Memoir - Michael J. Bennett (1940 - 2025)

Remembering MJB

By: Bruce M. Foxman, Brandeis University

Michael J. (Mike) Bennett was born in Surrey in 1940 as the only child of Iris and John Bennett. He was evacuated during wartime to live with his grandmother; the family never returned to Surrey. Mike studied Inorganic Chemistry at Imperial College and enjoyed the lectures of Geoff Wilkinson. Mike was particularly attracted to studying crystallography, and joined Ron Mason's group at Imperial in 1962. Mike, Neil Bailey and Mel Churchill (one year ahead) were group members. In 1963 Ron Mason was offered a Chair at Sheffield University and the group moved with him to the new location. Mike completed his Ph.D. in 1965, and accepted a postdoctoral position at MIT in the group of F. Albert (Al) Cotton. My memories of Mike start at that time, and I will provide a personal view of his many attributes and achievements.

I was then a second-year graduate student in the group, and recall Al announcing that he had hired an excellent crystallographer who would raise the standards of structure determination in the group, and would hold informal sessions to teach us needed skills. Second-year and later students and postdoctorals awaited Mike's arrival eagerly, and we were not disappointed: Bruce Winquist, Peter Legzdins, Roger Eiss, Joe Takats, Ken Caulton, Dick Walton and I all benefited from direct interactions and/or the improved level of structural work that Mike brought to us. Beyond bringing an authoritative voice to all questions involving both simple and complex structures, Mike provided an innovative path for the future. In 1965, we were using Charlie Prewitt's excellent SFLSQ-3 program for refinement, along with reliable Fourier programs, and some small programs for data processing. Mike looked for a volunteer to learn FORTRAN, in order to upgrade our toolkit, and I thought that seemed like a worthy task. Long story short, Mike directed an upgrade to Prewitt's newer SFLS-5 program that could carry out rigid-body refinement, as well as a data-processing suite that did a thorough statistical analysis of our X-ray data. All of the programming, along with Mike's excellent teaching and advice, greatly raised the quality and reliability of the Cotton group structural work. In 1968, Mike accepted a faculty appointment at the University of Alberta, and I went off to the Australian National University in Canberra as a Research Fellow. As we prepared for our new jobs, Mike suggested that we collaborate on another upgrade to Prewitt's SFLS-5 program, this time incorporating the 1950 Lipscomb and King functions for the scattering from a hindered rotor in crystals: we thought that would be a great addition, useful, e.g., for refinement of –CF3, C5H5 and similar groups that behaved as hindered rotors. In Alberta, Mike and student Wendy Hutcheon worked on a version and I did the same in Canberra, finishing later at Brandeis. The results were identical and excellent, and published in Acta Cryst. A in 1975. In addition to Wendy, Mike had three other Ph. D. students at Alberta: Jim Purdham, Peter Donaldson, and Martin Cowie. After Mike left the University of Alberta in 1976, and returned to the UK, Marty joined the Chemistry Faculty at Alberta, and retired in 2009. Sadly, Marty passed away in late March 2025, only weeks after Mike's passing this year.

Pursuing other options in the UK, Mike had a successful career as an IT expert, and lived in Henley-on-Thames, near Oxford. Mike met his future wife Joan while they were students at Imperial College and they were married in 1964. Both expert bridge players, they were still winning competitions in late 2024. Mike and Joan had a long and happy marriage, raising four children (Karen, Tracy, Rick and Neil) and were blessed with eight grandchildren; they all mourn the passing of a loving husband, father and grandfather.

Despite Mike's short time in academia, he left a wonderful imprint on all those folks who knew him. My successful space group tutorial, with thousands of downloads, was truly inspired by his teaching, and he is recognized in that courseware and an associated publication. Recently, Richard Cooper and student Natalie Haarer (University of Oxford) developed and tested a version of the CRYSTALS refinement package that includes some of our 1975 ideas. Beyond all his scientific contributions, we remember him for his warmth, smile, great sense of humor (the Goons, Spike Milligan and 60's Private Eye inspiring me still), and enduring friendship.

I thank Joan Bennett and Professor Josef Takats, University of Alberta, for invaluable assistance in preparing this remembrance.