Colin Eaborn

Who is Colin Eaborn?

Colin Eaborn FRS was a British scientist and academic noted for his work in establishing the Sussex University School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences. Born to a joiner, he gained first-class honours from Bangor University and, after research during the Second World War, accepted a position as an assistant researcher at University College, Leicester in 1947. In 1951 he won a Rotary Foundation Fellowship, which allowed him to spend a year working at the University of California, Los Angeles with Saul Winstein and his research group, and in 1960 published the seminal Organosilicon Compounds.

In 1961 he was appointed as a science professor at the newly created Sussex University. There he introduced unconventional lecture and degree structures, eventually attracting a staff which, by the mid-1970s, included two Nobel Laureates and seven Fellows of the Royal Society. For his work he was himself made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1970, and served on the Society Council for two terms during the 1970s and 80s. After retiring from active work in 1988, Eaborn died on 22 February 2004 in Brighton.