Professor John Knox FRSE
University of Edinburgh
John Henderson Knox
21 October 1927 – 15 October 2018
John Knox was the most distinguished Physical Chemist of his generation in Scotland. He was an international leader and expert in High Performance Chromatography and did pioneering research in both its practice and theory.
He was born in Edinburgh (October 21st, 1927) and educated at George Watsons College and the University of Edinburgh. After graduating with first class Honours in Chemistry (1949) he was awarded a Carnegie Research Studentship and went to do research at the University of Cambridge (Pembroke College) under the guidance of Professor R.G.W.Norrish (later Nobel Laureate). His Ph.D. research was on the slow combustion kinetics of propane which required quantitative analysis of the end products. This led him to design and build, together with
J.H.Purnell (later Professor), a gas chromatograph and to go on to do pioneering development work. Returning to a Lectureship in Chemistry at Edinburgh (1953) he initiated new research on halogenation reactions while continuing work on combustion and the development of chromatography. His work on the slow oxidation of hydrocarbons, although initially controversial, proved to be correct and had an important impact on our understanding of combustion chemistry. He was awarded a D.Sc. (Edinburgh) in 1963 and was promoted to a Readership in 1966. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1971 and was awarded a Personal Chair in Physical Chemistry (1974). In 1984 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (London).
In 1964 Knox was awarded a Senior Visiting Fellowship by the U.S National Science Foundation to work with Calvin Giddings at the University of Utah on fundamental aspects of gas and liquid chromatography. On returning to Edinburgh the emphasis in his research moved more towards high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and with co-workers he established that, for optimum performance, packing materials should be significantly reduced in size from the then typical 30 μm diameter to 2 – 5 μm. They also reviewed the theory of radial dispersion and showed that wide columns were more efficient than narrow ones. This led to the now widely recognised Knox Equation. Benchmark papers on capillary electrochromatography were also published at this time.
In 1972 he was awarded a major grant by the Wolfson Foundation to establish a unit for the development of HPLC. The rapid commercial development of HPLC techniques, which took place in the 1970’s, led to numerous industrial links and consultancies. Under his direction the Wolfson Unit developed a number of new support materials including the commercially important silicon based Hypersil and porous graphitic carbon, Hypercarb. Together with Jurand he developed a range of techniques for the separation of drugs and metabolites in body fluids which proved to be an important analytical advance.
His contributions to research were recognised by the award of a series of medals and honours, over many years, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Chemical Analysis (1977), the Tswett 75th Anniversary Medal (1978, Tallin, U.S.S.R.), the Makdougall Brisbane prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1982), the Martin Award of the Chromatographic Society, the Dal Nogare Award (1983, U.S.A.), the American Chemical Society Award for Chromatography (1989), the Golay Medal for Capillary Chromatography (2000) and the Desty Award (2008). He remained at Edinburgh University until his “retirement” in 1984 but he continued as Director of the Wolfson Unit until 1992 and to do outstanding research for several more years.
His contributions to teaching and administration at Edinburgh were numerous and he played significant roles in the running of the Chemistry, Chemical Physics and Environmental Degrees. He was popular and greatly respected by his colleagues. Despite his distinction he had a modest personality and was an approachable, supportive and helpful teacher to many generations of students. He was also active in the affairs of professional and academic bodies including the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Analytical Division and the Faraday Society, organising courses and symposia both at the local and international levels.
His leisure time was mainly spent outdoors, running, skiing, climbing and sailing. Starting with dingy sailing in the 1970’s, for which he won several prizes, he progressed to cruising yachts, first “Myfanwy” and later “Calema”. He became a passionate sailor spending weekends on the West Coast when possible. Some of his sailing experiences were hair raising and a rock that he hit more than once was christened the “Knox Rock”. After further sailing adventures he invented an efficient anchor and strain gauge that reduced the risk of dragging during shelter from storms (the commercially successful Knox Anchor; see footnote for a reference to further information on his sailing activities).
He passed away on October 15th 2018 aged 90. He is survived by his wife of over 60 years, Jo (Josephine, nee Wissler), four sons, twelve grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
