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ROBERT CAMERON MACKENZIE 1920–2000

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Robert Mackenzie (affectionately known as Mack to many of his colleagues) was one of our most eminent and distinguished clay mineralogists and thermal analysts, with an international reputation in both fields that brought him many honours and awards. He was instrumental in developing the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research in Aberdeen as a centre of excellence in soil mineralogy, particularly emphasizing analytical aspects, and played a key role in establishing clay mineralogy as a separate sub-discipline of the mineralogical sciences both in the national and international arenas. He was a pioneer in establishing thermal analysis as an accepted technique to be applied to a wide variety of materials in many different areas of study. He died on 4th July, 2000 following a short period of hospitalization.

Born on 7th May 1920 near the village of Portmahomack on the shores of the Dornoch Firth in the north of Scotland, Robert Mackenzie received his initial education at Tain Royal Academy. He proceeded to the University of Edinburgh where he graduated with first class honours in chemistry in 1942 and quickly gained his PhD in 1944 for studies in the field of gas kinetics. He then chose to take up a post as a soil surveyor at the Macaulay Institute, and although this might seem to have been a rather unusual move for someone whose experience was essentially in experimental science, it did in fact initiate Robert’s career along the most fertile and productive lines. At that time, the Macaulay could perhaps best be described as a proto-research institute, with only a handful of scientific staff working in rather basic premises in a converted manor house. But already the staff included two scientists in the persons of Douglas MacEwan and George Walker who would go on to achieve great renown in clay . . . [Full Text of this Article]