Some Dates

Some of the events which punctuate the history of the PCL are given below. A register of the senior academics associated with the laboratory is given as an appendix.

1941	The original PCL building is completed.
	Professor C.N. Hinshelwood (appointed Dr Lee's Professor in 1937) is Head of the Department, which at that time includes the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory.
1944	H.M. Powell is appointed Reader in Chemical Crystallography and the Laboratory of Chemical Crystallography becomes a unit of the Department of Physical Chemistry.
	The PCL workshops are completed.
1947	The last College laboratories, the Sir Leoline Jenkins Laboratories at Jesus College, close.
1947	J.H. Wolfenden resigns to become Professor of Chemistry at Dartmouth College, U.S.A.
1948	Douglas Everett is elected Professor of Chemistry at the University of Dundee.
1956	Professor Hinshelwood and Professor Semenov receive the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work on chain reactions.
1957	Metallurgy is constituted a separate Department.
1959	The east extension of the PCL is completed.
1963	Inorganic Chemistry becomes a separate Department.
1964	Sir Harold Thompson becomes Professor of Chemistry ad hominem.
	Sir Cyril Hinshelwood retires: Rex Richards is elected Dr Lee's Professor and becomes Head of Department.
1965	Miss M.C. Binnie retires.
1966	The main extension of the PCL, one storey at the south end, two stories at the north end, is completed.
1967	R.P. Bell is elected Professor of Chemistry at the University of Stirling.
1969	An Elliott 903 computer is installed in the PCL.
1970	Professor Richards resigns to become Warden of Merton.
1970	Professor Sir Frederick Dainton is elected Dr Lee's Professor and becomes Head of Department.
1972	The Department of Theoretical Chemistry is established with support from I.B.M.
	Charles Coulson becomes the first Professor of Theoretical Chemistry.
1973	Professor Dainton resigns to become Chairman of the U.G.C.
1974	John Rowlinson is elected Dr Lee's Professor and becomes Head of Department.
	The long-standing connection of the Laboratory of Chemical Crystallography with the Dr Lee's Professorship comes to an end.
1975	Doug Cook retires.
1975-80	John White is Associate Director and later Director of the Institut Laue Langevin at Grenoble.
1978	John Albery is elected Professor of Physical Chemistry at Imperial College, London.
1980	The first Hinshelwood Lecturer is appointed.
1984-7	Alan Carrington holds his Royal Society Professorship in the PCL.
1984	The PCL is linked to the Rex Richards Building for Molecular Biophysics.
1985	John White is elected Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Australian National University, Canberra.
1985	David Turner becomes Professor of Electron Spectroscopy.
1987	Ray Freeman is elected John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Magnetic Resonance at Cambridge.
1988	Brian Smith is elected Master of St Catherine's College, Oxford.
1988	The Oxford Centre for Applied Kinetics is established in the PCL and work begins on the building to house the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Molecular Sciences.
1989	Mike Pilling is elected Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds.
1989	John Albery is elected Master of University College, Oxford.
1991	The silver jubilee of the Laboratory is celebrated on 28 September with an Open Day attended by nearly 500 present and former members of the Department.
1993	John Rowlinson retires as Dr Lee's Professor and is succeeded by John Simons from Nottingham University.
	Brian Smith leaves St Catherine's College to become Principal of the University of Wales College at Cardiff.
1994	The amalgamation of the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Departments takes place, following the retirement of Norman March as the Coulson Professor and his succession by Mark Child.
	David Turner retires from his personal chair.
	Andrew Whiting retires as Head of the Mechanical Workshop and is succeeded by Ivan March.
1995	The theoretical group move into the PTCL Annexe and some more experimental groups move into the New Chemistry Laboratory, formerly Pharmacology.
1996	The University awards 'Titles of Distinction' and eleven members of the Department are promoted to Professorships or Readerships.
1997	The three Chemistry Departments, Physical and Theoretical, Inorganic, and Dyson Perrins, are amalgamated into one unified Department of Chemistry of which Graham Richards becomes the first Chairman.
1999	John Simons retires and the Headship of the Sub-Department is taken over by Gus Hancock, pending the appointment of the next Dr Lee's Professor.
2000	Jacob Klein from the Weizmann Institute becomes the seventh Dr Lee's Professor.
	Ivan March and Steve Boorne retire.

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