User:Kestrel2Zero/sandbox

Kestrel2Zero started work in this Sandbox on Wednesday, June 5, 2024.

Norman Frederick Astbury CBE, MA, ScD, CEng, FIEE, CPhys, FInstP, HonFICeram, FRSA (December 1, 1908 – October 28, 1987) was a British physicist with wide ranging experience and success in industry, academia, the war effort, and scientific research. A double first in Natural Sciences from St John's College, Cambridge launched his career in 1929 with an appointment at the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) in Teddington followed by a lifetime of professional positions both at home and abroad culminating with the Directorship of the British Ceramic Research Association, later, Lucideon (1960 – 1973).

Early Life and education
Astbury was the youngest of seven children born in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. His father, William Edwin Astbury, was a potter. His mother was Clara Astbury, née Dean. His education started at Normacot Church of England School (1913 -1919), continued at Longton High School (1919-1926), and he then read Natural Sciences at St John’s College Cambridge where he was a Scholar and Prizeman, gained a First in both parts of the Tripos

Career
National Physical Laboratory -1929-1939 Staff At the NPL, his first job following university, he became responsible for much of the work on primary and secondary electrical standards, including the re-establishment of the primary inductance standard and the redetermination of the ohm.

Royal Naval Scientific Service -1939-1945
During World War II, he worked on problems of harbour defence and electro-acoustics in the Royal Naval Scientific Service with specific involvement in HM Anti-Submarine Experimentation Establishment and Ship Degaussing Joseph Sankey & Guest Keen & Nettlefold -1945-1949 Director of Research

In 1945 he joined Joseph Sankey and Sons to organise a research laboratory. This became the central laboratory of the Guest, Keen and Nettlefold group of companies. He has taken part in work on the processing and properties of electrical sheet-steel and expanded the organisation to deal with a wide range of problems in applied physics.

University of New South Wales 1949 -1951
Professor of Applied Physics

Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum (now University of Khartoum) 1951 – 1956
Professor of Physics, Dean of the Faculty of Science. Astbury designed and set up an experiment at the old ‘Kilo Five’ Khartoum Airport to measure changes in the earth’s magnetic field during the total eclipse of the sun on February 25, 1952.

His contribution to contemporaneous global research on this topic is recorded in the edition of Nature Magazine published on 12 July 1952: Micro-Magnetic Variations During the Solar Eclipse of February 25, 1952. https://doi.org/10.1038/170068a0

In 1954 he was conferred the degree of Doctor of Science by Cambridge University Faculty of Engineering for contributions to applied physics, in which context he submitted 36 published papers on engineering subjects. In this photograph he is shown wearing his doctoral robes on a sunlit day in the garden of his home in Devon

Personal life
He met his future wife, Nora Wilkinson, when, aged five she took his hand at infant school.