Dr Arthur Wilkinson:1960–2022. A warm tribute from his close friend Prof Tony Ryan OBE

Abstract

I first met Arthur Norman Wilkinson more than 40 years ago when he came to UMIST as an undergraduate in Polymer Science and Technology. He had left school at 16, did a HND on day release whilst working in a plastics factory, so didn’t have the easiest path there. Following his graduation (with a top 1st), he became a PhD student in John Stanford & Dick Still’s research group. Even though I was a year ahead of him, the nature of our PhDs was that we used a big, 2-man, reaction injection moulding machine to make our polyurethanes and polyureas – consequently, he made my samples and I made his – so my PhD did not really get started until he did.