Report on further correspondence and papers of DAVID KEILIN (1887-1963) biologist

SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL A.1-A.87

A.1 -A.7 Biographical tributes and information

A.8 -A.40 Career and honours

A.41-A.87 Family letters and material

SECTION B THE MOLTENO INSTITUTE CAMBRIDGE B.1-B.34

B.1 -B.13 Research and teaching

B.14-B.34 History and administration

SECTION C LECTURES AND PUBLICATIONS C.1-C.32

SECTION D CORRESPONDENCE D.1-D.29

SECTION E PHOTOGRAPHS E.1-E.18

The supplementary collection is particularly strong on biographical material relating to Keilin and his family, and includes several accounts, translations, summaries, explanatory notes and identifications prepared by Mrs. Whiteley.

There is documentation for the early life and work in Paris of Keilin, his wife Anna and his sister Marie (both doctors), and more sparsely of other members of their families. Of some interest are the sequences of letters written to Keilin by his wife from Manchester during the First World War, and by his daughter from Leeds during the Second World War, when each was pursuing a medical career. None of Keilin's replies to his wife survive but his frequent letters to Joan (A.73-A.78) are very interesting for their news of his research ideas and Cambridge affairs as well as for the picture they convey of his struggles with ill-health and his unassuming and endearing personality. The documentary record in Section A is complemented by photographs assembled in Section E.

Section B contains a little research material for the Cambridge period and some useful additional documentation for Keilin's long connection with the Molteno Institute before, during and following his appointments as Quick Professor and Director. The material held back from the 1973 collection is incorporated here.

Section C (Lectures and Publications) is chiefly of interest for Keilin's draft review for Nature of a book by Warburg (C.3) and for its extensive drafts and correspondence for his own book The history of cell respiration and cytochrome left unfinished at his death, completed by his daughter and published in 1966.

Section D (Correspondence), though slight, includes some exchanges with A. Szent-Györgyi and O. Warburg. Section E contains several interesting photographs of all aspects of Keilin's life, work, colleagues and family from 1907 to shortly before his death. Many of these were assembled and re-photographed by Mrs. Whiteley and bear dates and identifications by her.

The work of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and institutions:

The Biochemical Society

The Charles Babbage Foundation for the History of Information Processing

The Institute of Physics

The Institution of Electrical Engineers

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers

The Nuffield Foundation

The Rhodes Trustees

The Royal Society of London

The Wolfson Foundation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our main thanks are to Mrs. Whiteley for her care in assembling, translating and identifying the material. We also acknowledge with thanks the help of Dr. G.C. Stone (Hertford College, Oxford) in deciphering and translating documents in Polish and Russian.

The material was received from Mrs. Joan Whiteley (Keilin's daughter) at various dates June-December 1986.

Although the collection is essentially additional to that catalogued in 1973 (CSAC 3/73) it also incorporates documents relating to the Molteno Institute Cambridge (item 6 of the 1973 catalogue) previously retained in family hands.