SECTION A:

Reminiscences of Joseph Chatt Drawn from Conversations and from the Recollections of Co-workers

Joseph Chatt worked in several different establishments during his career, and he has also given an account of his early life in a recorded conversation. Clearly he was very fondly regarded by those with whom he worked, and they continue to regard their time with him as a high point in their careers. To provide a background against which those who did not know him might wish to assess his life and work, we decided to ask some of those involved to write an account of their experiences working in the Chatt group. None of those approached needed any encouragement, and their contributions are presented in this section with only very light editing to avoid excessive overlap.

[A Memoir of Joseph Chatt

G. J. LEIGH

School of Chemistry, Physics and Environmental Science, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QJ, UK

Joseph Chatt was born in the North East of England at Hordern, County Durham, on November 6, 1914. However, most of his early life was spent in the North West, in Cumberland. He once mentioned that, together with his father, he had observed German warships bombarding Hartlepool, though he must have been very young when that occurred, which was during the First World War. Nevertheless, he did have a fine memory, and his knowledge of the fundamental facts of inorganic chemistry was one of his great strengths. He had an almost personal understanding of the chemistry of the metallic elements, and his comments and advice on chemistry were generally sound, even when he could not explain why he had made them. His understanding was intuitive and inspirational, and though he was not afraid to admit he was wrong or even that he had made mistakes, everything he published was prepared with the utmost care and circumspection, often to the annoyance of his less patient and meticulous collaborators.

He inherited many of those qualities that are often regarded as characteristic of the northern Englishman. He was hard working, meticulous, blunt and honest. He was also very determined, and shrewd in his evaluation of people, even if he also had some related prejudices. He only slowly came to accept that women might also become good researchers, and he had a strong suspicion of men who sported beards. However, he could be persuaded by a demonstration of scientific ability, even if his initial reaction to some people was less than favourable. What sometimes inhibited his relationship with younger researchers, especially graduate students, was his unquestioning assumption that everyone in the laboratory had his interest in chemistry and also his enormous accumulation of knowledge. We, his colleagues, always called him Joseph, even after he retired. It was generally only colleagues from the United States who presumed to call him Joe.

Whatever he undertook to do he did with great thoroughness, whether it was chemistry or not. At one time he was interested in antique furniture, and I can recall being lectured on how to determine the age of a chair by examining the construction of the seat. This was intended to help me in my purchase of furniture for a newly acquired house, though there was little enough money to spare on any furniture, let alone on antiques. He was actually very self-centred and rather insensitive, though certainly not mean. It was always necessary to ask him for help if you required it, because he was seldom aware that it might be necessary. However, once he was asked for help he always did his utmost to assist.

He was an avid collector of coins from his youth, and specialised in English and British Empire and Commonwealth coins. He had sets of Maundy money from every English (British) sovereign who had issued such coins. At his death he was working on a catalogue of Peace Medals, medals that were struck in towns all over Britain to celebrate the end of the First World War, but which had never been listed.

He was also very lucky. This showed not only in his career and perhaps in his chemical intuition, but also, sometimes, in his hobbies. He once bought a jardinière at a sale in aid of Sussex churches. It was said to be Sevres, and it was not expensive. Subsequently he decided to take it to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to confirm that it was an imitation and not really a Sevres product. The curator initially agreed that it could not be genuine, so Joseph asked to be shown the Museum collection, which, of course, consists only of genuine items. As they proceeded to inspect the display, starting at the later and moving to the earlier, Joseph's jardinière resembled more and more the Museum items, and finally the curator had to admit that the jardinière was a genuine and very rare early Sevres piece, and certainly worth much more than he had paid for it.

When he was ten years old his family moved to a farm in Cumberland, at Welton, just south of Carlisle, and there began a formative time in his development. The farm was eventually inherited by his brother, and Joseph never became a farmer, even though the agriculturally pertinent topic of nitrogen fixation ultimately became his major professional interest. He enjoyed fell-walking and cycling, and was clearly very active. During this time he sustained damage to his leg that left him semi-crippled, though it was only towards the end of his life that he was forced to use a stick as well as special shoes and a leg-iron.

Cumbria and the Lake District are heavily mineralised, and the abundance of minerals in the rocks all around his home stimulated his interest in chemistry and also in exploring the hills. In this he was also aided by his uncle who was Chief Chemist in a steel works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The young Joseph visited him often and was given the run of the analytical laboratory. It was during this time that he developed a very refined experimental technique and also an interest in experimentation generally. Joseph learned how to make working models in glass of Hero's engine, starting with glass tubing. This required considerable skill, even more so when one realises that he must have been obliged to use soda glass. Until quite late in his career he required a bench to be kept in the lab for his particular use, though he seldom had the time to indulge himself in laboratory work.

Encouraged by learning that the Romans had once found...