Peter Danckwerts

Peter Victor Danckwerts GC, MBE, FRS (14 October 1916–25 October 1984) was Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge from 1959 to 1977 and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

George Cross and its ribbon bar

He was the eldest of five children of Vice-Admiral Victor Hilary Danckwerts and his wife Joyce Middleton. He showed an early interest in chemistry, constructing his own laboratory in an attic at home counter to his family's history of naval and legal service. He was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained a First in Chemistry in 1939. He became a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at the beginning of World War II, and was trained as a bomb disposal officer. In 1940 he was posted to the Port of London Authority as a bomb disposal officer, and received the George Cross in 1940 for the "great gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty" he showed in defusing land mines dropped by the Luftwaffe on London. Despite not being trained to handle magnetic mines he volunteered to attempt to defuse them, which he did successfully, and on one occasion worked continuously for almost two days, dealing with 16 mines. Later in the war he was transferred to Sicily, and after being wounded in action there he was posted to the Combined Operations Headquarters in Whitehall, subsequently being appointed an MBE in 1943.

After the war Danckwerts studied Chemical Engineering, obtaining a masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thanks to a Harkness Fellowship. His return to Britain was at the same time as a donation to Cambridge University by Shell, which allowed the university to set up a dedicated chemical engineering department under Terence Fox. Danckwerts became a lecturer and researcher here, but felt he had insufficient teaching experience to lecture effectively, and as a result left to join the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1954. He left this job in 1956 to become professor of chemical engineering science at Imperial College London, a newly created position, and continued to research as well as teach. In 1959 Fox resigned as Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at Cambridge, and Danckwerts was elected to take his place.

As Shell Professor Danckwerts did a large amount of research, particularly in the fields of mixing phenomena and gas absorption, and became a noted international speaker. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1969 and received honorary degrees from the universities of Bradford and Loughborough. He received an Honorary Science Doctorate from the University of Bath (1983) and he also gained foreign associateship of the National Academy of Engineering. Between 1965 and 1966 he served as president of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and after retiring from the Shell professorship in 1976 became the executive editor of Chemical Engineering Science. He died in Cambridge on 25 October 1984, with his wife surviving him. His son from his relationship with Eileen Mitchell, Peter Jonathon Mitchell, lives in Australia.

Further reading

• N. Amundsen (1986) Chemical Engineering Research and Design, Volume 64a pp 233–240 "P. V. Danckwerts - His Ressearch Career and its Significance"