Armand de Waele

Who was Armand de Waele?

Armand de Waele was a British chemist, noted for his contributions to rheology, and after whom the Ostwald-de Waele relationship for non-Newtonian fluids is named.

de Waele was born in Islington, London, in 1887, the son of a Belgian father and French mother. He held dual nationality until the age of 21, when he chose to be a British rather than Belgian. He obtained a BSc from the Regent Street Polytechnic then worked in the paint and linoleum industries. In 1914 he married a Frenchwoman with whom he had two sons, and the same year was conscripted into the Royal Flying Corps.

After the First World War he joined Gestetner as Chief Research Chemist, where he remained till 1957 when he retired. During this period he published 30 papers on rheology and patents on duplicating as well as a book. He was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and of the Institute of Physics.