APRIL, 1966 THE ANALYST Society for Analytical Chemistry Gold Medal Vol. 91, No. 1081 COUNCIL, on the recommendation of its Honours Committee, has decided to award the first Society for Analytical Chemistry Gold Medal to HERBERT NEWTOK WILSON formerly Analytical Group Manager, Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (Billingham Division and, later, Agricultural Division). H. N. Wilson has spent the major part of his career in the Research Department’s analytical laboratories at I.C.I., Billingham, where he helped to build up and later took complete charge of, an analytical department well equipped and of outstanding quality, covering an extremely wide field. Sections included were sampling, standards, raw materials and finished products (from argon to cement, and numerous organic chemicals as the Division’s research and manufacturing programme expanded). The Billingham laboratories have always been early users of new techniques, and were among the first British industrial labora- tories to establish a microchemical section, to use spectrophotometry, polarography, gas chromatography and X-ray fluorescence analysis.The extent and quality of the training available and the personal influence of “H.N.” is seen in the list of men, now in senior positions elsewhere, who were under him in all or part of the formative stages of their careers, including- J. Borrowdale, Chief Chemist, Richard Thomas & Baldwins Ltd., Scunthorpe. W. T. Elwell, Chief Analyst, Imperial Metals Industries Ltd., Birmingham. M. Gibson, Technical Manager, J. C. Gregory gi Son Ltd., Stoke-on-Trent.H. Hollis, Director of Chemical Inspection, Ministry of Defence, Woolwich. J. R. Hudson, Research Manager, Brewing Industry Research Foundation, Caterham. J. Norris, Director, J. H. Marks & Co. Ltd., Cleckheaton. G. E. Penketh, Chief Analyst, I.C.I. Ltd. (Heavy Organic Chemicals Division). P. ,4. Raine, Chief Chemist, Crown Cork Co. Ltd. A. Robertson, Personnel Director, I.C.I. Ltd. (Mond Division). A. Wilson’s published work covers a wide range of analytical problems dating back to the 1930’s when papers on such diverse topics as selenium in sulphur and the determination of OH groups by the pyridine - acetic anhydride method were published; through the 1940’s on amines, trace elements in phenol, uranium in urine, arsenic in glass, nitromethane in air; to a very productive period in the ’50’s and ’60’s including some outstanding work on the deter- mination of silicate and phosphate.He was also joint editor of both editions of “Chemical Analysis-The Working Tools.” His latest book, just published, “An Approach to Chemical Analysis-Its Development and Practice” can be recommended to all analytical chemists and their “customers” for its wide scope and penetrating observations. H. N. Wilson was the first Royal Institute of Chemistry examiner for the Fellowship in General Analytical Chemistry from 1941 to 1949, and served on the Council of that body in 194546 and 1949-52. Within the Society for Analytical Chemistry, of which he has been a member for over 30 years, he served on Council in 1947-48 and is perhaps best known for his chairmanship of the joint S.A.C. - A.B.C.M. Committee on Trade Effluent Analysis and for the resultant monograph of approved methods. For some years before 1962 he was also a member of the Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association analytical committee and served on the scientific sub-committee of the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1926, Standing Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. For his contributions to chemical analysis the Society is proud to award its first Society for Analytical Chemistry Gold Medal to HERBERT NEWTON WILSON. 223 Smales, Head of Analytical Chemistry Branch, A.E.R.E., Harwell.