Ralph Stock: 21 March 1926–14 May 2013

It is with great regret that I report the death of Ralph Stock. Ralph and I go back a long way—I had been working at Shell’s Thornton Research Centre for about a year and had become the site expert on chromatography (an example of “In the country of the blind…”) when my supervisor came to me and said “We’ve got this PhD student at Exeter University on a Shell Scholarship and he’s sent us his thesis. I want you to read it and see if it’s alright”. This is almost exactly 60 years ago and our paths crossed frequently since that momentous occasion.

After his time at Exeter, Ralph spent about 12 months at the Ceramics Research Organisation in Stoke and then decided to become an academic, first at Wolverhampton Technical College and then at Liverpool Technical College (now the Liverpool John Moores University). He stayed at Liverpool for 10 years becoming a Principal Lecturer and whilst there he and I organised some of the earliest courses on capillary GC. He left Liverpool in 1965 to be head of the Department of Science at what is now Nottingham Trent University, becoming the Dean of the Faculty of Science in 1981. He retired from this position in 1986 and spent the next 7 years as head of the science department of the new Sultan Qaboos University of Oman.

Although this marked the end of his formal career, it did not end his connection with chromatography since Ralph had become the principal editor of Chromatographia soon after its establishment by Rudolph Kaiser in 1968 and continued to be one of the editors until about 5 years ago. Again our paths crossed because Ralph recruited me to be an editor of Chromatographia, making me after him, the longest serving editor.

Ralph published Chromatographic Methods with Cedric Rice, a fellow lecturer at Liverpool which was an introductory volume covering the situation at the time (1967). Although he published little original research, he was immensely influential in less obvious ways. He had been a member of the Gas Chromatography Discussion Group (now the Chromatographic Society) since its inception and for rather bizarre reasons it was administered by staff of the Institute of Petroleum. In 1972 it became clear that this arrangement was unsatisfactory to both parties and the Group decided to go independent. Ralph found an office for the Group at Trent and also highly efficient staff to run it. Without his help it is doubtful if the Society would have survived to this day. Because of his background activities Ralph did not receive much of the international acclaim of others, but he was awarded the Tswett Medal of the USSR Academy of Science in 1970.

We wish to offer our sympathy to his wife Dorothy, his son Nigel and daughter Penny. They have lost a loving husband and father and I have lost a good friend.

Ted Adlard

Burton, South Wirral

e-mail: e.adlard77@btinternet.com