Tuesday 17 December 2013

Sir John Cornforth (1917-2013)

Sir John Conforth, winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, has passed away at the age of 96. He was born in Sydney in 1917, but spent a substantial amount of his life in the UK.
While best known as a research chemist, he was also a fine chess player when he was younger. He played in the 1936 Australian Champion in Perth, scoring at least 6 wins, as well as the inaugural (1937) Australian Correspondence Chess Championship. He did this while completing his studies as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, and while suffering the final stages of otosclerosis, which resulted in total hearing loss.
He maintained a strong connection with the Correspondence Chess League of Australia, and was a life member of the CCLA.


Goldstein,Maurice Edward - Cornforth,John W [E28]
AUS ch Perth (9.2), 07.01.1937



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, he scored 6 wins and 5 losses in coming 7th out of 12. One of his wins was against Goldstein who came second.

Anonymous said...

Oops - when I wrote the previous comment I hadn't noticed that the Goldstein game is the one you quoted.

Anonymous said...

In 1936 at the Australian Championships in Perth 1936 Cornforth also set the Australian blindfold record, playing 10 games simultaneously.