Papers and correspondence of Professor Richard Whiddington

Comprises broadly: (1) Biographical material; (2) Manuscript notes for lectures Whiddington attended at Cambridge including those given by G.F.C. Searle and C.T.R. Wilson, 1907-1908; (3) Manuscript notes for Whiddington's own lectures given at Leeds; (4) Some laboratory and other notebooks; (5) Correspondence relating to Science at War (with J.G. Crowther), HMSO, 1947, and Whiddington's Royal Society memoir of J.W. Ryde.

Richard Whiddington was born in London and educated at the William Ellis School, Highgate and St John's College, Cambridge where he read for the Natural Sciences Tripos specialising in physics. He began research at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1908 and was appointed Demonstrator there the following year. He was elected to a Fellowship at St John's College in 1911. During the First World War he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough on radio telegraphy and telephony research and design. After the war he moved to Leeds University as Cavendish Professor of Physics, 1919-1951. He was seconded to government service for the whole of the Second World War, working with the Admiralty Scientific Service on the development of radar equipment for the Navy and then for the Ministry of Supply as Deputy Director of Scientific Research. His successor as Cavendish Professor was E.C. Stoner. He was elected FRS in 1926.

The material is arranged as follows: Biographical, Cambridge notes, Laboratory notebooks, Lectures and experiments, War work, Publications, Leeds University, Index of correspondents

Access is unrestricted

The contents are described in the 'Report on the papers of Professor Richard Whiddington, CBE, FRS', listed by Harriot Weiskittel for the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, 1974. (CSAC catalogue no. 7/1/74; Special Collections Handlist 120). A complete set of Professor Whiddington's offprints is deposited in the Library of the Royal Society

Deposited by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, University of Bath, April 1974. The gift of Mrs Katherine Whiddington. Received for cataloguing by CSAC, 1973