The School of Chemistry was saddened to hear of the passing of Professor David Feakins on 30th of April 2025 in London.
David was Professor of Physical Chemistry from 1969 until his retirement in 1986, however he continued to publish right up to 2016.
Roger Feakins has kindly sent us the following obituary which was written by the Feakins family.
David's funeral is scheduled for 11am on Thursday 29 May 2025 at Golders Green Crematorium, 62 Hoop Lane, London, NW11 7NL.
David Feakins led a long and exemplary life, entering his 95th year before passing away peacefully in a nursing home in London. He knew he would rejoin Sonia, his beloved wife who departed seven months earlier.
David was a native of Southall in London, the second son of Sid and Winnie Feakins. His grandfathers were a butcher and a butler. His father was a bank clerk. David reminds us of his father’s fortuitous First World War posting to India rather than to the horrors of France.
David took the first step towards an illustrious academic career by reading Chemistry at Queen Mary College in London. He graduated with first class honours at 21, completed a PhD at 25, and held lecturer and senior lecturer posts in London and Manchester. At 39 he became Professor of Physical Chemistry at University College Dublin (UCD), followed closely by the award of a DSc from the University of London.
At UCD he had excellent support to develop his laboratory teams and his teaching portfolio, and he worked well with many superb colleagues to help advance Science. He was a lifelong and respected member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, receiving his 60-year certificate in 2022.
He summarised his research as “mostly the study of the thermodynamics, transport, and effects on viscosity of the alkali metal, alkaline earth and halide ions”, and he refers to the “acid-based theory of solvation, Erdey-Grúz numbers, and irreversible thermodynamics in solvent transport”. He also mentions the relationship between the basicity and structure of cyclic phosphorus-nitrogen compounds. He then highlights the Feakins equation and asks us to Google it.
David believed he had a reputation as a teacher of General and Physical chemistry. Colleagues and students, including (not-so-scientific) medical students, confirmed his view. David said his methods were old-fashioned, relying on “talk and chalk”. Younger readers may not remember the latter, while the grey-haired may wonder if bombardment with Powerpoint really represents progress.
At 56, David developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune polyneuropathy that can (and did) cause total paralysis for months. Although he recovered eventually, the episode prompted early retirement from UCD. Decades after his illness, he said “I never expected to live this long”. After retiring, David and Sonia moved home from Dublin to Chester (in Northwest England), and then to Birmingham, and finally in old age to London. Several medical problems arose but they were treatable or controllable, including a successful aortic valve replacement at the age of 89. David was happy that he continued to publish Chemistry papers in retirement, as late as 2016. He was even planning to write another manuscript in 2025 after his upcoming cataract surgery.
How about his personal life? He was apparently happy at school, learned to play the piano well, and was an enthusiastic reader. As an older child he lived through the Second World War both in London and, briefly, in a safer place in Somerset. He did not grumble much about the war, but recalled huddling against walls during bomb alerts, seeing his mother’s terror of V2 rockets, and, perhaps most upsettingly as a teenager, experiencing hunger because of rations.
In 1963, at the age of 32, David married Sonia Mary Edwards, whose parents were Bob, a button merchant from Birmingham, and Maria (née Cavalli), from Trieste in Italy. He met Sonia in Geneva in Switzerland. David’s devotion to Sonia was unconditional and unquestionable, and they lived to see their 61st wedding anniversary. In his later years he made heroic efforts to support Sonia as her frailty increased. Meaningful survival was surely very difficult for David after the death of his lifelong companion.
David derived much happiness from interacting personally with work colleagues, academic or otherwise. He often ate lunch with the students, repeatedly bemused by their incomprehensibly high speed of eating. He had firm political convictions, but they did not colour his social relationships. He was very religious, never lost his faith in a higher entity, and always followed the Christian path. David had an unusual ability to accumulate knowledge and recall the facts, while his predictions of impending world events were scarily accurate.
David greatly enjoyed classical music, especially Beethoven, Schubert, and Sibelius and select compositions by Bach and Mozart, although for the record he disliked Wagner and Mahler. At weekends when younger he often marvelled at the beauty and complexity of Beethoven’s late string quartets. He was loyal to British composers such as Walton and Elgar. He once said, at a sad time, “there is always music” (even when all else seems hopeless).
He left two sons, Roger, a histopathologist in London, and Martin, a psychiatrist in Canada, and their families. Six grandchildren between 4 and 26 years old are enjoying life in London and in Canada.
Since David’s death, so many wonderful words came our way from ex-colleagues, carers, David and Sonia’s friends and relatives, the in-laws in Ireland, and others. For example, he was a wonderful man, kind, charming, a lovely man, a great man, a special man, a gentleman, a mentor, an inspirational teacher, a very fine scientist, a brilliant researcher, a man with a good sense of humour, highly supportive, always a pleasure to be with, one in a million, and a good listener who took an interest in everything.
We will all greatly miss “The Feakins Equation”.
Ar Dheis Dé Go Raibh a anam.