Stoner, Edmund Clifton, 1899-1968. Physicist.

IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code: GB 0206 MS 333

Repository: Special Collections, Brotherton Library, Leeds University.

Title: Papers and correspondence of Edmund Clifton Stoner, 1899-1968.

Dates of creation of material: 1909-1969.

Extent: 28 boxes

CONTEXT

Biographical history

Stoner was born in East Molesey, Surrey and educated at Bolton Grammar School, 1910-1918, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1918-1921 where he read for the Natural Sciences Tripos specialising in physics. In 1919 he developed diabetes which entailed a restricted diet and varying periods of hospitalisation before a regular insulin regime became possible in 1927. He worked with Rutherford as a graduate student at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge from 1921 to 1924 when he was appointed Lecturer in Physics at Leeds University. He remained at Leeds for the rest of his life, as Reader in Physics, 1927-1939, Professor of Theoretical Physics, 1939-1951, and Cavendish Professor of Physics, 1951-1963, in succession to R. Whiddington (q.v.). For most of his life (he married in 1951) Stoner was solely responsible for his ageing mother and this, taken together with his diabetes, restricted much of his activity to Leeds, and he undertook few outside activities. His research interests were in magnetism and low temperatures.

He was elected FRS in 1937.

Custodial history

Received for cataloguing in 1973 from Mrs Heather Stoner, widow.  Deposited in 1973.

CONTENT HISTORY

Scope and content summary

During his retirement, Stoner organised and selected his papers, intending to write an autobiography. The papers thus consist of his own compilation of material, with many of his own notes, dates and comments; there are also some completed narrative accounts of his school and university days, and some stories, essays and poems. There is a complete run of daily journals, 1919-1968, and Stoner's careful notes of lectures given at Cambridge by Rutherford, E.V. Appleton, G.F.C. Searle, J.J. Thomson, C.G. Darwin, C.T.R. Wilson and others, and of N. Bohr's lecture on quantum theory and atomic structure delivered in Cambridge in 1922. There is material relating to the Department of Physics, Leeds University, and an extensive correspondence covering the period 1918-1966 fully indexed by Stoner. The regular correspondence between Stoner and relatives in the London area during the Second World War forms an interesting record of the period.

Arrangement:

By section as follows: Biographical, University of Leeds, Publications, Committees, Correspondence and photographs. Index of correspondents.

CONDITIONS OF ACCESS & USE

Access:

By appointment on application to the Head of Special Collections.

Language:

English

Finding aids:

Printed Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Edmund Clifton Stoner: CSAC catalogue no. 6/73, 20 pp.  Copies available from NCUACS, University of Bath

ALLIED MATERIALS

In same repository:

In 1976 Mrs Stoner presented further papers (2 boxes) to the Brotherton Library, Leeds University. They consist mainly of his notes for lectures which Stoner delivered both as formal courses for undergraduates and on special occasions for other audiences, from the mid-1920s onwards. MS 696.