Morris Sugden
# Morris Sugden

Sir Theodore Morris Sugden FRS, (31 December 1919 – 3 January 1984) was a British chemist who specialised in combustion research.

## Biography

Theodore Morris Sugden (Morris) was born in the village of Triangle, the only child of Florence (née Chadwick) and Frederick Morris Sugden, a clerk in a mill. After attending Sowerby Bridge and District Secondary School he gained an open scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1938, where he read chemistry and was awarded a First in 1940. That year he began research under physicist W C Price on the measurement of precise ionization potentials of molecules. He later switched to working with R G W Norrish for war-work on the suppression of gun flash.

Sugden’s later research activities were in the fields of flame studies, flame photometry, ionization in flames, and microwave spectroscopy.

### Appointments

* University Demonstrator in Physical Chemistry, 1946
* Humphrey Owen Jones Lecturer in Physical Chemistry, 1950
* Reader in Physical Chemistry, 1960
* Director of Research at the Shell Thornton Research Centre, near Chester, 1964
* Director of Thornton Research Centre, 1967
* Chief Executive of Shell Research Limited, 1974-1975
* Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1976

### Awards and honours

* Elected to the Royal Society, 1963
* Awarded an honorary D Tech. by University of Bradford, 1967
* Awarded an honorary doctorate of science by York University, Ontario, 1973
* Made a CBE, 1975
* Received the Davy Medal, 1975
* Awarded an honorary doctorate of science by University of Liverpool, 1977
* Awarded an honorary doctorate of science by University of Leeds, 1978
* He was an Honorary Fellow of Jesus and Queens' Colleges, Cambridge.
* Elected a Corresponding Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1975.
* Chairman of the Combustion Institute Committee, 1970–1982, and an International Vice-President, 1974–1982.
* President of the Chemical Society, 1978-1979
* Physical Secretary of the Royal Society, 1978-1984
* Knighted in the New Year Honours List, 1983

### Family

Sugden married Marian Florence Cotton in 1945. They had one child, Andrew Morris, born in 1954. He graduated from Oxford in Botany in 1975, and later gained a doctorate in tropical rainforest ecology. He undertook an expedition to the Serranía de Macuira in northern Colombia, publishing a checklist to the plants of this area along with Enrique Forero. He has subsequently followed an editorial career.

Sir Theodore Morris Sugden died at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge on 3 January 1984; he was cremated in Cambridge on the 10th. The Sugden Award for combustion research is named in his honour.

Lady Marian Sugden died in December 2009.

