William Charles Price. 1 April 1909—10 March 1993

William Charles Price, known as Bill Price to his friends and colleagues, was a spectroscopist whose work spanned the disciplines of physics and of chemistry. He made important contributions to our understanding of the electronic structure of molecules through his pioneering developments in vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy and photoelectron spectroscopy. He was a superb experimentalist, a formidable theorist and an extraordinary innovator. Perhaps more than any other physical scientist of the age he symbolized the approach of the great 19th-century physical scientists who constructed their own apparatus, made their own measurements and developed the theories for interpreting their own results. He and his research group were constantly at the forefront of new instrumental developments and the interpretation of the novel data that could then be produced. The greater part of his career was spent at King's College, London, where he was the Wheatstone Professor of Physics.