Institution news
Professor Dowson will be known to many as one of the pioneers in the field of tribology and artificial joint replacement. Over his sixty-year career he contributed to an incredible advancement in knowledge with hundreds of journal papers, conference publications and books to his name, and an admirable list of awards and honours.
Professor Dowson was educated at Lady Lumley’s School, and gained his BSc. and later PhD. in mechanical engineering from the University of Leeds in 1952. He spent the early years of his career as a research engineer at Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company before returning to Leeds in 1954 as a lecturer.
In 1967, he established the Institute of Tribology at Leeds and later became Head of Mechanical Engineering, and then Pro-Vice Chancellor of the university. His research focused on biotribology of both natural human joints and orthopaedic joint replacements and elastohydrodynamic lubrication theory. His name appears on some 600 journal papers and he has authored five books and over thirty chapters. He has served as editor on several engineering journals including WEAR and the Institution Proceedings Part C and H, as well as contributing to the editorial boards of many others.
In 1982 Dowson was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and in 1987 a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was awarded a CBE for Services to Engineering in 1989 and in 1992 was elected President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
A great number of honours and awards have been presented to Professor Dowson in recognition of his outstanding achievements throughout his career. He was the recipient of no fewer than seven honorary doctorates from various universities and holds honorary fellowships of many national institutions including the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers. He was the recipient of the 1979 Tribology Gold Medal, the 1979 James Clayton Prize and the 2001 James Watt International Medal, the most prestigious award presented by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Throughout his career, Dowson served on many government committees, including co-authoring the Jost Report in 1966 which first coined the term ‘tribology’, and he helped found the Leeds-Lyon Annual Symposium on Tribology.
Professor Dowson officially retired in 1993 but continued to play an active part in life at the university and in broader industry, regularly publishing papers and giving lectures up until very recently. His contribution to the field on biotribology and joint engineering is outstanding and will long be remembered. He will be sadly missed by the many students and colleagues who had the honour of working with him.