William Joseph Elford 1900-1952

William Joseph Elford was born on 4 January 1900, coming from a family associated for many generations with Malmesbury in Wiltshire. At Sherston, five miles from Malmesbury, his grandfather was in the tinsmith business and his grandmother’s brother was also in that trade. His father, Joseph Elford, was brought up to it but left it to become an insurance agent. His mother was born Louisa Curtis of Easton Grey, near Malmesbury. W. J. Elford was named William as this was a tradition for eldest sons of the family, through a traditional association with William of Malmesbury (1080-1143). W. J. E. was one of a family of five, three boys and two girls. So far as can be ascertained, no others of his family have shown outstanding ability in the field of science: his star shone alone. At school, the Malmesbury Secondary—now Grammar—School, he had a distinguished record and won many prizes; chemistry was his favoured subject. He took the London Matriculation from school in 1917, his subjects being mathematics, advanced mathematics, chemistry, English and French. He was a good athlete, playing cricket, hockey and lawn tennis. During the First World War he joined the Royal Engineers as a private at the age of eighteen, serving for rather under a year; he was not sent abroad. On demobilization he went to Bristol University with a scholarship and studied under Professor J. W. McBain; he took his B.Sc. in 1923 with first-class honours in chemistry. He played cricket and hockey for his University and was elected President of the University Chemical Society. He remained at Bristol from 1923-1925 with a Colston research scholarship, to study the processes involved in soap boiling. He was elected an Associate of the Institute of Chemistry in 1924 and took his Ph.D. in 1925. Concerning this phase of his career, Professor McBain writes as follows: ‘Elford was one of the most brilliant students coming from Professor McBain’s school at Bristol University. He had an exceptional combination of intellectual and experimental ability. His work as a graduate student at Bristol was distinguished by the combination of novel, elegant and optical techniques with strict physical chemical methods.’