Robert Hutton

Robert Hutton (1876 – 5 August 1970) was an English metallurgist and Goldsmiths’ Professor in Metallurgy at Cambridge University from 1931 to 1942 and known for his work with the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning in assisting academics to flee the Nazi regime in Germany.

Robert Salmon Hutton was the son of J.B Hutton, a member of an old, well-known firm of silver table-ware manufacturers in Sheffield. Hutton spent his early life in London apart from the time he was at Blundell's School in Tiverton. From school he went to Owens College in Manchester, followed by two years at the University of Leipzig and one in Paris.

Hutton was appointed lecturer in electro-metallurgy at Manchester University in 1900, but in 1908 moved to Sheffield where he entered the family business. In 1921 he was invited to become director of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. The Association expanded and achieved a world-wide reputation under his guidance. He was one of the original members of the Institute of Metals and a member of Council from 1909 to 1935.

Hutton became the first Goldsmiths’ Professor in Metallurgy at Cambridge University in 1931. Although some of the pioneer work in metallography had been carried out by Heycock and Neville in the University Chemical Laboratory and formed part of the course in assaying chemistry, metallurgy was not included as a separate subject in the Natural Sciences Tripos. The Goldsmiths’ Company had generously provided funds for a small laboratory and endowed a chair, but it was Hutton who first persuaded the university to introduce metallurgy into Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos and later Part I.

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