15 Facts About George Porter

George Porter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967.

George Porter was awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1949 for research investigating free radicals produced by photochemical means.

George Porter served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War.

George Porter's later research utilised the technique to study the detailed aspects of the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis, with particular regard to possible applications to a hydrogen economy, of which he was a strong advocate.

George Porter was Assistant Director of the British Rayon Research Association from 1953 to 1954, where he studied the phototendering of dyed cellulose fabrics in sunlight.

George Porter became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Royal Institution in 1966.

George Porter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967 along with Manfred Eigen and Ronald George Wreyford Norrish.

George Porter was a major contributor to the Public Understanding of science.

George Porter became president of the British Association in 1985 and was the founding Chair of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science.

George Porter was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1979, a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1986, and served as President of the Royal Society from 1985 to 1990.

George Porter was awarded the Davy Medal in 1971, the Rumford Medal in 1978, the Ellison-Cliffe Medal in 1991 and the Copley Medal in 1992.

George Porter received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1971.

George Porter was knighted in 1972, appointed to the Order of Merit in 1989, and was made a life peer as Baron Porter of Luddenham, of Luddenham in the County of Kent, in 1990.

George Porter served as Chancellor of the University of Leicester between 1984 and 1995.

In 2001, the university's chemistry building was named the George Porter Building in his honour.