Evelyn Ebsworth
Chemist and university administrator who established a vetting scheme for expert witnesses
EVELYN EBSWORTH, who has died aged 82, was the Crum Brown Professor of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1967 to 1990, and ViceChancellor and Warden of Durham University from 1990 to 1998.
At Edinburgh he explored, among other things, the application of spectroscopy in inorganic chemistry, and the structure of the volatile compounds of silicon and germanium. But, during a stint as Dean of Science, from 1984 to 1988, he came to relish the administrative side of university life and it came as no surprise when he was elected Warden and Vice Chancellor of Durham University.
During his eight years at Durham, Ebsworth oversaw the university’s expansion on many fronts, including the completion of a new campus, the Queen’s Campus, on a striking waterfront location in Stockton-onTees. Though he set high standards, he was an encouraging, pastoral presence who made himself popular with academic staff by backing their campaign for higher pay. In 1996, after pointing out that a Tube driver’s pay corresponded to that of a senior lecturer at Durham, he walked with striking university employees in a protest march against under-funding.
The son of a soldier, Evelyn Algernon Valentine Ebsworth was born at Richmond, Yorkshire, on St Valentine’s Day 1933. His father was stationed in southern Africa during the Second World War and he attended no fewer than seven schools in various countries before returning to England after the war to take up a place at Marlborough.
He won an exhibition to King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Chemistry, graduating with a First in 1954. While there he became an active member of the University Liberal Club, serving in various senior positions, including as president in the Lent Term of 1954. He remained at King’s to do a PhD under Harry Julius Emeléus on “The preparation and properties of some silylamines”.
After a year spent as a research associate at Princeton he worked as a university demonstrator in Chemistry at Cambridge from 1959 to 1964 and as a lecturer from 1964 to 1967. Elected a fellow of Christ’s College in 1959, he served as college tutor from 1964 to 1967, when he moved to take up the Crum Brown chair in Chemistry at Edinburgh, his research at Cambridge being rewarded with an ScD the same year.
Moving back to Cambridge after his official retirement from Durham, Ebsworth served as chairman of the governors of The Leys and St Faith’s schools and in 1998 was appointed founder chairman of a new Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners. The new body had been announced by the home secretary, Jack Straw, for the purpose of accrediting expert witnesses, following a series of high-profile cases, such as the Birmingham Six, which raised public concern about the role of such witnesses in the administration of justice as a result of the overturning of convictions. On his appointment, Ebsworth ventured the hope that it would “make it more difficult for charlatans to put themselves forwards as supposed experts” and reduce miscarriages of justice.
Ebsworth was a man of wideranging interests. He had a near-encyclopaedic grasp of history and was a “walking anthology” of poetry. A love of music, nurtured during his time in the school choir at Marlborough, found its outlet in membership of a church choir in Edinburgh, in trips to Covent Garden and the Coliseum, and in an enthusiasm for Richard Wagner.
In his forties he took up the French horn and got as far as passing his Grade 5 exams, though he recalled that the examiner did not appreciate the joke when, in response to the question “And what pieces are you going to play?”, he replied that he hoped it would be obvious when he started playing them.
This was but one example of a playful and often quirky sense of humour that manifested itself in a love of puns and a strange habit of stopping at pillar boxes in the street and talking into the slots as if speaking to someone trapped inside.
Ebsworth was a man of strong religious faith, nurtured by the Book of Common Prayer, the Authorised Version of the Bible (the Book of Psalms was a favourite) and by numerous Christian friends.
He served at various times as president of the Dalton Division of Royal Society of Chemistry, as VicePresident of the RSC and chairman of various committees of the society. In 1969 he was elected to fellowships of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the RSC. He was appointed CBE in 1995.
In 1955 he married Mary Salter, with whom he had a son and three daughters. She died in 1987, and in 1990 he married, secondly, Rose Zuckerman, with whom he enjoyed gardening, developed a new passion for birdwatching, honed his skills in haute cuisine and enjoyed expeditions to far-flung corners of the world.
She survives him with his children and five step-children.