Dr Peter Cox - obituary
1934 鈥� 28 December 2022
My father Peter Cox died in the last days of 2022, at 88 years old. It was a year of declining health but he was largely cheerful. When the end came it was calm, in his own home, with Jenny his wife of 62 years at his side.
Born in Cromer in 1934, he went to the University of Birmingham to read chemistry, as the first in his family to undergo tertiary education. This was where he began his lifelong work in microwave spectroscopy. He never forgot his working class Norfolk roots.
As a PhD student he taught chemistry to biology undergraduates. This was how he met Jenny and they married in 1960.
Peter was granted a Fulbright Scholarship and worked with the future Nobel laureate E Bright Wilson at Harvard. He wrote Bright Wilson’s obituary in the Independent. Another Nobel laureate, Harry Kroto, described Peter as the best experimentalist he worked with.
He moved to the University of Bristol in 1964, where he remained for his working life. He received a D.Sc. degree from the University of Bristol in 1973.
Dr Cox was an inspirational and supportive PhD supervisor and this Christmas was still receiving messages from students and colleagues from the 1970s. He served as Director of Undergraduate Studies and led a joint Honours degree in Chemistry and Law – sponsoring a student prize.
He retired in 2000 but devoted great effort to staying in touch with colleagues not least through the Bristol Scientific Club. He lived for his family and he was enormously proud of his three sons, the families they made, and their achievements.
I remember him playing the harmonica and the spoons, but Peter and Jenny took up the concertina in their forties and it remained one of his great pleasures till the end. He was an avid puzzle solver, and a fan of football, cricket, and tennis. We remember his sense of humour, his ability to take small pleasures with joy, his faithfulness, and his fundamental decency.
This was prepared with the generous help of his friend Emeritus Professor Brian Vincent of the University of Bristol.
Stephen Cox
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