P F Thompson - Australia's pioneer in corrosion research and education

Percival Faraday Thompson (P F Thompson, PFT), (1885-1951),(Figure1), a metallurgistand chemical analyst, is widely considered as Australia’s pioneer in corrosion science and education. Each year at the annual ACA Conference, the P F Thompson Memorial Lectureis presented by a person who has made a most significant contribution to corrosion science and engineering in Australia. While each presenter usually gives a few detailsof the work of PFT for the benefit of Conference attendees, the entire body of his work and details about his life are not provided due to the limitations on the lecture duration. A review of Thompson’s life and some of his work is available in the ‘Australasian Corrosion Engineering’ publication which was the ACA publication in the early 70s, and is one of theprecursors to the current ACA publication Corrosion & Materials (Potter, 1972). However this publication is not widely available to the ACA membership, and certainly not inelectronic format. The purpose of this paper is to provide readers with some of the history of the PFT Lecture, and to acquaint readers of ‘Corrosion & Materials’ and the broader corrosion prevention community with the breadth of the scientific work of PFT and his enthusiasm for describing corrosion science through practical public demonstrations ofexperiments of the basic principles of corrosion.