Dr John Barrie Peel - obituary
8 March 1939 – 8 May 2023
Barrie was born on 8 March 1939 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and attended the Sandringham State Primary School until 1950. He won an RSL scholarship which paid a few pounds for books at Hampton High School from 1951 to 1955. He excelled at school with top marks in most subjects, particularly Maths and Science. He was top of every form one to five.
He accepted an Education Department studentship for Matriculation at Melbourne High School in 1956 also winning a Commonwealth Scholarship to Melbourne University, which he attended from 1957-1960 graduating with a BSc and DipEd, and qualifying as a secondary teacher in Maths and Science. From 1961-63 he taught at Melbourne High School (two half-years with Form 4 Maths) and the Secondary Teachers College (two half-years and one full year as a Chemistry tutor).
He had also been a Methodist local preacher at that time and in 1963 was in the group that developed Camp Icthus, an adventure camp for teenagers on Lake Victoria in East Gippsland. During these years he lived at the International House, at Melbourne University as a resident tutor, and completed his BEd.
From 1964-68 he undertook PhD studies in Theoretical Chemistry at Monash University. In 1964 he was a resident tutor at Deakin Hall. He held a Research Scholarship for three years and was a Senior Teaching Fellow for two years. His Doctor of Philosophy thesis titled “Molecular Orbital Studies of Second-Row Fluorides” was awarded in 1968.
On 30 January 1965, Dr Peel married Dorothy Jean Collis, and they built a house in Glen Waverley. In 1969 he was appointed Lecturer in Chemistry at LaTrobe University, where he taught General and Physical Chemistry. He undertook research in Theoretical Chemistry, Molecular Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Mass Spectrometry. In 1974 he undertook twelve months of study leave at the University of Southampton where he studied Electron Spectroscopy.
Later in 1980, he took further study leave jointly at the University of California Berkeley and at the University of Colorado Boulder where he investigated Molecular Beam Methods. In Berkeley, he taught a term of Physical Chemistry to third-year students. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from Melbourne University for a thesis titled “Experimental and Theoretical Studies in Molecular Photoelectron Spectroscopy”. He supervised eight PhD students and published over one hundred research papers. He was head of the department from 1993 to 1997.
He attended many Australian Chemistry conferences and international meetings overseas including locations in Oxford, Namur, Honolulu, Wolfeboro, Uppsala, Richmond, Taipei, Prague, and Beijing. In 1987 he was invited to Beijing to give a lecture series on Photoelectron Spectroscopy. In 1997 and 1998 brief visits to the University of York established an interest in ZEKE spectroscopy, followed by a brief visit to Amsterdam in 1998.
In 1999, Barrie retired as Associate Professor in Chemistry at LaTrobe University and stayed as an Honorary Fellow until 2019. Barrie passed away at the age of 84 years, at Box Hill Hospital after being diagnosed with metastatic melanoma nine months earlier. He is survived by his wife of 58 years Dorothy, their children Carolyn, Andrew, Melinda, and grandchildren Zara, Lucy and Emma.
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