Frederic Jevons

Frederic Raphael Jevons (born 19 September 1929 in Austria as Frederic Raphael Bettelheim, died 30 September 2012 in Melbourne) was a British Professor of biochemistry and later an Australian educator. He was informally known as Fred Jevons and since 1977 lived and worked mostly in Australia.

Early life Born in Austria in 1929, Jevons survived the Holocaust by being sponsored by a family in England to attend a boarding school in Norfolk. The young Bettelheim was educated at Norwich High School for Boys, joining the household of his school's headmaster, Mr J. H. W. Jevons, from whom he took his new surname. During the Second World War, the school moved from Norwich to Loddon and later changed its name to Langley School. His parents, Hedwig and Fritz Bettelheim, survived the war by escaping from Austria to Venezuela, but were separated from their children for some ten years. Jevons, as he was now known, was reunited with his parents in 1948.

Jevons matriculated at King's College, Cambridge, in 1946, where he held a scholarship and took a 1st class degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1950. He graduated Doctor of Philosophy at Cambridge in 1953 and Doctor of Science at the University of Manchester in 1966.

Career Jevons was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle, 1953–1954, then a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, 1953–1959. He was also University Demonstrator in Biochemistry at Cambridge, 1956–1959, before returning to Manchester University as Lecturer in Biological Chemistry 1959–1966, when he was appointed as the University's Professor of Liberal Studies in Science, holding that chair until 1975. He undertook British Council tours in India, East Africa, and Nigeria, between 1972 and 1975. In 1976, he went to Australia as the first Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University, and on his retirement in 1985 was appointed a Professor Emeritus. He was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours.