Runcorn , Stanley Keith , 1922 - 1995 , geophysicist

Born Southport, Lancashire, 1922; educated at King George V School Southport; studied Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1941 (graduated BA 1944, MA 1948); joined Radar Research and Development Establishment during war, 1943 - 1946; Assistant Lecturer in Physics, Manchester University, 1946 - 1948; Lecturer in Physics, Manchester University, 1948 - 1949; research under Blackett on Earth's magnetic field, awarded Ph.D 1949; Assistant Director of Research, Department of Geodesy and Geophysics, Cambridge University, 1950, working on palaeomagnetism; Chair of Physics, Kings College, University of Durham (later University of Newcastle upon Tyne), 1956 - 1988; Sydney Chapman Professor of Physics, university of Alaska, 1989; Senior Research Fellow, Imperial College London, 1989. Runcorn was murdered in a hotel room in San Diego, California, December 1995.