Robert Walker Hay

Prof Robert Walker Hay FRSE FRCS (1934–1999) was a British chemist. He held the chair in Chemistry at both Stirling University and later St Andrews University

Robert Walker Hay
Born17 September 1934
Stirling, Scotland
Died8 January 1999
Alma materGlasgow University
Known forCurtis-Hay ligands
Scientific career
Fieldsorganic chemistry
InstitutionsVictoria University of Wellington, University of Sterling, St Andrews University
Thesis
Doctoral studentsKevin Tate

Life

He was born in Stirling on 17 September 1934, the son of William Walker and Ethel Agnes Hay. His parents moved to Bolton in the north of England when he was young and he attended Bolton Grammar School alongside Harold Kroto with whom he developed a mutual love of Chemistry. A family death caused them to return home to Stirling and he completed his education at Stirling High School. He then went to Glasgow University to study Chemistry, graduating BSc in 1956 and then later receiving a doctorate (PhD) in Carbohydrate Chemistry in 1959.[1]

He moved to New Zealand around 1962 to take up a post lecturing in both Organic and Inorganic Chemistry at the Victoria University of Wellington. Here, together with Dr Neil Curtis, he formulated the Curtis-Hay ligands, a method of preparing diamines in acetone.[1]

In 1971 he returned, with his then young family, to Scotland to lecture at his alma mater in Stirling. He was given a full professorship in 1986.

In 1978 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Ronald Percy Bell, William Parker, John Michael Tedder, Charles Kemball, Evelyn Ebsworth and Roy Foster.[2]

In 1988 he moved to be Professor of Chemistry at St Andrews University and remained there for the rest of his life. From 1988 he also became a consultant chemist for the Ministry of Defence’s Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down in England.

He died on 8 January 1999.

Publications
  • Bio-Inorganic Chemistry (1984)

Family

In 1960 he married Alison Laird.

The Bob Hay Lectureship

The Bob Hay Lectureship was established by the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Interest Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2001 in memory of Professor Bob Hay.[3] The lecture is given annually by a younger chemist (within 15 years of the completion of their PhD) working in the area of macrocyclic and/or supramolecular chemistry in its widest sense.

Previous winners: 2019 - Kim Jelfs (Imperial) 2018 – Rachel K. O’Reilly (Birmingham) 2017 - Scott Cockroft (Edinburgh) 2016 - Stephen M. Goldup (Southampton) 2015 - David Adams (Liverpool) 2014 - Oren Scherman (Cambridge) 2013 - Jonathan R. Nitschke (Cambridge) 2012 - Andrew J. Wilson (Leeds) 2011 - Lee Cronin (Glasgow) 2010 - David K. Smith (York) 2009 - Stephen Faulkner (Oxford) 2008 - Jonathan W. Steed (Durham) 2007 - James H.R. Tucker (Birmingham) 2006 - Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson (Trinity College Dublin) 2005 - Neil R. Champness (Nottingham) 2004 - Philip A. Gale (Southampton) 2003 - Harry L. Anderson (Oxford) 2002 - Michael J. Hannon (Birmingham) 2001 - Michael D. Ward (Sheffield)

References
  1. Perspectives on Bioinorganic Chemistry, forward by Dr David T Ritchens
  2. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
  3. https://www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InterestGroups/Macrocyclic/MASC_Awards/BobHay.asp
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