Charles Percy Snow
|
The Right Honourable The Lord Snow CBE |
|
|---|---|
C. P. Snow in 1969
(Jack Manning, New York Times) |
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| Born |
15 October 1905 Leicester |
| Died | 1 July 1980 (aged 74) London |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Physics, chemistry, literature (novelist) |
| Institutions | Christ's College, Cambridge |
| Alma mater |
University of Leicester Christ's College, Cambridge |
Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, CBE (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English physical chemist and novelist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government. He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers, and for The Two Cultures, a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".
Born in Leicester to William Snow, a church organist and choirmaster, and his wife Ada, Charles Snow was the second of four boys, his brothers being Harold, Eric and Philip Snow, and was educated at Alderman Newton's School, and at Leicestershire and Rutland College, now the University of Leicester, where he read chemistry for two years and proceeded to a master's degree in physics. From Leicester, Snow gained a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge, and gained his PhD in physics (Spectroscopy). In 1930 he became a Fellow of Christ's College.
Snow served in several senior civil service positions: as technical director of the Ministry of Labour from 1940 to 1944, and as a civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1943 New Year Honours. Snow's was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the Nazis' Special Search List, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the Gestapo.
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