Christopher Kelk Ingold, 1893-1970

Abstract

Christopher Kelk Ingold, the son of William Kelk Ingold and Harriet Walker Newcomb, was born at Forest Gate, London, on 28 October 1893. On account of his father’s health, the family moved to Shanklin, Isle of Wight, while he was still an infant. His father, William Kelk Ingold, died when Christopher was only 5 years old, and his sister Doris, who survives him, was only 2 years old. Christopher Ingold attended Sandown Grammar School, and went on to Hartley University College, Southampton, now the University of Southampton; there he obtained his B.Sc. Honours Degree as an external student of the University of London in October 1913. At school and at college he was better at physics than at chemistry; but at Southampton in those days, physics was taught as a completed subject, very neat and tidy and rather dull, whereas chemistry, under Professor D. R. Boyd, was taught as a living, growing, and exciting subject, and he therefore decided to take up chemistry. He does not seem to have played games at school or college; however, he once told the writer that he could have done better in his degree examinations if he had not devoted so much time to playing chess in the Union.