Catalogue description Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of LESLIE ERNEST SUTTON FRS (1906-1992)

LIST OF CONTENTS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NCUACS 51.7.94/A.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/A.4

SECTION B NOTEBOOKS NCUACS 51.7.94/B.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/B.15

SECTION C NOTES, DRAFTS AND PUBLICATIONS NCUACS 51.7.94/C.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/C.37

SECTION D OXFORD UNIVERSITY LABORATORIES NCUACS 51.7.94/D.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/D.16

SECTION E LECTURES 51.7.94/E.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/E.17

NCUACS 51.7.94/E.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/E.8 University lectures

NCUACS 51.7.94/E.9-NCUACS 51.7.94/E.17 Conference and invitation lectures NCUACS

SECTION F CORRESPONDENCE NCUACS 51.7.94/F.1-NCUACS 51.7.94/F.32

The material is presented as shown in the List of Contents. Additional explanatory notes, information and cross references are appended where appropriate to the separate sections, subsections and individual entries in the body of the catalogue. The following paragraphs are intended only to draw attention to items of particular biographical or scientific interest.

Regrettably, because of the accidents of survival, there are lacunae in all aspects of the material, notably in Sutton's contributions to the larger scientific life of Oxford, to professional associations and to international meetings.

Section A, Biographical and autobiographical, is principally of interest for Sutton's own autobiographical sketch. This includes an interesting account of the humble lives of his parents and grandparents, and of his own research. Characteristically, Sutton pays generous tribute to his pupils and research students, and is almost wholly reticent about his personal life.

Sections B, Notebooks, and C, Notes, drafts and publications, cover similar ground and timescale, roughly 1928-1970, documenting the development of Sutton's scientific interests. There are gaps in the records. There is no coverage, for example, of work during World War II, of the detailed preparation of Interatomic Distances, or of some of Sutton's most distinguished collaborators such as L.E. Orgel (though see NCUACS 51.7.94/C.11-NCUACS 51.7.94/C.13). Some of Sutton's important early work is preserved at NCUACS 51.7.94/C.4 and there are manuscript notes by L.C. Pauling at NCUACS 51.7.94/C.7.

Section D, Oxford University Laboratories, is of interest in recording the 'shoestring' running of quite major laboratories and their apparatus in the 1930s, and the invaluable work of craftsmen technicians like F.J. Marsh and S.W. Bush.

Section E, Lectures, relates almost entirely to work for the undergraduate Honours School at Oxford. There is a small number of outside lectures.

Section F, Correspondence, is somewhat scanty. Although it includes letters from distinguished individuals, often at an interesting period of their careers, the exchanges are usually rather insubstantial.

There is also an index of correspondents.

Compiled by Jeannine Alton and Peter Harper

The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and organisations:

The Institute of Physics

The Royal Society

The Wellcome Trust

Papers relating to Magdalen College Oxford and Sutton's pupils are held by the College.

Papers relating to the Oxford University Alembic Club are at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.

Papers relating to the development of the electron diffraction camera are at the Science Museum, London.

Sutton, Leslie Ernest, 1906-1992, physical chemist

NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THE COLLECTION IS YET AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION. ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO: THE KEEPER OF WESTERN MANUSCRIPTS; BODLEIAN LIBRARY; OXFORD

The material was collected from the Department of Chemical Crystallography, Oxford University, where Sutton had a retirement office.

• Physical chemistry

OUTLINE OF THE CAREER OF LESLIE ERNEST SUTTON

Sutton was born in 1906, in modest circumstances. Thanks to a County Scholarship he was able to attend Watford Grammar School 1918-1923; in 1923 he won a Scholarship to Lincoln College Oxford, with further financial help from a County Major Scholarship and a Kitchener Memorial Scholarship.

At Oxford Sutton was fortunate in having as his tutor N.V. Sidgwick, who encouraged him, guided and collaborated in his early studies of thallium, and arranged for him to spend six months 1928-1929 in the laboratory of P.W.J. Debye at Leipzig learning the technique of measuring the electrical polarisation of molecules in solution. On his return to Oxford, he designed apparatus and became the leading experimentalist in this type of measurement. An early result of the work was the confirmation of R.Robinson's theories of organic reactions. Robinson supported Sutton's successful application in 1932 for a Fellowship by Examination at Magdalen College, submitted his early papers on dipole moments to the Royal Society for publication, and (Sutton believed) backed the award of a Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship which enabled him to work in L.C. Pauling's laboratory at Caltech 1933-1934. Here Sutton learnt the then novel technique of electron diffraction in the measurement of molecular structure, which became his principal programme of study on his return to Oxford.

In 1936 Sutton became a Tutorial Fellow of Magdalen, in which patrician surroundings he spent the rest of his career, retiring and being elected Fellow Emeritus in 1973 after nearly forty years as a much respected tutor and supervisor. Apart from many collaborative papers, his principal contribution was as Scientific Editor of the major compilation Tables of Interatomic Distances in Molecules and Ions, published in 1958 and still in use.

He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1950.

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