Frank Horton, 1878-1957

Abstract

Frank Horton was born at Handsworth, Birmingham, on 20 August 1878. His parents were Albert Horton and Kate Louisa Horton ( née Carley) and he was the eldest son and second child of a family of seven, five sons and two daughters; a most devoted family. Whether Frank’s future career was directly influenced by the fact that his father was a schoolmaster and later an Inspector of Schools is not known for certain, but the future Professor and Vice-Chancellor may well have approached maturity with this background bias, which may have strongly turned his thoughts to administration in later life. As a child he got his early education at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, where it was soon apparent that he showed real academic promise, so that he was encouraged to enter Mason College, Birmingham, where teaching and research prestige were already so high as to make the early attainment of University status a virtual certainty. His undergraduate career in Mason College, led in 1899 to a First Class External Honours degree in the University of London, in physics and in chemistry after which he chose to tread the path of physics research under the aegis of Professor J. H. Poynting. It was under Poynting’s influence that the young Horton was first given the opportunity of showing, in the field of experimental research, those qualities of meticulous and painstaking care which, through all his life, were to characterize his work, whether in the laboratory, the lecture room, the administrative office or in committee.