John Cunningham McLennan

Sir John Cunningham McLennan, KBE FRS FRSC[1] (October 14, 1867 – October 9, 1935) was a Canadian physicist.

Sir John Cunningham McLennan KBE FRS FRSC
London 1934
Born	October 14, 1867 Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada
Died	October 9, 1935 (aged 67) Paris, France
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Awards	Flavelle Medal (1926) Royal Medal (1927)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Doctoral students	John F. Allen

Born in Ingersoll, Ontario, the son of David McLennan and Barbara Cunningham, he was the director of the physics laboratory at the University of Toronto from 1906 until 1932.

McLennan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1915.[2] McLennan delivered the Guthrie lecture to the Physical Society in 1918. With his graduate student, Gordon Merritt Shrum, he built a helium liquefier at the University of Toronto. They were the second in the world to successfully produce liquid helium in 1923, 15 years after Heike Kammerlingh Onnes.[3] In 1926, he was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Flavelle Medal and in 1927 a Royal Medal.

He died in 1935 near Abbeville in France on a train from Paris to London[2] of a heart attack. He is buried beside his wife in Stow of Wedale, Scotland.[4]

References

1. Eve, A. S. (1935). "Sir John Cunningham McLennan. 1867-1935". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 1 (4): 577. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1935.0022. JSTOR 768989.
2. "Directory of Fellows of the Royal Society". Retrieved 24 August 2019.
3. Radebaugh, R. (2007). "Historical Summary of Cryogenic Activity Prior to 1950". In Timmerhaus, K. D.; Reed, R.P. (eds.). Cryogenic Engineering - Fifty Years of Progress. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-46896-9.
4. "Biography McLENNAN, Sir JOHN CUNNINGHAM". Retrieved 24 August 2019.

Further reading

• University of Toronto biography
• John Cunningham McLennan at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• John Cunningham McLennan archival papers held at the University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services