John Desmond Bu'lock, M.A., Ph.D.

John Bu'Lock was born on 15 March 1928 and, a talented pupil, he went up to Cambridge to read chemistry at the age of seventeen. On graduating he remained in Cambridge to study for a doctorate, which he gained in 1951. He was then appointed assistant lecturer in the department of chemistry at Manchester University, progressing to full lecturer in 1954, senior lecturer in 1968 and finally reader in microbial chemistry from which post he retired in 1992. By the early 1970s Bu'Lock was convinced that biotechnology (then still known as fermentation technology) was to become a major determinant in industrial development, and his contribution to the subject was soon internationally recognized. He organized a series of highly influential meetings in Manchester from which arose The Octagon Papers (1974-6), deriving their name from the shape of the room in which they were held, and receiving considerable attention from industrial scientists. In 1975, with the aid of a grant from the Wolfson Foundation, Bu'Lock founded his own biotechnology laboratory, named the Weizmann Laboratory after Chaim Weizmann who had carried out his own pioneering work on acetone/butanol formation at Manchester during the First World War. Outside his professional work, but pursued with equal rigour and devotion, Bu'Lock's great interest was archaeology, and very soon after taking up his appointment at Manchester he became an active member of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, serving on its council from 1958-79. From the late 1950s until the mid-1970s, when his scientific work became too demanding to allow him time, he researched and taught on archaeology. He confined his studies to the north-west of England, but they ranged through the Bronze Age to the post-Roman (pre-Conquest) periods, his best known publication being Pre-Conquest Cheshire 383-1066History of Cheshire series published by Cheshire Community Council. He worked for many years for the extra-mural department of the university and as a temporary lecturer in archaeology in 1962. He also lectured for the Workers' Educational Association and at the Manchester University Summer School and was a representative on the local branch of the Council for British Archaeology. From 1958-72 he was the part-time, unpaid Ministry of Works Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Lancashire, South of the Sands. He excavated the Celtic, Saxon and Scandinavian settlement at Meols, Wirral, and published a number of papers on Dark Age archaeological topics in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Although he underwent major surgery in 1991, Bu'Lock recovered sufficiently to return to his archaeological interests and, in fact, entered a new field after attending a course on Japanese gardens at Manchester University, which led to the formation of the Japanese Garden Society. He undertook the joint-editorship of its journal, Shakkei, and just before his death he had completed a translation of Harleian MS 3859, Nennii Historia Brittonum including the Annales Cambriae, which it is hoped to publish. He died on 5 January 1996.