John Bridgwater 1938-2021

Professor John Bridgwater, who was Head of the School of Chemical Engineering and later Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, has died aged 83.

Educated at Cambridge and Princeton, John worked for Courtaulds Ltd before taking up academic positions at Cambridge and then Oxford. He moved to Birmingham as Professor of Chemical Engineering in1980, becoming Head of School three years later.

His time at Birmingham coincided with a significant expansion of the University and changes in structure, including merging the departments of chemical engineering and minerals engineering. He also oversaw the School’s response to the introduction of the Engineering Council’s Standards and Routes to Registration (SARTOR), which resulted in the creation of BEng and MEng degrees. In parallel, specialist versions of the chemical engineering degree were introduced for biochemical engineering, environmental management and minerals engineering. In 1989 he became Dean of the then Faculty of Engineering, before he returned to Cambridge in 1993 as Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering and Head of Department, where he again oversaw significant restructuring.

Professor Bridgwater's key interest was in particle technology and he did much to open up the discipline and to persuade the funding bodies to support it. Together with Stuart Blackburn he established the Ceramics Processing Group in the University’s IRC in Materials for High Performance Applications and he was among the first to recognise the potential of positron emission to make measurements of use to chemical engineers, particularly through the emerging technique of positron emission particle tracking (PEPT). He is also remembered for significant work on attrition and particle breakage and for his work with John Benbow on paste extrusion, which led to the development of the widely used Benbow and Bridgwater equations.

In 1983 he became Executive Editor of Chemical Engineering Science, a role which he fulfilled for some 13 years before becoming the Chairman of the journal's Editorial Board. He was President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (1997-1998) where he argued strongly for chemical engineers to use their skills to improve quality of life by fostering employment, advancing economic and social development, and protecting the environment.

The School sends its condolences to John’s wife Diane and their children.

Read the IChemE’s extended obituary.