Lionel Alfred Kirby Staveley, one of the foremost thermodynamicists of our time, retired from academic life on September 30, 1982. He had been a fellow of New College, Oxford, since 1939 and his research career was even longer, for he published his first paper, while still an undergraduate, in 1933.

---

Lionel Staveley retires at the end of Trinity term 1982. The meeting today is proof of the unusual degree of respect and affection that he has won, both from several generations of Oxford chemists and also from the international scientific community. In some ways, a man of Edwardian dignity, yet, like MacMillan, he can display a good-humoured sparkle that causes people to warm to him.

---

Publications List ...

---

A brief survey is presented of the impact of Lionel Staveley's work on the theory of liquid mixtures. Staring in the 1950's with experiments on mixtures of carbon monoxide and methane, his work on liquids has been closely tied to the needs of theory. His studies of simple liquids of spherical molecules played a crucial role in the development of theories of such simple liquids in the period from the mid-1950's to the 1970's. His more recent work on mixtures of molecular liquids is now proving of great value in evaluating theories for liquids of nonspherical molecules. Several examples are presented of this interplay between theory and experiment.

---

In the early nineteen sixties I was a Captain in the U.S. Army, teaching at the Military Academy at West Point, and continuing the experimental studies of fluid phase equilibria in low temperature systems that I had begun several years earlier during my graduate studies at the University of Michigan.

---

The behaviour of a substance in its gaseous or liquid state tends to be dominated by the fact that the molecules within it exert forces upon one another. We do, of course, have the concept of a perfect gas, for which PV = RT, an equation which results when all intermolecular forces are set to zero, but real substances only approximate to this in the gaseous state at low pressures.

---

In the previous paper Dr. WEIR [I] has surveyed the complete range of systems which Lionel Staveley has studied by low-temperature calorimetry. In this article I wish to describe in rather greater detail several of these which I think are of particular interest. Because of the number of systems studied it is a difficult task to select just a few, and the choice is therefore largely a personal one.

---

Dr. Staveley's career involving solids alone is remarkable. He has pursued 'disorder' in the solid phase in an 'orderly' way with steady vigour trying to unravel the fascinating duel between those forces within the crystal favoring an ordered structure and those of thermal agitation producing disorder.

---

The eyes of the world have been on England much these days - the yeoman endeavors in the Falklands to provide self-determinism - the birth of a Royal baby - and indeed these are propitious events; but in a related sense, we are gathered here to recognize publicly an impressive scientific genealogy which has already borne fruit, which will continue to do so, and which will make its mark on the scientific world.

---

The quality and importance of Lionel's research in Chemical Thermodynamics have been assessed by previous speakers. My contribution will be different, and will focus on the impact of his work on others, in particular on those, like myself, who came from abroad to work with him in Oxford.

---

The meeting today has been hearing mainly about Lionel Staveley's contributions to science tin ough his work on the thermodynamics of fluids and fluid mixtures, and his studies of the solid state. Professor Calado has also told us something about his influence on the development of thermodynamic research in Portugal during the last decade or so.

---

Let me begin by expressing my admiration for the excellence of the lectures we have had today, and my deep appreciation of the trouble and effort that have gone into their preparation. I have a feeling of guilt, however, in that the speakers have said so many over-generous things about me, and so little - virtually nothing, in fact - about their own valuable contributions.

---