Maya Bewley This autumn, the Department of Chemistry at York officially celebrated its 60th anniversary since first opening its doors in 1965. To mark the occasion, we’ve taken a look back through the decades, from the department’s early beginnings to its world-class facilities today.
The early days of Chemistry at York
The story of Chemistry at York begins in 1962, before the University itself had even opened. Oxford professor Dick Norman had been invited by Lord James, York’s founding Vice-Chancellor, to establish one of the University’s first departments. Dick Norman’s first recruit was David Waddington, who later recalled how it started:
“The department began its life on a spring day in 1962 when Dick Norman came to lunch […] He had been invited to be the founding Professor of Chemistry at York. Would I come with him?”
With the decision made, the two began planning a department from scratch, before a single lab or lecture theatre even existed. The fledgling campus was still a building site, so they worked closely with architects to design the department.
“Dick wanted all the staff to have offices adjacent to their research laboratories and thus have their students close at hand.”
Heating systems, laboratories and lecture theatres were all planned in detail — though not without their quirks. As Waddington later noted, the superheated water used to heat the building was “difficult to control” and caused the floors to vibrate as people walked past!
The iconic mushroom-shaped water tower also came about from these early plans. When the architects realised the campus’s water demand exceeded what the York Water Board could supply, they devised the tower as a solution. It soon became a defining feature of the campus skyline.
While construction continued, the fledgling department set up a temporary home at Micklegate House in the city centre. Every detail, from laboratory benches to carpets, had to be selected and ordered. Writing for the department’s 50th anniversary, Sylvia Winstanley, the department’s first secretary, recalls:
“Micklegate House was the temporary planning base for the practical things which were to follow — choice and purchase of every last item of equipment.”
Waddington even joked that he began to measure prices in a new currency:
“I found the numbers so large that I had a new currency — the price of a Rover 2000 car.”
Without a formal HR team, Waddington and Norman interviewed all of the first students themselves, fourteen per day, before the department’s official opening in 1965.
When Prince Philip visited that October, he formally opened the department as part of the Queen’s visit to campus. Legend has it that he compared the water tower to a golf tee!
That same year saw the founding of the Whinfield Library, named after Rex Whinfield, discoverer of Terylene. Funded by a generous £10,000 grant from ICI (worth around £160,000 today), it soon became one of the department’s greatest assets.
Whatever happened to the Mushroom?
The water tower, affectionately nicknamed “the Mushroom”, became one of the University’s most recognisable landmarks. It’s said that for the lucky few who gained access to the top, staff could enjoy panoramic views across York.
For over a decade, it served the department faithfully — until it was discovered that pigeons had taken up residence in the tank. The tower was eventually dismantled when the old D Block was replaced by the Dorothy Hodgkin Building (more on that later!).
The Great Fire
On Tuesday, 20 May 1980, disaster struck. At around 3am, David Waddington received a call — the Chemistry labs were ablaze. By the time he reached campus, large parts of the department were engulfed in flames.
Yet, remarkably, teaching continued that same day! Staff rallied together to deliver lectures elsewhere on campus, determined to keep the department running. Against the odds, many lecture notes survived the fire, protected inside a filing cabinet, and Waddington’s own book was salvaged and painstakingly dried by a colleague.
Among the stranger casualties of the fire was the department’s duckling incubator. In a lesser-known side project, the Chemistry team had used empty fume cupboards to hatch ducklings (apparently excellent at masking the smell). The fire, sadly, brought that tradition to an end.
Buildings and developments
The new D Block opened in 2004, named in honour of Dorothy Hodgkin, the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and an honorary doctorate recipient from York in 1970.
Her collaborators, Eleanor and Guy Dodson, moved to York in 1976, founding the York Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL) — which went on to make major contributions to protein crystallography and the study of enzyme mechanisms.
In 2024, the Eleanor and Guy Dodson Building opened, paying tribute to their pioneering work. It houses some of the University’s most advanced research equipment, including facilities for electron cryo-microscopy, X-ray structure determination, protein crystallisation, and high-field cryo-probe NMR spectroscopy.
World class teaching
From the start, the department’s founders wanted strong connections with schools and teachers. In 1974, York launched one of the UK’s first Master’s courses for chemistry teachers, helping bridge the gap between academic research and classroom practice. Over the decades, the department has continually invested in modern teaching facilities and equipment, ensuring students learn in an environment that reflects real-world scientific practice.
Chemistry and… cricket?
Sport has long played a special role in the social life of the Chemistry department. The first staff cricket match began as a friendly challenge from Hull’s Chemistry team — and soon became an annual fixture against Durham. A beloved tradition was the Staff vs Graduates match, a highlight of the summer term that brought the department together off the field.
The future of Chemistry at York
Today, York’s Department of Chemistry ranks 4th in the UK (according to The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2026), and continues to drive innovation through world-leading research. The Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence pioneers sustainable chemical processes, while the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories lead vital research into air pollution and climate change.
With expanding industry partnerships, postgraduate opportunities, and state-of-the-art facilities, the department’s spirit of innovation shows no signs of slowing. We hope you have enjoyed reading these highlights from the department’s history over the years!
With special thanks to the Department of Chemistry for supplying the photographs, and the contributors to 50 Years of Chemistry at York book, which you can purchase a copy of here.
