My father, Bert Wraith, who has died aged 93, was a metallurgist and expert in the dispersion of gases in metals, a key process in refinement. He developed a method for studying bubbles injected into water that led to the design of useful processes for metals, including the idea of a cyclone to clean liquid metals.
In 2018 he was part of a group awarded a Royal Society prize. This was for work done at Swansea University on a laser-based system enabling the continuous monitoring of molten metal during the steelmaking process without the need to shut the furnace down.
Born in South Shields, Bert grew up in York, where he went to Nunthorpe grammar school, Bert attributed his curiosity to his father, Albert, a locomotive fireman who fostered in him a passion for engineering, travel and steam trains. His mother, Dorothy (nee Watson), was a homemaker and keen bridge player.
Bert graduated in metallurgy at Leeds University in 1954, then travelled to Nkana-Kitwe in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, to work as a metallurgist for Anglo American, smelting and refining copper and cobalt. His love of Africa never left him.
He returned to the UK in 1957, and, after doing his national service at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Aldermaston, married Marie Goodenough, a sculptor, in 1958. Bert then began teaching at Newcastle University, where he completed his PhD and established a research unit devoted to understanding the process of metal refining. He mentored 17 PhD students in the UK and Zambia, many of whom became close friends.
He also enjoyed lengthy collaborations in Canada, most notably with the Australian metallurgists Ralph Harris at McGill University, Montreal, where Bert was an adjunct professor, and Phillip Mackey, whom he latterly worked with on the history of metallurgy, including the sheathing of the copper-bottomed ship Edwin Fox.
Bert retired from his senior lecturer post at Newcastle in 1996. At 85, he was invited to join the “Energy in Store” initiative with the Science Museum to improve access to scientific artefacts.
A proud Geordie, Bert was a supporter of the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group. He was also a kind and modest man with a wry sense of humour and a social conscience.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease aged 87 but continued to read the Guardian and complete killer sudokus until a few months before he died.
Bert is survived by Marie, their two daughters, Louise and me, and four grandchildren, Kristen, Logan, Nathaniel and Sadie.
