The Early Days
“History and Status of Chemistry at Carleton College”
John M Morton
[Written about 1947, Edited by DRW in 2006]
Since Carleton College is the youngest of Canada’s institutions of higher learning, its part in the history of chemistry is largely in the hopes of the future. However, the following facts may be stated in order to set forth the beginnings of Chemistry at Carleton College. Situated in Ottawa, where so much research is centered in the National Research Council and other laboratories, its environment is favourable to the growth of a college chemistry department.
Carleton’s first president, and one of the leaders in the movement to start the College, was the late Dr. Henry Marshall Tory, formerly president of the National Research Council. At the beginning of the college, in September 1942, two courses in chemistry were offered: General Inorganic and Organic Chemistry. These subjects were taught by sessional lecturers, the inorganic course by Mr. V.E.Bullock, M.A.(Queen’s), A.C.I.C., teacher of Chemistry in Glebe Collegiate Institute, and the organic course by Dr.R.H.F.Manske of the N.R.C. In 1944 Dr.Leo Marion also of N.R.C. became sessional lecturer in Organic Chemistry in place of Dr. Manske. In 1945, Dr. C.Y.Hopkins of N.R.C. took over the Organic Chemistry course. In 1946-47 Dr. Hopkins also offered a second year course in Organic Analysis. In 1946 Dr. B.deB.Darwent of the N.R.C inaugurated a course in Physical Chemistry planned mainly for first year engineers. Up to this time, Carleton College had functioned as a Junior College, offering day and evening classes covering two years of college work.
The large influx of student veterans in 1945-46 made it necessary to add new sections to the class in Chemistry 1. Instructors were Miss Kathleen E. Bowlby, B.A. and Messrs. M.V.Morwick, B.S.A., S.R.Felker, B.S.A., J.E.Thom, B.A., B.L.Bradley, B.A. and A.H.Fitzsimmons, M.A. Most of the chemistry classes were transferred to the College Building at 268 First Avenue when it was opened for the session 1946-1947.
An additional course, organic analysis (Chemistry 4) was offered in 1946-1947 under Dr.C.Y.Hopkins. A newly-equipped laboratory in the College building was completed and put into use. In the same year, the organic chemistry class was divided into two sections, one of which was a day class for full-time students. It was in charge of D.T.Mather, M.Sc. (Sask.).
Laboratory instructors in 1946-47 were M.K. Phibbs, M.A. (Inorganic chemistry); AS.Weatherburn M.A.Sc. and K.W.T.Bowles B.Sc. (Organic chemistry).
A substantial number of students received instruction in chemistry during the first four years of the College’s history. The total number of registrants in the various courses in this period is shown in the following table, from about 1947:
General Chemistry (Chemistry 1) 519
Organic Chemistry (Chemistry 2) 44
Inorganic Chemistry (Chemistry 3) 73
Organic Analysis (Chemistry 4) 7
In 1947 the college introduced third year work in Arts and Science, and in 1948 fourth year work. John M.Morton, M.Sc. (Dal) Ph.D. (Princeton) was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry on a full time basis. New courses were added in qualitative analysis and engineering chemistry. Fourth Year work is planned for the session 1948-49 and the appointments of another Assistant Professor and a Lecturer are anticipated. More advanced courses in physical, organic and analytical chemistry will be offered, and it is expected that the first honour students will be graduated in a four year course followiing senior matriculation. It is expected that Carleton College will confer its first Pass B.A. and B.Sc. Degrees in the spring of 1949, and possibly its first honours degrees in 1950.
The fact that Carleton College is located in Ottawa where so much research is centred at the National Research Council and other government departments, will provide an atmosphere conducive to the growth of a flourishing chemistry department. These advantages should provide opportunities for students and staff members in chemistry not found elsewhere in Canada. The future should hold a great deal for Carleton College in Chemistry.
Note by DRW: John Morton was a nice old man, known affectionately as ‘Mother Morton”. He was very conservative in most ways, and didn’t seem to keep his notes up to date. However, when he retired he grew his white hair longer and drove a red open-top sports car!
J.M.Holmes’ Notes
[extracted from a document by JMH, January, 1983]
Much of my information for this paper comes from the Presidents’ Reports of Carleton University, the first of which was issued for the year 1955-56. These reports list papers published by faculty, talks given, honours and awards and research in progress. They were issued yearly until the end of the sixties at which time publication of the more comprehensive Reports on Research and Studies were published. In order to give some appreciation for problems and possibly to offer excuses for some faculty it seems appropriate to make some comments on staff and facilities in the early days.
After beginning in 1942 in rented facilities, Carleton College obtained its first building in 1946 when the former Ottawa Ladies College on the southwest corner of First Avenue and Lyon Street was purchased from the Crown. After conversion to classrooms, laboratories and offices, almost no space was left for scientific research and the college library was a small room on the fourth floor of the building with space for 4000 volumes and 60 readers. Most faculty were housed in shared offices and little space was available for quiet study or scholarly work until a separate library building was built in 1951 behind the college. Two other houses on First Avenue were later purchased for use by the Students’ Association and the Institute of Public Administration but facilities for research remained unchanged until we moved to the Rideau River Campus in January 1959. With the move, adequate research space and equipment for Science and Engineering became available in the H.M.Tory building for Science and expanded library facilities for all faculties were housed in the new MacOdrum Library. The Carleton College Act of 1952 endowed the college with University powers to grant all University degrees and during 1956 by a special act of the Ontario Legislature Carleton was given the right to be called a University.
In 1947 – 48 Carleton College had 11 full-time faculty members and 47 sessional lecturers serving 535 full-time and 733 part-time students. By 1959-60 Carleton University consisted of 77 full-time faculty and 58 sessional lecturers for 926 full-time and 1161 part-time students. A graph representing growth of full-time faculty and students in this period is included. Since research is now largely associated with graduate students it should be noted we enrolled our first graduate students in 1953-54. The first M.A. in Public Administration was awarded in 1955. The first M.A. in other disciplines and the first M.Sc. degrees were awarded in 1958 with the first M.Eng. not being granted until 1962. Our first Ph.D. graduate (in Mathematics) was in 1961 and by this time we had graduated 25 M.A.’s and 3 M.Sc.’s. It is of interest to note that in the first President’s Report in 1955-56 it was announced that a small fund to support faculty research had become available.
At the beginning of the nineteen fifties, a number of Departments had two or more full-time Faculty Members but none had adequate numbers to constitute what might be considered a team. It is again interesting to note that the first full-time appointments in the following Departments occurred in the year noted: Sociology 1950, Psychology 1952-53, Geology 1953-54, Public Law 1955-56, and Geography 1957-58. Prior to these years these latter departments were run by sessional lecturers. By the end of the fifties a number of departments had five or six full-time Faculty Members and had become viable research units with graduate programs.
It would appear from the above that the facilities and atmosphere at Carleton in this period were not conducive to research activities until the new campus was built. However, much was done and I will attempt to highlight some of the research activity as I remember it or as I find it in published reports. In the early days teaching loads were three to four courses per Faculty Member and there were few if any teaching assistants, markers, demonstrators or the like. As a result almost all research activity had to be concentrated in the summer period or on sabbatical leaves. Many Science Faculty Members worked in Government research laboratories during summers while our Arts colleagues worked on Government commissions and many of them were finishing off their Doctoral dissertations. I have attempted to cover most parts of the University from published works and my own knowledge and I hope that I have not missed out on any important aspects I should have covered. I will discuss the research work on a departmental basis of course starting with the Science faculty.
Chemistry. Throughout most of the period the department had three faculty members, J.M.Morton, J.M.Holmes and P.M.Laughton. A.G.Forman, an organic chemist, was a lecturer without tenure. D.R.Wiles joined us in 1959-60 and most of his research work in radiochemistry will be described in a later part of this volume. Morton, Holmes and Laughton all got their start in research as Research Associates in the Government laboratories during the summer. Morton worked for several summers at N.R.C. and in the Mines Branch with E.A.Flood and N.F.H.Bright preparing distilbene and studying reactions in liquid ammonia. Laughton built up a collaborative research program with R.E.Robertson of N.R.C. and they published a number of papers on solvolysis in hydrogen and deuterium oxide. He also worked with Leo Levi of the Food and Drug Directorate on characterization of essential oils.
Holmes spent one summer with A.G.Keenan, two with J.M.Morrison and two with I.E.Puddington at N.R.C. and one summer with J.C.Arnell at Defence Research Board. In this work he developed an expertise in gas adsorption and colloid chemistry and in 1949 constructed a B.E.T. gas adsorption apparatus for measuring low temperature nitrogen adsorption on a variety of solids. Samples were done on a commercial basis for Polymer Corporation, Sarnia (catalyst samples), Industrial Cellulose Research , Hawkesbury, C.I.L. Montreal, Monsanto Chemical Company, Springfield, Mass. (resin samples), Mines Branch and Eldorado Mining (uranium dioxide samples), Sherritt-Gordon (cobalt powders), Bruce Ross Chemical Company, Montreal (chromic oxide samples) and a number of others. While this was done on a commercial basis, very good contacts were made and several projects developed into small research endeavours, particularly those with Atomic Energy and Eldorado.
In 1954 Holmes began an association with Professor R.A.Beebe of Amherst College, Amherst, Mass, which lasted until Beebe’s death in 1979. Amherst College is an undergraduate college of about a thousand students and Faculty Members there conducted their research by hiring Post-Doctoral Fellows or Research Associates. Beebe during the fifties had a group of 3 – 5 each summer, and I spent a number of summers there as a Research Associate. C.H.Amberg was there in 1953-55 before going to N.R.C. and eventually to Carleton. During these early years work was done on adsorption of various gases on graphitized carbon blacks and bone material. Contacts made during this period with U.S. surface chemists were a very valuable part of development of Holmes as a researcher. Over this period, and later, work was done at both Amherst and Carleton and several Carleton students spent summers at Amherst. In the seventies, Beebe spent two terms as a Visiting Professor at Carleton.
Faculty members in nearby Departments included:
Geology (Hill, Young, Riddell, Hooper, Tupper)
Mathematics (MacPhail, Northover, Lightstone)
Physics (Munn, Love, Cole, Hart)
Engineering (Coates, Ruptash, Goldsmith, Putnaerglis)
Biology (Nesbitt, Illman, Turnau and Isabel Bayley
(This is the end of the extract from the document by Jim Holmes. Several pages more about research in other Departments and in the Arts are not included here.)
There were many prominent students from this era, several of whom became Chemistry teachers in and around Ottawa. Linc Steele went into the Ontario Ministry of Education, George Collins, Ted Jolley, Kent Guthrie became Ottawa High School teachers.
Bill Machin went on to Memorial University in St. John’s and ultimately became Dean of Science. Roy Huber was in the RCMP Crime Lab. Dave Cooney became an important Chemist at the National Research Council. Others included Lorne Elias, Fern Hurtubise, John Birchall,
The list of Honours B.Sc. Graduates is here:
Fernand G.Hurtubise 1951
Lorne Elias 1952
Bruce H.Sells 1952
Alan A.Thomson 1953
Lincoln W.Steele 1953
William D.Machin 1956
Roy Huber
Dr. Reg Elworthy was the Senior Demonstrator in Chemistry. He had been a Natural Products Chemist with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Jim Holmes, by the way, was Carleton’s first Director of Athletics, Coach of Basketball and much other activity in athletics. In addition, he was a Major in the COTC at Carleton, and maintained an active relation with the COTC for many years.
Th following is a quotation from Joe Scanlon: “The Road to Halifax and Beyond: A History of Carleton’s Men’s Basketball”.
“Because there was no athletics department, Holmes, the Chemistry professor, did all the chores that would normally fall to athletics staff.
“Holmes was always there. He was Mr. Sport at Carleton. He managed the team. He made all the arrangements for road trips. He came on every road trip and to every game. He was just a wonderful guy and totally supportive. I came from a high school where there was nothing like that and suddenly there was a guy like Jim Holmes.”