Victor Yarsley
Victor Yarsley OBE was an English industrial chemist.
Early life and education
He was born in Lichfield on 1 February 1901.Victor Emmanuel Yarsley was the son of a mining colliery manager and a
teacher. After attending the village school in Chasetown he won a
county scholarship to Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, from where he
gained a county major scholarship to Birmingham University to read
chemistry, physics and mathematics.
He obtained a first in chemistry in 1923 followed by an MSc a year later and in the same vear was
awarded a fellowship by the Salters's Institute of Industrial Chemistry.
After a year at Birmingham studying for a PhD, he transferred to the
Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule in Zurich.
There he found a more down-to-earth approach to research and his previous
field of research activity was summarily dismissed as of little potential
industrial value by his professor, Fierz-David, who recommended him to work
on the physical properties of cellulose acetate. Yarsley completed his
thesis in three years, not without some difficulty for he had to learn
German on the way and survive on a
series of small grants.
Career
His almost unique experience with this new material cellulose acetatebrought him an invitation to take the post of chief chemist of the
Non-inflammable Film Company in 1928. When that company failed in 1931 he
set up in business on his own, selling research which he backed up with
practical investigation, and operating, initially, from a laboratory in an
extension to the garage of his home in Ewell, Surrey. At first much of his
work consisted of acting in an advisory capacity in lawsuits involving
patent infringement and other such matters.
The small business gradually prospered, in
no small part as a result of his Foresight in anticipating industry's needs
in promoting the testing and analytical services into a facility serving
industry at large. After an expansionary move to Ashtead, Surrey, his
company eventually merged with the Fulmer Research Institute. It had a
staff of 150 when he relinquished control.
Yarslev was very active in the plastics and polymer group of the Society
of Chemical Industry in the 1930s and became its chairman for a year in
1938. He supported the fledgeling Plastics Institute from its beginning in
1931 and became its president From 1953 to 1955. He was chairman of the
Plastics Industry Education Fund For many years.
For 25 years from 1935, Yarsley was a monthly contributor on plastics to
The Times Review of Industry and the author of several books. The Penguin
books he wrote with E.G.Couzens: Plastics in 1941
and its revisions
Plastics in the Service of Man and Plastics in the Modern World became
bestsellers of their type and gave many a non-plastics scientist and
engineer, and indeed many a layman, an excellent insight into the nature
and characteristics of these mysterious materials. Yarsley strove for their
acceptance as materials in their own right and not just as substitutes or
ersatz products, to be replaced by others when times got better.
Awards
He was a member of the Worshipful Company of Horners, which early on took the plastics industry under its wing.In his younger days he was an active and sincere freemason, becoming
in turn the master of two lodges.
Personal life
Victor Yarsley married in 1928 Louise Sandmeier, whom he met while in Zurich and who predeceased him.He died on 30 June 1994 aged 93 and is survived by a daughter.