John William Lewis

John was born on 15 September 1932 in Gloucester and passed away on 10 September 2025, just five days short of his 93^rd birthday.

He attended St Thomas Rich’s School in Gloucester and won an Open Exhibition to study chemistry at Merton College, University of Oxford where he studied from 1950 to 1956. After earning a 1^st class honours degree, he stayed on to complete a DPhil. In between his studies, punting and playing second row for the college rugby team, John married his childhood sweetheart, Joy.

John worked in both industry and academia during his long career, including the positions of Research and Development Director of Reckitt & Colman, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Bristol University, and Honorary Professor at Bath University, finally retiring when he was in his early 80’s!

John leaves an amazing legacy of career achievements and made an enormous difference to the world of science and in particular drug research. One of the highlights of his career was when he was awarded the Nathan B Eddy Award in 1998, one of the highest awards for scientific excellence, and he received personal accolades from HRH Queen Elizabeth II and President Bill Clinton for this.

The following comments from colleagues sum this up:

“His contributions to science were only exceeded by the results of them: discoveries which have provided treatment and hope to millions of patients and their families who will never be aware of his contributions this side of eternity.”

“John had an international reputation in opioid chemistry focused on the treatment of pain and opioid addiction. In addition, he led the household products company Reckitt and Colman to become a significant player in the pharmaceutical sector developing novel antidepressants and neurological treatments.”

In his younger days, he excelled at sport and played county rugby for Leicestershire, cricket for Loughborough and squash for Hull in the Yorkshire League.

The family lived in Loughborough and Hull and in the late 1980’s John and Joy moved back to the southwest of England and settled into their new home in Sandford in Somerset, whilst John worked at the Universities of Bristol and later Bath. He was very actively involved in Rotary and Probus and made many good friends.  From the early 1990’s they spent a lot of time at their “bolt hole” in Looe, Cornwall. Looe was a very special place for them as John proposed to Joy on the Banjo Pier and they stayed there for their honeymoon in 1955.

John and Joy had three children, eight grandchildren (James, Georgia, Alex, Francesca, Jessica, Mimi, Rory and Patrick) and two great grandchildren (Theo and Aurelia).

They shared a long and happy life together and celebrated their 70^th wedding anniversary on 16 July 2025.