DAVIES, WILLIAM LEWIS (1896 - 1941), specialist in analytical dairy chemistry

Born 23 February 1896, the son of David (a farmer) and Jane Davies of Cwmlogin, Llansawel, Carmarthenshire. He attended Llandeilo county school before joining the Royal Horse Artillery in 1914; he afterwards saw active service in France. He graduated B.Sc. (Wales) with first-class honours in chemistry from University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, then proceeding to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated Ph.D. in 1924. In 1925 he was appointed advisory agricultural chemist at Reading University during which period he published papers on the nitrogenous compounds of fish meal and the proteins of green forage plants. Two years later he became biochemist at the National Institute for Research in Dairying, his field of research and investigation consequently becoming wider. He was joint author of a series of papers on the ripening of cheese, but the work which established him as a leading authority in his subject was The Chemistry of Milk, the first edition of which appeared in 1936. In recognition of his contribution to dairy chemistry the University of Wales conferred on him in 1935 the degree of D.Sc. He was appointed in 1939 Director of Dairying Research to the Government in India and had the satisfaction of organising and seeing opened on St. David's Day, 1941, an active research centre, The Imperial Dairy Research Institute. He died at New Delhi on 15 May 1941, and was buried at the Nicholson cemetery, New Delhi, a Celtic cross erected by the staff of the Institute marking his grave. His wife was formerly Miss Eleanor Unwin of Cambridge.

Author

• Margaret Beatrice Davies

Sources

• J.G.D., 'William Lewis Davies', The Biochemical Journal, 36 (1942), 543
• information from his sister, Mrs. J. Thomas

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20748901

Published date: 2001

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