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Albert Lloyd George Rees (OCG 1933)
Lloyd Rees entered Carey Baptist Grammar School, at Kew, Victoria, in 1924. The school had opened one year previously and his father had been involved in its planning and construction. Lloyd had a distinguished career at Carey, where he excelled as a scholar and as a sportsman (cricket, football, athletics). In his final year, 1933, he was Dux (for the second successive year), Head Prefect, Captain of School, and winner of prizes in English, Mathematics and Science. He often expressed his gratitude for the teaching he received at Carey. Arthur Sandell, a contemporary of Rees and a fellow prefect, has stated that various teachers, including Lloyd’s brother Rex Rees, (10 years his senior), had a great influence on Lloyd’s development as a scholar. However, it was his chemistry and physics master, Mark Stump, who deserves most credit for fostering in Rees an interest in science, and a special love of physics and chemistry. It also seems certain that Lloyd owed much to his father, who was a strict disciplinarian and instilled the work ethic in all his children. According to Lloyd’s widow, Marion, it was also his father who developed his son’s love and correct usage of the English language.
Towards the end of his schooldays Lloyd decided that he wanted to be a scientist. JL Farrant has related how in his last year at school Rees, in his school uniform and with his cap in his pocket, walked into the Head Office of CSIR at 314 Albert Street, East Melbourne, and told the receptionist that he wanted to see Dr David Rivett, at that time Chief Executive Officer of CSIR and a former Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne. Rivett said send him up.
Rees gained his BSc with distinction in 1936 and in the following year enrolled as a full-time postgraduate student in chemistry. His supervisor for the MSc degree was Dr NS (later Sir Noel) Bayliss who early in 1938 took up his appointment as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Western Australia. Rees remained in Melbourne and began studying the effects of foreign gases on the spectrum of bromine. Throughout these investigations he was in frequent correspondence with Bayliss. At the end of 1938, he graduated MSc and shared the Dixson and Professor Kernot Research Scholarships in Final Honours Chemistry.
He obtained a Beit Scientific Research Fellowship for postgraduate research at Imperial College, London. Before leaving for London and at the request of Noel Bayliss, he spent two terms in 1939, lecturing in organic chemistry at the University of Western Australia. In Perth, Rees’ research flourished and he greatly enjoyed having day-to-day contact with Bayliss. In retrospect at least he also enjoyed his lecturing duties, and in later years often recalled with pleasure his struggles to keep half a page ahead of his students.
Family membersKingsley Percival (Rex) ReesGenderMaleCategoryPeople | Students | DucesPeople | Students | Henry Meeks Gold MedallistsPeople | Students | School CaptainsFurther informationhttps://csiropedia.csiro.au/rees-albert-lloyd-george/