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John Enderby: a passion for physics and publishing

Physics World September 2021

Physics World

 
News & Analysis Physics World  September 2021

John Enderby: a passion for physics and publishing

Michael Banks joins the tributes to Sir John Enderby, the physicist and former chief scientific adviser to IOP Publishing, who died last month aged 90

A sense of community Sir John Enderby made pioneering contributions to neutron science and had a keen interest in scholarly publishing. (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)

When I joined Physics World in 2007, I had just completed my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. I was new to Bristol, where IOP Publishing is based, and needed somewhere to live. So when I saw an ad on the staff intranet for a flat in the leafy Cotham district of the city, I jumped at the chance. The ad, I soon discovered, had been placed by Sir John Enderby, then chief scientific adviser to IOP Publishing, offering a self-contained apartment on the top floor of his roomy Victorian house.

The house was a stone’s throw from the University of Bristol, where Enderby made his name as a pioneer of neutron scattering. I lived for about a year in his flat, which helped me find my feet in a new city and settle in as Physics World’s news editor. I soon got used to finding stacks of scientific journals deposited by Sir John in front of my door, presumably for me to continue my education. He once even invited me round for Sunday dinner, during which he was delighted to find that I had used neutrons as part of my own PhD.

Over the next decade, I would often see Enderby in the IOP Publishing offices, where he regularly joined staff for lunch in the canteen, happily mixing with colleagues many years his junior and always ready to chat about his two passions of publishing and physics. That sense of community spirit and desire to help others underpinned Enderby’s long association with IOP Publishing, where he served as the company’s chief scientific adviser from 1996 to 2011.

In that role, he advised all sides of the publishing business, particularly on editorial matters, being instrumental in the development of new journals, such as Environmental Research Letters, and modernising existing publications. When he stepped down in 2011, he remained a consultant for several years and helped IOP Publishing to launch its ebooks programme in 2013. Enderby was also closely involved in the publication activities of the Royal Society, where he served as vice-president and physical secretary from 1999 to 2004, and in the European Physical Society (EPS) too.

Following his death on 3 August, IOP Publishing chief executive Antonia Seymour led the tributes by calling Enderby a “great friend” to IOP Publishing, who had been “hugely interested in scholarly publishing”, having worked with IOP Publishing staff as a reviewer, editor and adviser. “[He was] always supportive and encouraging,” she added, “with a plethora of ideas for how we might expand our books and journals portfolio. He will be hugely missed.” 

Knighted for his services to science and technology in 2004, Enderby also had close links with the Institute of Physics (IOP), serving as its president from 2004 to 2006. Current IOP chief executive Paul Hardaker said that he had been a “source of wise counsel on important topics for the community [who] helped to developing thinking on the future of scientific publishing and was always fostering strong collaboration across the European physics communities”. 

Down to Earth 

Born in Lincolnshire on 16 January 1931, Enderby went to school in Chester before doing national service in the Middle East. He earned a first-class degree in physics from Birkbeck College, University of London, in 1957 and stayed at Birkbeck to do a PhD on the properties of liquid metals. After spells at the universities of Huddersfield, Sheffield and Leicester, Enderby moved to Bristol in 1976, serving as head of physics from 1981 to 1994.

Enderby became noted for using neutrons to study the structure of liquids and in 1985 took leave from Bristol to spend three years as British directeur adjoint of the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) neutron lab in Grenoble, France. That love of neutron scattering was passed to many students and colleagues, including Alan Soper, who did a PhD with Enderby at Leicester. Describing him as a “constant source of inspiration and support”, Soper first encountered Enderby as an undergraduate, recalling how he “mostly taught from memory, with little reference to notes, and his lectures usually ended with a question – making it clear that there was still more to be learned”.

One highlight for Soper was Enderby’s collaboration in the 1960s with Peter Egelstaff at Harwell using neutron scattering to show the validity of the “Faber–Ziman” theory of liquid binary alloys and untangle the structure of copper-tin liquid alloy – what Soper dubs “one of the most significant achievements in liquid-state physics in the 20th century”. In the 1970s Enderby extended the technique further, applying it to molten salts and aqueous solutions. 

Another PhD student was Philip Salmon, now at the University of Bath, who recalls trips to the ILL, where Enderby introduced him to French cuisine at the restaurant Chez La Mère Ticket – a particular favourite being the crayfish with gratin dauphinois. “John combined remarkable insight with an ability to enthuse and inspire the people working with him to tackle outstanding issues,” Salmon says. He recalls Enderby’s “infectious enthusiasm, good humour and support“ – as well as his “nifty moves” on the dance floor after an EPS conference banquet in Norwich in 1996. 

With hobbies such as gardening, woodwork and football, Sir John was always down to Earth, despite his many titles and renown. Adrian Barnes, who did a PhD and postdoc with Enderby in the 1980s, recalls how, during his time at the ILL, Enderby would bring along his old Datsun estate car from the UK and took “great delight” in parking it alongside the other directors’ flashier BMWs and Mercedes. “Sir John remained just ‘John’ to many of us – and will be missed.”