Since 1940, members of the BSR have elected a President of the society, drawn from a broad range of rheological backgrounds and interests. Each president serves for a period of two years, and more recently they have been invited to sit on council as president-elect and immediate past president. Brief biographical details of each former president can be found below.
The background research for this page was undertaken by P. Rigby, Aberystwyth University.
BSR President#1, 1940-42, G.I. Taylor FRS, Cambridge University: noted fluid dynamicist, meteorologist, and a major figure in waves, turbulence and viscosity - contributor to the Manhattan project.
Image credit: National Gallery
BSR President#2, 1942-44, Charles Goodeve FRS, University College London: Canadian chemist, pioneer in Operations Research. Invented "degaussing" to protect allied shipping during WWII, and the first head of the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development
Image credit: National Gallery
BSR President#3, 1944-47, Edward Neville da Costa Andrade, Professor of Physics at the Military College of Science, UCL, and Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution: best known for work with Ernest Rutherford on gamma radiation, and as a BBC broadcaster.
Image credit: National Gallery
BSR President#4, 1947-48 J.B. Speakman CBE, Leeds University, particularly the Leeds Textile Chemistry Laboratory: Influential work on the properties of wool fibres, the production of easy-care wool, and dyeing textiles
Image credit: University of Leeds
BSR President#5, 1948-49, N.F Mott, Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol Universities: early work on gases succeeded by research on plastic deformation and cracking, particularly the motion of dislocations in solids.
Image credit: National Portrait Gallery
BSR President#6, 1949-51, G.W. Scott Blair, National Institute for research in Dairying: Co-founder of the British Rheologists’ Club (now the BSR) and the journal Biorheology, contributing to food science and initiating the field of psycho-rheology.
BSR President#7, 1951-53, A.G. Ward, Leeds: First Director of the British Galantine & Glue Research Association, founder-member of the Institute of Food Science & Technology, also president of the Society of Leather Technologists & Chemists, expertise in the properties of leather.
Photo Credit: University of Leeds
BSR President#8, 1953-55 L.R.G. Treloar OBE, British Rubber Producers Research Association and then Manchester: Contributions to rubber elasticity, stress strain behaviours, and polymer physics; introduced Rivlin to finite strain elasticity.
BSR President#9, 1955-57, J.G. Oldroyd, Courtaulds, Swansea, Cambridge and Liverpool Universities: formulated the Oldroyd-B model to describe the viscoelastic behaviour of non-Newtonian fluids, and established a foundation for mathematical models of complex fluids
BSR President#10, 1957-59, E.G. Richardson, UCL and Newcastle University: expertise in acoustics and fluid motion, including break-up of liquid jets and sprays, transport of silt, emulsion rheology, and using ultrasonics to investigate viscoelasticity.
Image credit: J. Acoustical Soc. America 32, 76 (1960).
BSR President#11, 1959-60, H. Kolsky, ICI and Brown University: research into materials experiencing sudden loads, influential text ‘Stress Waves in Solids’. Designed the Split-Hopkinson pressure bar, aka Kolsky bar, to measure stress and strain in metals.
Image credit: J. Acoustical Soc. America 92, 1771 (1992)
BSR President#12, 1960-62, R.W. Douglas, General Electric then Sheffield University: Influential figure in the Society of Glass Technology, studied rheology of high temperature glasses and developed optical spectroscopy to determine the authenticity of stained-glass windows.
BSR President#13, 1962-64, R. Roscoe, Newcastle University: known for the Einstein-Roscoe equation for the viscosity of suspensions of hard spheres; identified the Kelvin-Voigt and generalized Maxwell models as canonical mechanical forms.
BSR President#14, 1964-66, A.J. Kennedy, BNF Metal Technology Centre: research on creep in metals; designed an automatic electromechanical stressing unit for creep and fatigue testing, later president of the Institution of Metallurgists
BSR President#15, 1966-68, A. Charlesby, Royal Military College of Science: worked on the effects of radiation on polymer, particularly irradiated polyethylene; co-founder of the Polymer Physics Group of the IoP.
BSR President#16, 1968-70, L. Grunberg, Fluids Group, National Engineering Laboratory, Glasgow: published papers on a range of rheological topics including the Grunberg–Nissan model for the viscosity of mixtures of fluids.
BSR President#17, 1970-72, J. Lamb CBE, Imperial College, then Glasgow University. An electrical engineer with interests in semiconductors and rheometry.
BSR President#18, 1972-74, P. Feltham, British Iron and Steel Research Association, Brunel and Leeds Universities: interested in metals, particularly creep and work-hardening.
BSR President#19, 1974-76, Ken Walters FRS, Aberystwyth University: founding editor of JNNFM, founder of the INNFM in Wales, contributions to viscometric flows and computational rheology, co-wrote several influential textbooks.
Image credit: Aberystwyth University
BSR President#20, 1976-78, J.J. Benbow, ICI: research focus on molten polymers and the rheology of pastes, particularly extrusion, and known for the Benbow-Bridgwater Equation to predict the pressure drop.
BSR President#21, 1978-80, W.M. Jones, Aberystwyth University: physicist who contributed to fluid flow in porous media, collaborating with major oil companies.
BSR President#22, 1980-82, J.R.A. Pearson FRS, ICI, Cambridge, Imperial, Schlumberger: significant contributions to Newtonian flows and Polymer processing, highly cited papers and books, and influence on the oil industry.
BSR President#23, 1982-84, John Hutton, Shell: worked on the rheology of lubricants, close links with Aberystwyth, co-author of the textbook “An Introduction to Rheology”.
BSR President#24, 1984-86, I.M. Ward FRS, Leeds: physicist with expertise in polymer science, particularly the mechanical behaviour of solid polymers. An award from the IoP Polymer Physics Group is named in his honour.
BSR President#25, 1986-88, F.N. Cogswell, ICI: contributions to the rheology and processing of polymer melts, particularly extrusion, and flow in composite materials.
BSR President#26, 1988-90, J. Ferguson, Shell, Strathclyde University: interests in the rheological properties of molten and solid polymers, development of rheometers for spun fibres.
BSR President#27, 1990-92, David C.H. Cheng, Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Applied Rheology Section of the Warren Spring Laboratory, a government research centre: a particular interest in rheometry
BSR President#28, 1992-94, Ralph Oliver, Birmingham University: Chemical Engineer, co-founder of the ESR, contributions to suspensions and extensional flow of dilute polymer solutions, accomplished tennis player with 5 Wimbledon appearances.
BSR President#29, 1994-96, Howard Barnes OBE, Unilever: industrial rheologist, author of highly regarded rheology textbooks and co-author of the provocative “yield stress myth” article
BSR President#30, 1996-98, Peter Townsend, Reading and Swansea Universities, becoming Deputy Vice-Chancellor: expertise in computational non-Newtonian fluid mechanics and visualisation of numerical predictions of complex flows, co-chair of the INNFM.
BSR President#31, 1998-2000, Richard Buscall, ICI and MSACT Research and Consulting: specialising in rheology of colloids, dispersions, suspensions.
BSR President#32, 2000-02, Eirian Jones, Plymouth University: applied rheologist with particular interest in instrumentation, influenced development of the Carri-Med controlled-stress rheometer.
BSR President#33, 2002-05, Geoff Maitland CBE, ICI, Schlumberger and Imperial College: expertise in polymer rheology and applications of rheology in oil recovery; influential in the development of a UK Carbon Capture strategy.
Image credit: Imperial College London
BSR President#34, 2005-07, Malcolm Mackley, Cambridge University: chemical engineer, head of the Polymer Fluids Group, expertise in polymer rheology, particularly extrusion, co-inventor of the Multi-Pass Rheometer.
BSR President#35, 2007-09, Phil Banfill, Associated Octel, then Department of Building Engineering at Herriot-Watt: expertise in rheology applied to construction materials - cement, fibre-reinforced composites, grouts and lime mortars; Trustee of the Scottish Lime Centre Trust.
BSR President#36, 2009-11, Oliver Harlen, Leeds: Research into inkjet printing of non-Newtonian fluids. Developed a novel Lagrangian finite element method simulating suspensions of particles in viscoelastic fluids.
BSR President#37, 2011-13, Bill Frith, ICI and then Unilever: specializes in the rheological properties of soft matter systems, food, and personal care products
BSR President#38, 2013-15, Rhodri Williams, Swansea University: established the Centre for Complex Fluids Processing and the EPSRC-NHS Clinical Haemorheology Laboratory at Morriston Hospital Swansea.
BSR President#39, 2015-17, Helen Wilson, Leeds University, then UCL: first female BSR president, with expertise in constitutive modelling and the rheology of suspensions - but better-known for the chocolate fountain?
Image Credit: UCL
BSR President#40, 2017-19, Tim Phillips, Aberystwyth and Cardiff Universities: an authority on high-order discretization methods for Newtonian and non-Newtonian Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Image Credit: Cardiff University
BSR President#41, 2019-21, Andrew Howe, Kodak, Schlumberger, and AQDOT: colloid and polymer chemist with expertise in material formulation for process and product performance. Ex-chair of UK SCI/RSC Colloid Groups, and president of both the ECIS and RSC Formulation Group.