Papers and correspondence of Frederick Sydney Dainton, Baron Dainton of Hallam Moors, 1914-1997

There is significant personal and biographical documentation from childhood to the end of his life. There is a draft of his autobiography, together with autobiographical and biographical accounts. Schooldays are well documented by material relating to the Central Secondary School for Boys, Sheffield and its Shakespeare Society in particular. There is material on his undergraduate education, chiefly notes on lectures and experiments, and a significant sequence of material covering Dainton's career and some of the many honours and awards he was accorded. Other material documents Dainton's family background, his interest in the history of his discipline and some of the key figures within it, and his continuing devotion to the City of Sheffield. There are also photographs, taken at various stages in Dainton's life from boyhood to the 1990s, and audio and video tape recordings.

There are records of Dainton's own research work 1937-1972. Though they include notebooks and research notes from his periods at Cambridge, Leeds and Oxford, coverage of Dainton's research interests is nevertheless patchy. There is good documentation of early work on photochemistry from the late 1930s to early 1950s, photochlorination and polymerisation from the period at Leeds, and later research work (1965-1970) at the Cookridge High Energy Radiation Centre. Dainton's wartime research on incendiaries is represented by significant material, including a set of reports. There are also records of the research work of D.H. Lea, 1943-1949. Lea was based at the Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge and Dainton became interested in his work after reading his book Actions of Radiations on Living Cells, 1946.

There are records of Dainton's principal academic affiliations: Oxford where he was an undergraduate in the mid 1930s and where he returned in 1970 as Dr Lee's Professor: Cambridge where he went as a research student in 1937-1938; Leeds where he was Professor of Physical Chemistry for fifteen years from 1950; Nottingham as Vice-Chancellor; and Sheffield as Chancellor. There are teaching records for the Cambridge and Leeds periods and the second Oxford period and for Leeds there is also material relating to the administration of research in the Department of Physical Chemistry and correspondence and papers relating to Dainton's Honorary Directorship of the Cookridge High Energy Radiation Centre. At Nottingham the Vice-Chancellorship coincided with prolonged student unrest in the UK and worldwide and most of the material reflects this. There is correspondence and student and university papers relating to protests at Nottingham and the response of the University administration. There is extensive background material organised by geographical region on unrest at university campuses in the UK and beyond. There is also material relating to the establishment of the University Medical School, which Dainton regarded as one of his principal achievements. The Sheffield material includes papers relating to Dainton's appointment and installation as Chancellor in 1978 and good documentation of his speeches at degree congregations.

Dainton's chairmanship of the UGC, 1973-1978, is represented by significant documentation. There are correspondence and papers relating to the cuts in university expenditure imposed by the government and the consequent difficulties of maintaining long-term planning, and relations with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, trades unions, individual universities and the four Secretaries of State for Education and Science with whom he had to deal (including Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams). There is a good record of the many visitations to higher education institutions throughout the UK conducted by Dainton and other members of the UGC, including formal reports and Dainton's own manuscript notes. There is also documentation of his encouragement of industrial sponsorship of new undergraduate engineering courses.

There is good coverage of Dainton's work as a member of the House of Lords from 1986. Documented here is his service on the Select Committee on Science and Technology and on its Subcommittees especially those chaired by him - the Academic Research Careers Sub-Committee, the Systematic Biology Research Sub-Committee and Forensic Science Sub-Committee. There is also excellent coverage of his interest in Education Bills (both school and university education) and Health Bills passing through Parliament. Material includes notes and drafts for Dainton's contributions to debates, correspondence with colleagues and other interested parties on issues under discussion, annotated copies of Parliamentary literature, briefing notes and background material.

In addition to those already mentioned, the collection documents Dainton's involvement with a further 49 UK, overseas and international organisations, representing some of Dainton's most significant contributions to public life. Documentation of his advisory role to government includes the Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology, the Working Group on Manpower Parameters For Scientific Growth, the Council for Scientific Policy and the Enquiry into the Flow of Candidates in Science and Technology into Higher Education. There are minutes of meetings, draft and final reports, correspondence with other members, Dainton's manuscript notes and background material. Also well documented are his contributions to the library world including chairmanship of the National Libraries Committee, 1967-1971 and the British Library Board 1978-1985. The British Library material includes Dainton's own collection of key papers from the period, such as the plans for the new library, opposition following the Conservative election victory in 1979 and Dainton's very successful advocacy of the project, including his meeting with Margaret Thatcher.

There is also documentation of many of Dainton's other posts and responsibilities. These include service as a Trustee of the Wolfson Foundation 1979-1988, the Prime Wardenship of the Goldsmiths' Company 1982-1983 and service on the London School of Economics Court of Governors 1980-1997. He chaired the Library Panel, to which most of the material relates. Dainton was also Chairman of the Royal Postgraduate Medical School 1980-1989 and President to 1997. Much of the material concerns the proposed establishment of a national centre for clinical research. Dainton's interest in medical training is also represented in material of the University of London City and East London Medical Education Group, which he also chaired.

International and overseas commitments documented include the establishment of the International Federation of Associations for the Advancement of Science and Technology; Dainton was Chairman of the Inaugural Meeting in Hong Kong in 1991. In 1978 Dainton was personally requested by the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, to undertake a review of higher education in the country. He visited the universities of Singapore the following year and advised the creation of the National University of Singapore. Dainton made a number of return visits to review progress. The material includes his notes on higher education in Singapore, reports, background material and speeches delivered during his visits.

Publications material includes a set of Dainton's offprints and a sequence of drafts and related material for publications or works intended for publication. These cover articles on science policy, higher education and library policy as well as scientific articles in the field of physical chemistry. The largest single bodies of material relate to a planned but unpublished book on radiation chemistry (with E. Collinson) and to Dainton's guide Choosing a British University A Guide for Candidates in the United States for Fulbright Awards and Marshall Scholarships (London, 1981). There are drafts and other material relating to obituaries and memoirs of scientific colleagues and others including G.B. Kistiakowsky, N.N. Semenov and S. Zuckerman. Dainton's lectures material is presented as a chronological sequence of notes and drafts relating to his invitation and public lectures, 1942-1996. These lectures cover not only his scientific work but all aspects of public life with which he was involved including higher education, libraries, medical research and education, research and development, scientific education and manpower, and science policy. There is also a separate sequence of notes for shorter speeches and addresses 1957-1997. Also preserved is Dainton's collection of photographic slides used to illustrate his lectures. Visits and conferences material records some of the visits Dainton made and conferences attended 1946-1997. It includes visits that were primarily scientific in nature, such as those to Canada and the USA in the 1940s and 1950s (including his Arthur D. Little Visiting Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and others that bore more on his interest in education policy and libraries, such as his visit to Japan in 1973.

Dainton's correspondence files were not extensive since much of Dainton's correspondence was kept by him with the material to which it related, and much earlier correspondence, for example with scientific colleagues, was not retained by him. The remaining files are presented in a chronological sequence which is weighted predominantly to the last years of his life. It reflects a wide range of Dainton's interests including scientific research, higher education, libraries and the House of Lords.

Frederick Sydney Dainton was born in Sheffield on 11 November 1914. He was educated at the Central Secondary School for Boys, Sheffield, winning an Exhibition scholarship to St John's College Oxford in 1933 (Goldsmiths' Company Exhibition 1935), from where he graduated with First Class Honours in Chemistry in 1937. Dainton then moved to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge for postgraduate research on reactions of simple gases, studying under R.G.W. Norrish. He was a Goldsmiths' Company Senior Student, 1939 (Ph.D. 1940), before being appointed University Demonstrator in Chemistry 1944 and H.O. Jones Lecturer in Physical Chemistry 1946. He was elected a Fellow of St Catharine's College Cambridge in 1945.

In 1950 Dainton returned to Yorkshire as Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds. He stayed in Leeds for fifteen years, a period particularly productive both in terms of building up the department into a leading centre of research in physical chemistry and in pursuing his own research. Although Dainton's initial research field had been photochemistry, he broadened his studies thereafter to the study of combustion, chain reactions and polymerisation kinetics. In his own estimation his main contributions were: the kinetics and thermodynamics of addition polymerisation, the kinetics of cationic and anionic polymerisation, redox reactions, photochlorination, the reactivity of oxygen atoms in singlet state, photochemical electron transfer, quantum mechanical tunnelling and radiation chemistry.

In 1965 Dainton accepted an invitation to serve as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. He took up the post at a particularly turbulent time for universities worldwide and the student disturbances at Nottingham proved a considerable challenge. Of his achievements during this period, Dainton was particularly proud of the establishment of the University's Medical School, which was opened in 1970. Throughout his time at Nottingham Dainton maintained his links with active research work through his Honorary Directorship of the Cookridge Radiation Research Centre at Leeds. In 1969 Dainton was asked to become Chairman of the Council for Scientific Policy (CSP), of which he was already a member. While not a full-time post, Dainton felt its demands could not be combined with those of the Vice-Chancellorship. He accepted the Chairmanship of the Council, resigning from Nottingham, and also took the opportunity to return to academic research and teaching as Dr Lees' Professor of Chemistry at Oxford. He held the Chair for three years.

The CSP was abolished in 1972, Dainton becoming the first Chairman of its successor body the Advisory Board for the Research Councils 1972-1973. He was then invited by the Secretary of State for Education and Science (Margaret Thatcher) to become Chairman of the University Grants Committee (UGC). Dainton took up this post shortly before a change of government and during a worsening economic crisis. His term was marked by the introduction of government austerity measures that markedly constrained the ongoing expansion of universities. Despite the difficulties facing the higher education sector the number of medical students increased significantly during Dainton's Chairmanship, and he successfully encouraged industrial sponsorship of engineering courses through new undergraduate courses with an emphasis on the needs of manufacturing industry. Dainton retired from the UGC in 1978.

Dainton was appointed to the National Radiological Protection Board in 1977, serving to 1985 (from 1978 as Chairman). In 1978 he became Chairman of the British Library Board. His association with the national library can be said to date from his Chairmanship of the National Libraries Committee, 1967-1969. Dainton arrived at the British Library at a crucial moment. A site for the Library had been acquired on Euston Road at St Pancras but there was still considerable opposition to the move. The difficulties were exacerbated when the Labour party lost the 1979 election, as the incoming Conservative Government was not committed to the project. Dainton met Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, in September 1980 and this face-to-face meeting was important in persuading her of the case for the new site. Dainton served as Chairman of the British Library until 1985 and remained in touch with developments thereafter. Also in 1978 Dainton had been invited to become Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, a post he held to 1997. As a native of the city of Sheffield this appointment was particularly appropriate. Dainton took a keen interest in the University and was particularly conscious of his responsibilities at the University degree congregations, delivering a different address at each. Dainton held many other positions and was active well into his ninth decade. These included the Chairmanship of the Royal Postgraduate Medical School 1980-1989 (serving as President from 1989 to 1997) and membership of the Court of Governors of the London School of Economics 1980-1997 (Chairman of the Library Panel from 1986). Dainton had joined the Goldsmiths' Company's Court of Assistants in 1973 and in 1982-1983 he served as Prime Warden of the Company. He also chaired its Education Committee. It is interesting to note that Dainton's association with the Goldsmiths' Company dated from his undergraduate days in Oxford when the Company awarded him a scholarship, with a postgraduate scholarship following in 1939.

This brief outline of Dainton's career gives some indication of the range of his activities in the fields of science, university administration, academic standards and public service. However, he made a great many contributions additional to those principal commitments set out above. In the 1960s, for example, he served on two significant working parties examining issues relating to the 'swing Away from Science'. The first was the Enquiry into the Flow of Candidates in Science and Technology into Higher Education, established by the CSP under the chairmanship of Dainton in February 1965, to examine the causes of and remedies for the shortage of young people studying science and engineering at university. It reported in February 1968. He was also a member of the Working Group on Manpower Parameters for Scientific Growth, established under the chairmanship of Lord Swann in December 1965, which reported in September 1968. As Chairman of the CSP Dainton was involved in formulating policy fundamental to the planning and organisation of government-funded science in the following decade and beyond. He also chaired the CSP Working Group on Research Organisation which contributed to A Framework for Government Research and Development (the Rothschild Report), and the CSP's Working Group which advised on how the recommendations in this report (and the customer/contractor principle in particular) should be applied.

After Dainton was created a Life Baron in 1986 he became an active member of the House of Lords. He served on the Select Committee on Science and Technology, chairing three influential sub-committees, the Academic Research Careers Sub-Committee, the Systematic Biology Research Sub-Committee and the Forensic Science Sub-Committee. As a member of the House of Lords, he also made significant contributions to the consideration of education policy and medical teaching and training.

Dainton was accorded many honours and awards including over 25 honorary degrees from universities worldwide. He was elected FRS in 1957 (Davy Medal 1969, Faraday Medal 1974), knighted in 1971 and elevated to the peerage as Baron Dainton of Hallam Moors in 1986. Dainton died on 5 December 1997. He was survived by his wife, Barbara Dainton with whom he had a son and two daughters.

By section as follows: Biographical and personal, Research, Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, University of Leeds, University of Nottingham, University Grants Committee, House of Lords, Societies and organisations, Publications, Lectures, Visits and conferences, Correspondence, Photographic slides. Index of correspondents.

Available to researchers, by appointment

The papers were received from Lady Dainton, widow, in 2000 and from Sheffield University Library, on various dates 2002.

Description compiled in March 2005 by Dr Tim Powell, NCUACS

Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of: NCUACS catalogue no.112/11/02, 414 pp. Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath