John W. White (1937–2023)

John White was born in 1937 in Newcastle, Australia. He attended the University of Sydney, receiving the Dixon Prize for Chemistry, a first-class honours degree, and then an MSc. He won an 1851 scholarship which took him to Oxford University in 1959 and, under the tutelage of Rex Richards, worked on the new technique of nuclear magnetic resonance, which was being pioneered for chemistry. Even before finishing his D Phil he was elected an ICI Fellow in Lincoln College, and in 1963 a fellow of St. John’s College Oxford, where he remained for 26 years.

He was drawn to neutron scattering through a chance meeting over dinner in 1963 with Peter Egelstaff, who was working on the scattering from liquid hydrogen at low temperatures. Particularly interested in para-hydrogen, he asked John: “you’re a chemist so you must know about ortho and para-hydrogen….”. There began a long conversation and, within weeks, John had visited him at Harwell and began to understand the spectroscopic potential of cold neutron scattering.

Together with his first PhD student, Julia Higgins, they began work looking for molecular excitations with incoherent neutron scattering. They understood that the scattering law had to be simplified by using contrast to distinguish molecular excitations from all other contributions to the overall signal. An interest at that time in localised modes led to their first paper with Peter on the dynamics of trapped molecules inside quinol clathrates, where the host ­material was fully deuterated, allowing contrast for the hydrogenous trapped molecules.

Soon after, John and Julia published a paper on trapped molecules in zeolite catalytic materials of industrial interest. This work at Harwell would soon be the basis for ground-breaking work on molecular liquids using deuterium substitution with John’s students to separate the motions of different parts of the chemical groups in a molecular liquid.

Throughout his career John used neutron scattering techniques, especially small-angle scattering, reflectivity, and spectroscopy for low-energy excitations. He brought isotopic substitution to bear on all of these as well as exploiting the complementarity of neutrons and X-rays. Particularly significant were efforts with these techniques to understand the preparation of complex chemical structures with suitable templates.

John’s reputation was such that, at the relatively young age of 36, he became Assistant Director of ILL in Grenoble in 1974, and subsequently the first British Director from 1977 to 1980. He proposed and led the “deuxième souffle” renewal program from 1978 including a cold source upgrade, as well as the planning for a second cold source with a new guide hall.

In 1985, he returned to Australia and was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Australian National University in Canberra. His return greatly benefited Australia, as he was largely responsible for introducing the experimental techniques of small-angle scattering and reflectivity to Australian scientists.

John was a strong advocate for neutron scattering in Australia through his roles on many international committees. Under the heading of “Small Country, Big Science”, he organised access for Australian scientists to ISIS in the UK. The growth of new scientific and engineering uses of neutrons in Australia through ISIS access provided a sound basis for a replacement research reactor at ANSTO, with OPAL commencing operations in 2006. He was also a major driver in the formation of the Asia-Oceania Neutron Scattering Association to the mutual benefit of all its member countries, as well as providing advice as advisory committee chair for J-PARC.

He was awarded fellowships of the Royal Society of Chemistry (1982), the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (1986), the Australian Institute of Physics (1986), the Royal Society of London (1993) and the Australian Academy of Science (1991). He was a visiting Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory in 1984. He received the Smith Medal (1997), the Craig Medal (2005), the Leighton Medal (2005) and the AONSA Prize (2015). He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2016.

John’s life intersected and enriched the lives of many people. Through a combination of his exemplary science and his promotion of scattering techniques, John was responsible for launching the careers of many scientists across the globe. Many in the community have vivid memories of his enthusiasm for experiments. Colin Carlile remembers the time they prepared ammonia potassium intercalated graphite in the yard outside the IRIS spectrometer (at ISIS)! The results were spectacular: simultaneous spectroscopy and diffraction that revealed exactly what was going on. Colin adds: “John was an enthusiast who did not allow lesser mortals, bureaucratically-minded people in authority over him, to get in his way. Over all the years that I knew him I never heard him raise his voice once. He had natural authority.”

John White passed away on 16 August 2023 in Canberra, Australia. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Ailsa, children Sarah, Catherine, David and Rachel and seven grandchildren. He will be greatly missed.