William A. Coates (1919-1993) was a technician and lecture assistant at the Royal Institution (1948-1986) [1]. He was awarded the Bragg Medal in 1975 [2,3]. Coates was born in the East End of London on 7th November 1919. He went to Shoreditch Grammar School. He became an apprentice at the Exchange Telegraph Company in 1934 [1].
He joined the services in 1939 as a Private. He later joined the parachute regiment and was involved in Normandy Landings. He left with the rank of Captain [3]. Coates worked as a technical assistant at Charing Cross Medical School before Eric Rideal recruited him to work at the Royal Institution. [3]
Initially, he worked with x-ray diffractometers as part of David Phillip team. In the 1950s, Coates became involved with lecture demonstrations working particularly closely William Lawrence Bragg [4] Coates was also involved in producing several Open University foundation courses [5]
After his retirement he remained as part time consultant at both the Royal Institution and at Imperial College London.[1] Coates died 7th October 1993.
References
Coates actually has a Wikipedia page with a bit more information than I have here.
- William Albert Coates (1919-1993), Retrieved 2018-11-24.
- Institute of Physics, Bragg medal recipients, Retrieved 2018-11-24.
- Obituary: William Coates, The Independent, Retrieved 2018-11-24.
- The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg : selections and reflections. Thomas, J. M. (John Meurig), Phillips, D. (David). Northwood, Middlesex: Science Reviews Ltd. 1990.
- Science course unit 7 – Open University Digital Archive, Retrieved 2018-11-25.
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