Professor John Riley Holt FRS (1918-2009) Holt was born in Runcorn, at a time when his family were living at 2 Old Albert Terrace. His father worked at a boat-building yard in the town, and his mother owned a bakery and confectionery shop, which his father ultimately took over. Whilst at Liverpool University, he studied under the famous physicist Sir James Chadwick, who had recently won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935, for the discovery of the neutron in 1932. Holt later became Professor of Experimental Physics at the university, from 1966 until his retirement in 1983. Holt made important discoveries in the research fields of nuclear and particle physics. This led to his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1964, the most prestigious award that a scientist can receive in this country.