at the postgraduate level at Wits has been at creating new researchers for the chemical industry and the Universities. Here many of our students have carved successful careers at local and international universities, and in multinational, national and local chemical industries. However, in reality most of our postgraduates become leaders, 36

and eventually managers, in law, government and the commercial world. Many of our former students are now, or have been, in managerial roles, for example, at the CSIR (Thulani Dlamini); at NECSA and the National Nuclear Regulator (Ditebogo Kgomo); Standard Bank (Vimal Ichharam); Anglo-American Research labs (Neville Plint); the computing world (Craig Tavener); and MINTEK (Gary Pattrick, Lucky Sikhwivhilu). Many now work as consultants to companies. An inclusive list of our successful graduates who reside in SA and countries outside our borders is not possible, but it is clear that their time in the School has impacted on their careers. Those postgraduates currently studying are well assisted by the Wits Research Office – which is superbly managed by one of our alumni, Dr Robin Drennan.

branches of international societies such as the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society.

This year (2022) the Angela and David Fine Chair in Innovation at Wits was established with the aim of commercialising more of our research and giving the budding entrepreneurs among our students a head start. Dr David H. Fine graduated with a Wits Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Chemistry in 1964 (Fig. 25) and became an innovator who has been awarded 105 patents in the United States. He developed detectors for buried landmines and chemical residues that were used to identify the explosives used in the Lockerbie bombing that brought down the Pan Am plane over Scotland in 1988. His team also developed the first airport sniffers for explosives and narcotics and thousands of these devicPresentation skills to allow our students to es are now used in airports worldwide. He was communicate with their peers and the public awarded an honorary Doctorate in Chemistry by is now part of a postgraduate degree. This is the University in 2022. a far-cry from these studies in the past where laboratory work was the key component of a degree. As a consequence part of modern day training in chemistry includes report and paper writing, giving talks and presenting posters, and the ability to use electronic search engines. Indeed, many of our students have won prestigious prizes at conferences for their presentation skills.

The engagement with the outside world also includes the interactions with schools, with incoming graduate students, with Sci-Bono, with Science bodies; and here our own postgraduate students have also played a significant role over the decades. Many staff are involved with keeping the ‘chemical system going’ in SA by giving up their time to serve on Boards, to review applications for national funding agencies, industry and NGOs, and interact with Science and professional bodies as needed. For example Professor Bode was the examiner for National Science Olympiad (Chemistry) 2009-2017. In addition, many of our staff have served (and continue to serve) on the editorial boards of prestigious journals, as reviewers for submission to those journals, and as reviewers of applications to local and international funding agencies. Several have served on committees of IUPAC and the local 37

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As mentioned in the introduction to this brief history, this is an update of articles by Professor Trevor Letcher in ChemSA (1976, pp.

192-195), and by Dr Dick Copperthwaite in the same journal (1982, pp. 162-164). We are greatly indebted to Bruce Murray’s two volumes on the History of Wits. Many colleagues currently on the staff, those that have relocated elsewhere, and those that have retired, contributed their thoughts and reminiscences: John Bradley, Dean Brady, Luke Chimuka, Ewa Cukrowska, Ignacy Cukrowski, Humphrey Farrer, Gus Gerrans, Leslie Glasser, Bob Hasty, Arthur Howard, Roger Hunter, Graham Hutchings, David King, Trevor Letcher, Demi Levendis, Philip Loyson, Nosipho Moloto, Kathy Munro, Kenneth Ozoemena, Roy Perry, Tony Pizzi, Marissa Rollnick, Mina and Ben Staskun, Hlanganani Tutu and Ray von Wandruszka.

Any errors and omission are of course our own, and we invite you to send us corrections and missing bits of information so we can update this brief history in due course.

Neil Coville, Helder Marques, Jo Michael November 2022 Please send comments to Helder.Marques@wits.ac.za

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www.wits.ac.za/chemistry/

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