Chemistry department remembers Charles Rees with memorial events

Chemistry symposium kicks off a day of special events in memory of Professor Rees - News

By Danielle Reeves
13 December 2007

A special chemistry symposium, reception and photograph unveiling ceremony took place in the Department of Chemistry last week in memory of Emeritus Professor Charles Rees who died last year.

Professor Rees, who first came to the College as Hoffman Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1978, took early retirement in 1993 but continued to work in the Chemistry Department on a daily basis until his death in September 2006 at the age of 78.

On Friday last week, 7 December, his widow Tricia and son David came to the College to unveil a memorial photograph of Professor Rees in the Chemistry Department staff common room.

The official unveiling followed an afternoon of special lectures in Professor Rees' honour, chaired by the Head of the Chemistry Department, Professor Tom Welton, and featuring speakers from the UK and the US, including Professor Jim Feast, current President of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The afternoon's events were attended by over 50 former colleagues and students of Professor Rees, and a number of industry representatives with whom he worked.

Professor Welton said: "It was an honour to have Tricia and David here to unveil the photograph of Charles. I'm delighted that so many people who knew him came along to the afternoon's Memorial Symposium – this has been a fitting way to celebrate the life and career of a colleague and friend who is missed tremendously."

The photograph of Professor Rees which was unveiled by his widow is framed above an outline of his illustrious career, and a few words from former Head of Chemistry at the College, Professor David Phillips, who writes: "He was an absolutely lovely man and a kind and thoughtful colleague. He was an outstanding scientist and a brilliantly funny speaker. If you met Charles Rees your day was always better for it."

Professor Rees was an organic chemist whose work was concerned with synthesis and chemical reactivity of heterocyclic molecules - ring-shaped organic molecules which contain both carbon and other atoms, such as nitrogen, in the ring. In the course of his career he published prolifically, with around 350 papers appearing in scientific journals and books.

He was the Royal Society of Chemistry's Tilden Lecturer in 1974, and the Pedler Lecturer in 1984, and received the (first) RSC Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry in 1980 and the International award in Heterocyclic Chemistry in 1995. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He was awarded an Honorary D. Sc. by the University of Leicester in 1994 and a CBE in the New Years Honours list in 1995.

Professor Rees was the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry from July 1992 for two years. He had served on its Council and many Boards and Committees at various times; he was Chair of the Publication and Information Board for four years. He had been President of the Perkin Division of the RSC, and President of the Chemistry Association for the Advancement of Science.

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