IOP Groups
Professor Harry Block
The Group was saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Harry Block in September 2004. He was Chairman of The Dielectrics Society in the early 1990’s before its recent incorporation as The Dielectrics Group within the Institute of Physics, London.
Harry studied Chemistry at Kings College before doing his National Service. He then joined the Courtauld Research Laboratories at Maidenhead where he worked with its Director Charles Bamford, who was, with Bawn (Liverpool), Gee (Manchester) and Melville (Birmingham) one of the famous four who did so much to advance UK polymer chemistry in its different forms in the post-war era. The Courtauld laboratories operated in an Utopian era for polymer chemistry and great advances were made there in the research and production of synthetic fibres that were closely related to natural fibres, especially polypeptides; for example Conmar Robinson’s discovery of lyotropic liquid crystalline phases of polypeptides. Alas Utopia never lasts and when the laboratory closed in the late 1950’s Bamford went to Liverpool University as the Professor of Industrial Chemistry, taking with him the young Harry Block and Geoff Eastmond.
There Harry prospered in his teaching and research activities. In particular he established a dielectrics research laboratory to study polymers in the bulk and in solution and, over several years built a sophisticated apparatus that enabled the dielectric properties of polymer solutions to be studied under high shear which, in the presence of directing electric fields, oriented the molecules (sometimes rod-like) along the shear flow direction. Those experiments were some of the first non-linear dielectric studies of polymers under shear and brought Harry much acclaim. During those years he also developed a lasting interest in the electrorheology of solutions and suspensions where the viscosity of a flowing liquid was changed markedly by application of a high voltage. This became a main feature of his researches since it was evident that much basic research, experiment and theory, needed to be done before electrorheological techniques could be applied for transducers in hydraulic systems. The Dielectrics Discussion Group, which was established in the late 1960’s at Aberystwyth by Mansel Davies, Alun Price and the writer to promote interest and research activity in dielectrics sciences, brought together many of those active in the subject in the UK, and that is where I first met Harry, who was an active participant, and was able to have many discussions at the Annual Meetings with him concerning dielectric relaxation phenomena, especially those for polymer materials.
In the early 1990’s Harry was appointed the first Professor of Molecular Electronics at Cranfield University where he rapidly established a research group working on a variety of projects, mainly the fabrication, study and development of novel electroactive materials and, of course, the electrorheology of solutions and suspensions. In addition, he set up the MSc course in Molecular Electronics at Cranfield that ran for many years. A new building was created to house his Molecular Electronics Department and the Polymer Materials Department of his colleague Prof. Clive Bucknall. All the time he was very active in his researches, giving lectures at international venues and working on many scientific committees, especially that of The Dielectrics Society of which he became Chairman in the early 1990’s.
He retired from Cranfield leaving a legacy of his fine achievements, as both an experimentalist and theorist, in teaching and research in Molecular Electronics, Physical Polymer Sciences and Electrorheolgy– a polymath indeed. Admired by his colleagues, his enthusiasm, optimism and good humour were ever-present, even during difficult times. We are indebted to him for all the contributions he made to the activities of The Dielectrics Society over so many years.
Professor Graham Williams
University of Wales, Swansea
March 2005.
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