Sir William Chandler Roberts- Austen, K.C.B. 195 



long desired that of creating and equipping a metallurgical labora- 

 tory which should be worthy of this country and of an Empire whose 

 sons are engaged in metallurgical work in almost every part of the 

 globe. But if this was not to be, he has at least erected a monument 

 to himself in the record of his past achievement ; in the thoroughness 

 and fulness of his teaching ; in the scientific enthusiasm with which 

 he sought to lay bare and illumine the problems of physical metal- 

 lurgy. During the two-arid-twenty years he held his chair, he trained 

 a succession of men holding important positions at home and in many 

 parts of the world, who are grateful to him for the stimulating 

 influence of his teaching, who will recall many acts of personal kind- 

 ness and goodwill, and who, now that his place in the subterranean 

 lecture-room he loved so well, and in which, with all the quickening 

 zeal of a born teacher, he had spent some of the happiest hours of 

 his life, knows him no more, will mourn his loss as that of a dear 

 friend, and will continue to cherish his memory and recall the many 

 kindly traits of head and heart which characterised him. 



In the outset of his career as an investigator, Roberts-Austen 

 occupied himself with a number of minor problems in inorganic 

 chemistry, and there is little continuity of thought or effort to be 

 traced in much of his 'prentice work. But there is invariably the 

 note of originality. All his life through he was strongly attracted 

 by what is odd, uncommon, or bizarre. Perhaps it was the influence of 

 the Celtic blood which ran in his veins which predisposed him to the 

 mysticism which was undoubtedly a feature of his character. Had 

 he lived three hundred years ago, he would have been a typical 

 alchemist, and have spent all the skill and energy he showed in 

 assaying and minting gold in vain attempts to make it. Science, 

 however, would certainly have been the richer for his efforts, for he 

 was a very acute observer, and although occasionally his preconceptions 

 were liable to run away with him for a time, especially in the direc- 

 tion of scientific heterodoxy, he was staunchly loyal to his facts. 

 Much of his work was influenced by his strong artistic sense and by 

 his passionate regard for beauty of form or colour. The secrets of 

 Oriental metallurgy had a singular fascination for him. He would 

 literally gloat over some triumph of Japanese art, and the 

 discovery of by what kind of "pickle," or by what kind of treatment, 

 the lustre or colour or effect on a bronze had been obtained was a 

 delight to him as intense as if he had lighted upon a new metal. The 

 artistic side of his nature found frequent exercise in his work at the 

 Mint, especially in medal-striking. Pie occasionally chafed under the 

 necessity of having to make use of designs for which he had no 

 sympathy, but he had a real delight in reproducing, with the highest 

 degree of excellence that the resources at his command permitted, 



