Gordon Van Praagh

It is unusual for anyone to remain enthusiastically and vigorously active in their chosen field for 70 years, but the teacher and chemist Gordon Van Praagh was signing copies of his latest book about science education just 10 days before his death, at the age of 94.

It was during his time at the London Day Training College (now the University of London Institute of Education) that he made a conscious decision to put his scientific training to use as a schoolteacher. Studying under Chas E Browne, a former head of science at Christ’s Hospital, at Horsham, Sussex, he was exposed to the teaching of heurism, or discovery learning.

Gordon himself went on to join the science staff at Christ’s Hospital in 1933. His commitment to the heuristic method, suitably modified, was total; he found the current obsession with league tables and highly detailed examination specifications intolerable, and felt they oppressed both teachers and taught. He was, still making his views clear in letters to newspapers and science education journals well into his 90s.

The son of a Hampstead GP, Gordon was born into a talented family; his sister, Dame Peggy Van Praagh, became director of the Australian National Ballet. He himself was educated at University College School and University College, London, and gained his PhD at Cambridge with Sir Eric Rideal.

Working for the Admiralty from 1943, he studied methods of preventing ships from icing-up during Arctic convoys and the breakdown of insulators in radio equipment in tropical environments. In 1944, he became secretary to the Admiralty Metallurgical Advisory Panel.

Immediately after the war, he worked in combined intelligence operations, tracking down German scientific innovations, including the growing of synthetic quartz crystals for use in radar. Typically, this led to the bomb room in the science school at Christ’s Hospital, where sen- ior pupils grew quartz and emerald at 1000 atmospheres.

As head of science at Christ’s Hospital, Gordon published his most influential book, Chemistry By Discovery. He was an effective and important member of the chemistry team for the Nuffield Science Teaching Project at both O- and A-level, and inspired many of his own pupils to lifelong work in science, and especially chemistry.

The Nuffield Project was behind major developments in science teaching, and Gordon was among those asked to take British Council courses for teachers overseas. After more than 30 years, he left the school to work for what became the Centre for Educational Development Overseas. His experiences in Africa and south-east Asia were recorded in his 1988 book, Seeing It Through. In 1998, his work in Malaysia was recognised by the award of the status of dato – the equivalent of a knighthood.

Gordon’s enthusiasm for chemistry never diminished. In 1992, he published Encounters With Stuff: The Adventures Of A Chemist, a cheerfully irreverent but committed survey of the way he had applied chemical principles to real problems. His last book covered the 100 years of science education at Christ’s Hospital.

At work, Gordon demanded that his pupils thought, and did not merely absorb and regurgitate. At play, he was a talented musician, a keen gardener, an enthusiast for good food and wine, and the accumulator of a fine collection of mineral specimens. He never married.

Gordon Van Praagh, science educator, born March 13 1909; died September 30 2003