Ronald Sydney Nyholm

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Sir Ronald Sydney Nyholm (Born: 29 January 1917, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia; Died: 4 December 1971 Cambridge, England) was an Australian chemist. He was educated at the University of Sydney (B.Sc., 1938; M.Sc., 1942) and University College, London (Ph.D., 1950, supervised by Sir Christopher Ingold; D.Sc., 1953).^[1] He was lecturer and senior lecturer in Chemistry at Sydney Technical College from 1940 to 1951, although on leave in London from 1947. From 1952 to 1954 he was associate professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the New South Wales University of Technology. in 1954 he was President of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He then returned to London and was Professor of Chemistry at University College London from 1955 to his death from injuries received in a motorcar accident in 1971.

He is particularly well known as a pioneer in coordination chemistry as well as developing the VSEPR theory with Ronald Gillespie. His research in inorganic chemistry was primarily concerned with the preparation of transition metal compounds. Using the ligand diars, he demonstrated the range of oxidation state and coordination numbers for several metals.^[2] His interest in the teaching of chemistry extended to his being responsible for the Nuffield chemistry course taught in British schools as chair of the Chemistry Consultative Committee.^[3]

He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1958 and was knighted in 1967. He received many awards from the Chemical Society and was President in 1968. The Nyholm Lectureship, founded by the Chemical Society in 1973, is now awarded annually by the Royal Society of Chemistry.