Peter Gray (chemist)

Peter Gray FRS (25 August 1926 – 7 June 2012) was Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds and subsequently Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Gray attended Newport High School.

Gray was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Natural Sciences in 1946 and a PhD in Chemistry three years later.

In 1955 Gray was appointed a Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Leeds.

He was promoted to Reader in 1959 and to a personal chair as Professor of Physical Chemistry in 1962.

He became Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry on the resignation of Professor Lord Dainton in 1965.

His research interests included combustion flame and explosion oscillatory reactions and chaos in chemistry.

Professor Gray's career was garlanded with many academic honours, including election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1977.

Gray left Leeds when he was elected Master of his old college Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1988.

Following her death in 1992 Gray married his second wife, Rachel, who survived him.

His interests included music, hill walking and classical Russian science and maths.

He remained Master until 1996 and was then a Life Fellow of the college until his death in 2012.

Gray was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Leeds in 1997.

His nomination reads:

With his first wife, Barbara (who was a Lecturer in Biochemistry at the University of Leeds), Gray had four children; Christine, Andrew, David and Sally.