Hall remembers Sir Peter Hirsch FRS

St Edmund Hall is sad to announce that Emeritus Fellow, Sir Peter Hirsch, passed away on Friday at the age of 100. Peter joined the Hall in 1966 as the Head of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials and Isaac Wolfson Professor of Metallurgy, and he became one of Oxford’s most influential scientists. Upon retirement in 1992, he was elected to the Hall’s Emeritus Fellowship.

Professor Hirsch was welcomed back to the Hall in March of this year to celebrate his 100th birthday with a lunch and a scientific symposium, where he spoke about his pioneering work in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in the post-war years, and its application to the study of materials, particularly metals and alloys.

He received many awards for his fundamental contribution to physics, including the Franklin J. Clamer Medal (1970), Hughes Medal (1973), Royal Medal (1977), Wolf Foundation Prize in Physics (1983/4), as well as the Lomonosov Gold Medal of Russian Academy of Sciences (2005). In addition, he was elected to the Royal Society in 1963 and knighted in 1975. From 1982–1984, Peter was Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and he was founder Chairman of Oxford University Innovation (formerly known as Isis Innovation), the technology transfer company of the University of Oxford.

In recent years, the undergraduate Sir Peter Hirsch Bursary was set up in 2019 by one of Peter’s former students, Dr Bernard Bewlay (1980, Metallurgy & Science of Matter), as a tribute to his former tutor and the impact that he had, both on his students and academia more widely.

Peter will be deeply missed both by all who knew him at the Hall, and more widely across the University.