DR ROBERT PRESS

Dr Robert Press, CB, CBE, an expert in nuclear physics who was a Deputy Secretary in the Cabinet Office from 1971 and adviser to the Government on scientific and technological questions from 1974, died in Devon on August 30.

Born on February 22, 1915, he was educated in Belfast and graduated in science at Queen's University. From 1938-40 he worked as a research physicist at Trinity College, Dublin, from where after the war he obtained his PhD. During those early years he contributed scientific -papers to the Royal.. Dublin Society and the Irish Journal of Medical Science.

After the outbreak of war he took a post as physics master at Dungannon Royal School, before entering the govemment service in 1941 as a physicist, spending the remainder of the war, the last part in India, engaged in research for the War Department..

With the end of the war in the Far East, Press.. joined. the advisory staff of the War Council, transferring to the Department of Atomic Energy at the Ministry of Supply in 1948.

He was attached to the Embassy in Washington from

1951-55, and was a member of the British delegation that attended the Conference for the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests in 1958. He later formed part of the team under Sir Solly (now Lord) Zuckerman that advised the Ministry of Defetice and Service Chiefs on nuclear matters.

Press continued at the Ministry of Defence until 1967 when he was transferred to the Cabinet Office as a Chief Scientific Officer. Four years later, on the appointment of Sir Alan Cottrell to the post of Chief Scientific Adviser, Press was promoted to Deputy Secretary.

After his retirement in 1976 Press remained active, and continued as an adviser in the Cabinet Office. From 1978-80 he was chairman of the Council of Science and Technology Institutes, and presented a series of papers to the International Consultative Group on NIuclear Energy. He was a Fellow and m6mbei' of "The council of the Royal Society of Arts from 1971-76. He was appointed CBE in 1962 and CB in 1972.

He married Honor Elizabeth Tapp in 1946.