Professor A. David Buckingham CBE FRS FAA made fundamental theoretical and experimental contributions to the understanding of optical, electric and magnetic properties of molecules. Born in Australia, he was an undergraduate at the University of Sydney and took his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. He moved to Oxford in 1955 and then in 1965 became Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bristol. Finally, he moved back to Cambridge in 1969 for twenty-eight years as Professor of Chemistry and head of a distinguished Department of Theoretical Chemistry. A man of broad interests and achievements, he played first class cricket in the 1950s.
This memoir is adapted from a memoir that was commissioned by the Royal Society and will appear in Volume 72 (2022) of Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. It is published here with minor amendments to the original memoir. It was also published in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol.33, no.1, 2022. It was written by Sir David C. Clary and Brian J. Orr.
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