Walter Thomas James Morgan
Walter Thomas James Morgan | |
---|---|
Born | Ilford, Essex, England, United Kingdom | 5 October 1900
Died | 10 February 2003 | (aged 102)
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich University of London |
Walter Thomas James Morgan
Early life
He was born in
Aware that he would be drafted into the military on his 18th birthday, Morgan instead joined early so that he could pick which branch to serve in.[1] He picked the Royal Navy, and due to his experience working with chemicals he was appointed to HMS President, producing chemicals and equipment for the navy, including smoke screen floats.
Academia
He was demobilised in 1919 and offered a government grant to study at university, but his demobilisation came too late in the year for him to start his chemistry degree then. Instead he began his studies in 1920 at East London College. The degree examinations at the time were held after the summer holiday rather than before, so to help with his family's dire financial situation (his father had died in 1918, leaving his mother financially destitute[1]) he again worked for the Gas Light and Coke Company as a junior chemist, where he was tasked with finding a better way to extract natural gas from coke than the process used at the time. He demonstrated the process at the Cantor Lecture of the Royal Society of Arts, and after an uninspiring start (the control sample initially worked just as well as the one using his process) his work turned out to be a success.[1]
After the discovery of Insulin in 1922 Morgan became interested in medicinal chemistry, and he applied to West Ham Municipal College, where he studied for his
Work at the Lister Institute
He initially worked with Dr Robert Robison identifying the structure of fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase discovered by Arthur Harden and William John Young. He succeeded in doing this, and studies on esters made up a large chunk of his PhD thesis. In 1925 he attended a course on organic microanalysis at the University of Graz on the recommendation of Harden. He was awarded his PhD in 1927 and the Beit Memorial Research Fellowship, which allowed him to continue his research on sugars. He visited Graz repeatedly in later years, and saw its transformation from the relative happiness of the 1920s to the oppressive regime in the 1930s, at one point being questioned by a Nazi patrol.
In 1928 he was appointed as a biochemist at the institute's Serum and Vaccine Department north of London, where in 1930 he successfully immunised a horse against
He retired from the Biochemistry department in 1968, staying as a guest researcher until 1972 when due to the poor state of the Institute he was asked to become the director again, which he did until 1975 when the institute was forced to close.[1] From then until 1989 he worked in an honorary position at the MRC Clinical Research Centre.
Awards
He was made a
'In recognition of his outstanding contributions to knowledge of the chemistry of blood-group substances, with special reference to genetical as well as immunological considerations'.Personal life
He married Dorothy Irene Price (died 1993) on 25 April 1930, with whom he had two daughters and a son.[1]
References
- ^ .
- ^ "Professor Walter Morgan – Obituaries, News -The Independent". London. 25 February 2003. Retrieved 2 December 2008.[dead link]
- ISBN 9781441978769.