Alan Walsh

Who is Alan Walsh?

Sir Alan Walsh FRS was a British/Australian physicist, originator and developer of the Atomic absorption spectroscopy method of chemical analysis.

Walsh was born in Hoddlesden, Darwen, Lancashire, educated at Darwen Grammar School and studied physics at Manchester University.

After working for several years in British industry he moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1946 to join the newly formed Chemical Physics Section of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, where he worked until his retirement in 1977. There he developed the innovative technique of using atomic absorption spectra, rather than atomic emission and molecular absorption spectra, in spectrochemical analysis.

Walsh was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1958 and was President of the Australian Institute of Physics from 1967 to 1968. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1976. In 1977, he was created a Knight Bachelor for 'his distinguished service to science'. He became a member of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1982; in the same year he was awarded the Robert Boyle Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.