P. G. Owston

Who is P. G. Owston?

P. G. Owston, BSc, PhD, DSc was a British chemist and crystallographer for whom the Owston Islands in Antarctica are named. The Owston Islands lie within the region claimed by the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Chile. They are a group of small islands lying 1 nautical mile west of Darbel Islands in Crystal Sound, and they were named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee. Owston was born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Yorkshire, England during January 1921 as the son of Edward Owston and Margaret Smith. He died in Watford, Hertfordshire, England in September 2001.²−

Owston's crystallography work included a re-determination of the structure of Zeise's salt, the anion of which is shown at right. Zeise's salt, K[PtCl3]·H2O, was reported in 1831 and was one of the first organometallic compounds ever discovered. However, the nature of the platinum to ethylene bond in the compound was not understood until the development of the Dewar-Chatt-Duncanson model in the 1950s. The space-filling model from the Owston crystal structure clearly shows that it is an organometallic species as there is direct bonding between the platinum metal centre and the two carbon atoms of the ethylene ligand.