Hugo Rudolph Kruyt

Vocation

Dutch physical chemist, specialised in colloids. Kruyt's father was a bookstore owner. After attending the HBS at Amersfoort he studied chemistry in Amsterdam with H.W. Bakhuis Roozeboom, J.D. van der Waals, J.J. van Laar, and F.M.Jaeger. He was an assistant of Bakhuis Roozeboom. After his mentors death he went to Utrecht in February 1907 to finish his study under Ernst J. Cohen. On 25 June 1908 (15h00) he became a Doctor in Chemistry in Utrecht with the dissertation De dynamische allotropie der zwavel (The dynamical allotropy of Sulfur). He soon became a private lecturer at Utrecht and from 1910-1911 also in Groningen. In 1912 he became lecturer in Phase Theory at Utrecht. In 1916 he promoted to professor extraordinarius and in 1921 to professor ordinarius of Physical Chemistry at Utrecht. From 1940 to 1941 he was rector magnificus of the Utrecht University. He acted cautiously in order to keep the university open without collaborating with the Germans. From 1946 to 1953 he was Chairman of TNO. Personal In March 1907 Kruyt married Maria Frederika (Miep) Paris, with whom he got two sons and four daughters. The couple divorced March 27, 1942. His brother John William Kruyt was a Christian socialist preacher, Dutch parliament member for the communist party, resistance fighter and spy for Russia. In 1942 his brother was parachuted in Belgium, but he got caught by the Germans. The Germans fusilladed his brother in July 1943 in Moabit. Hugo Kruyt died on 31 August 1959 in The Hague. Link to Dutch Wikipedia biography