Alumnus Profile:
Jim Ward; B.Sc. and Ph.D. (Edinburgh,1953, 1956),
M.A. and D.Litt. (Leiden, 1995, 2001)

In these austere times it seems appropriate to refer briefly to an earlier time when even more austerity was the order of the day. In 1949 when I went from Peebles High School to Edinburgh University to study Chemistry, food, clothing and petrol were still rationed.

Parritch and auld claes was a saying that was reality for many people. Bread and potatoes, which had been freely available during the war, were rationed; bread in 1946, potatoes in 1947. National Service was in force. There was everywhere a lack of colour; in people’s shoddy clothing and in the drab appearance of many of Edinburgh’s public buildings. Students whom I knew told me in advance about the gloomy corridors extending in from the main entrance of the Chemistry Department, now Joseph Black Building; about the interior bare brick walls, unpainted because paint apparently was a fire hazard; and about the lack of windows in some of the rooms. I still visit the department once or twice a year, using Google Earth now to get there. The cameras don’t show me if the interior has been brightened up. I can only hope so.

But the heart of the Chem. Dept. lay in the students’ labs. They were lit through skylights, and by the occasional unintentional blaze. Personal safety had a very low priority with us. We seldom if ever wore safety specs, the fume cupboards were ineffectual, and so we soon became used to stinks and bangs. As undergraduates our apparatus was of glass and corks, and our dream was to have Quickfit glassware, like the research students had. In our first year, Chemistry, Physics and Maths were obligatory subjects; then as now, I assume. The latter two were taught in town, near the Old Quadrangle, and that required students to travel up and down from Corstorphine by tram. A boring journey, and it cost us money. Maths broke many a chemistry student’s heart. It was a pure math course, but I heard that since then concessions have been made. In my study I combined Chemistry with Physics II and Biochemistry I.

An advantage of austerity was that there were few distractions from studying, and so without a hitch I graduated B.Sc. in 1953, and in 1956 Ph.D., with a thesis on azulene chemistry. The Chem. Soc. London republished some of it not long ago. Quel honneur! We did get Quickfit glassware at this stage, but we had to purify our own solvents and make our own starting materials; it was valuable training. My supervisor was Dr W. H. (Willie) Stafford, who had earned his Ph. D. under Professor Neill Campbell (1903-1996). To both of them, now deceased, I am eternally grateful. What they had in common was great enthusiasm for chemistry. Back then I worked as a demonstrator in the Organic lab and in Dr Chrissie Miller’s analytical lab. Dr Miller was born in 1899, and among everything else that I learned from her was punctuality. We remained friends, writing each other at intervals until she died in 2001.

As a demonstrator I earned £120/annum (that’s right, per annum). So like some other Ph. D. students I stayed working till late most evenings. Twice a week or so I missed the last bus, intentionally I think now, down to Portobello High Street, near where I lodged with my aunt. My favourite memory of Edinburgh was of walking from KB to Portobello through Duddingston on clear winter or moonlit nights. The streets were deserted. With the moon in front of me and Arthur’s Seat towering behind me, it was like a scene from “Kidnapped”, and I was playing Davy Balfour.

On leaving Edinburgh I was awarded fellowships by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, whose head office is still in Bonn, and later by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I was deeply moved when in September 1956 Neill Campbell came down to Leith to see me off on the ship to Hamburg. I spent the next five years, first in Berlin for a year (Prof. F. Weygand) and then Heidelberg (Profs G. Wittig and O. Th. Schmidt). Germany was an unforgettable experience for me. My advice to young women and men is, if you wish to study or do research abroad, choose Europe! You will have to apply for money and prepare about a year before graduating or applying.

There was no lack of work for research chemists in the UK on my return in 1961. I took up a post in Unilever Research Division, first in England, and soon after at Unilever Research Lab ( URL) Vlaardingen in the Netherlands. Total staff there was about 1200. The three organic chemistry sections employed about 50 people, and there were three similar biochemistry sections. In 1969 I was made section leader of Organic Chemistry II. Until 1989 my work, much of which has been published, was mostly on natural compounds in tropical vegetable oils, and in the organic synthesis of glycerides and flavour compounds.

I must say, however, the nature of the work at URL has changed since then. Long before 1989 Research Division had become top heavy. At the age of 58 I was one of several hundred scientists in management throughout the Unilever concern who received fairly generous financial offers, on condition that we accept early retirement. I accepted. In 1956, on leaving KB for the last time, I had asked myself, what now?

In 1989 I asked myself the same question again. My whole professional adult life until then had been spent doing research in organic chemistry. That limits the advice I can give any Chemistry student or teacher, but if your ambition ultimately is to do research of any kind, then read on. As an undergraduate or research student, you belong, I’m told, to a generation that can expect to live to about 100 (cf. Dr Chrissie Miller, above). The French chemist M. E. Chevreul (1786-1889) still worked in his lab at that age. But you won’t. So what are you going to do in the thirty or forty years after you retire in the 2050’s or 60’s? That is similar to the question I faced in 1989.

Research and experimental chemistry may be ruled out for you, but you could do something like I did. I have always been interested in History. At Edinburgh, Professor James Kendall (1889-1978) encouraged that interest in his students. His exams had an optional question on the History of Chemistry. So in 1989 I enrolled as a first year student at Leiden University. I learned to specialise in the history not of Chemistry but of Late Medieval Holland, graduating M. A. in 1995. After a further six years of archival research, with Professor Wim Blockmans as advisor, I graduated D. Litt in 2001, with a thesis on the diets of the States of Holland in the years 1506 to1515 (N.B. the other kind of diet). Since then I have continued to do research and publish articles related to my two history theses.

If you think history is bunk then, perhaps in thirty years’ time on recalling my story, you might wish to prepare yourself for other research, other employment, other interests. But for now if you are nearing graduation, you should plan with care your future career whether as a chemist in research, in teaching, or in other employment.

Not only for one year ahead but for five years. Be realistic. Know thyself! Update your plan regularly. At suitable moments during early interviews ask the bosses in industry whether their companies provide regular in-house managerial training and career advice. Big companies certainly do. Ask yourself at times whether you are happy in what you are doing, and if you are making progress towards your goals. Act accordingly, and remember: time flies. At Peebles High School in my schooldays there was an inscription attributed to King George V: It is to the Young that the Future belongs. Make the most of it.