Baldwin Papers

Papers and correspondence of Ernest Hubert Francis Baldwin, 1930-1970.

The main deposit includes biographical papers, largely documenting Baldwin's academic career from 1934 onwards, including his appointment to the Chair of Biochemistry at University College London, 1950; correspondence, 1951-1968, including personal correspondence and exchanges with scientific colleagues; documentation on Baldwin's research, especially in notebook form, comprising notebooks, 1930-1933, including material documenting Baldwin's work at Cambridge with Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham, Joseph Needham and John Yudkin, a continuous sequence of ten notebooks documenting his research, 1934-1948, and notebooks kept at Woods Hole, 1948, and at Scripps, 1956-1957; extensive material relating to publications, lectures and broadcasts, illustrating Baldwin's role as writer and lecturer on biochemical matters; drafts and correspondence relating to his principal biochemical texts such as 'Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry' and 'The Nature of Biochemistry'; documentation relating to public and invitation lectures and extensive teaching material prepared for his biochemistry courses at Cambridge and University College London, showing signs of revision and rearrangement, and evidence that they were used in the preparation of some of Baldwin's books; material on visits and conferences, 1948-1965, much of it documenting Baldwin's visits to the USA to attend conferences, give lectures at academic institutions, undertake research and take up visiting professorships; a little printed material on the First International Congress of Biochemistry at Cambridge in 1949.A supplementary deposit comprises biographical material, including documentation on the award of the 1952 Cortina Ulisse Prize by Edizioni Scientifiche Einaudi for the Italian edition of Baldwin's 'Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry'; photographic materials, including two photograph albums recording the visit to Italy during which he received the Cortina Ulisse award and a group photograph of the participants at the Third International Congress for Experimental Cytology, held at Cambridge in 1933; a small amount of material relating to Baldwin's classic biochemical texts, especially royalty statements; material on visits and conferences, including Baldwin's notes of his visit to the USSR for the All-Union Congress of Physiologists and Biochemists held in Kiev, 1955; additional material relating to Baldwin's visiting professorships in the USA for 1956-1957 (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and 1965 (University of Kansas).

Born in Gloucester, 1909; educated at the Crypt Grammar School, Gloucester, 1920-1928; graduated from St John's College Cambridge with a first class degree in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos (Part ll Biochemistry); began postgraduate research in the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge, receiving his PhD for 'Some comparative studies on phosphagen' 1934; principal research interest was comparative biochemistry; Fellow of St John's College Cambridge, 1936-1941; worked under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins as Demonstrator in Biochemistry, 1936-1943; also worked for periods at marine biological stations in France and at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Plymouth, in the 1930s; undertook a series of investigations of the pharmacology and physiology of 'Ascaris lumbricoides', 1940-1949; Lecturer in the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge, 1943-1950; Senior Fellow of the Lalor Foundation, USA, carrying out research into the phosphagen of the invertebrates at the Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 1948; as Joint Honorary Secretary and member of the Congress and Executive Committees, active in the organisation of the First International Congress of Biochemistry, in Cambridge, 1949; Professor of Biochemistry at University College London (UCL), 1950-1969; his reputation as an educator was one of the principal reasons for his appointment; established the first undergraduate biochemistry course at the College and orientated the biochemistry department as a branch of biological rather than chemical science; awarded the Cortina Ulisse Prize for the Italian edition of 'Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry', 1952; after his move to UCL, his principal research interests were the comparative biochemistry of nitrogen metabolism and water shortage effects on the ureotelic metabolism; carried out research on ureogenesis in elasmobranch fishes during a period as Visiting Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, University of California, 1956-1957; author of several influential books on biochemistry; died, 1969. Publications include: 'An Introduction to Comparative Biochemistry' (1937); 'Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry' (1947); 'The Nature of Biochemistry' (1962).

By section as follows: Biographical (Ref: A); Research (Ref: B); Publications, lectures and broadcasts (Ref: C); Visits and conferences (Ref: D).

Certain restrictions apply

A hard copy handlist is available for the collection. Some files may be restrcted in-line with data protection legislation. Pleasenote: we may require up to four weeks to check files to assess them for access. Please contact Special Collections for further information.

Transferred to University College London from the NCUACS in 1997.

Printed 'Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Ernest Hubert Francis Baldwin' (NCUACS catalogue no 67/5/97, 1997, 78 pp) and 'Ibid' (NCUACS supplementary catalogue no 74/3/98, 1998, 20 pp). Index of correspondents. Please contact Special Collections for further information.

Normal copyright restrictions apply.

Two deposits were received for cataloguing by the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists (NCUACS), University of Bath, in April and December 1997 respectively, from Mrs Nicola Milligan (Baldwin's daughter) through the good offices of Dr R W A Oliver, Honorary Archivist of the Biochemical Society.

University College London Special Collections holds Baldwin's typescript drafts, 1947-1958, of lectures on biochemistry for University College London MSc students, including chapters of an incomplete book (Ref: MS ADD 289). University College London Records Office holds a personnel fiole on Baldwin (Ref: 1846/1,2,3).