Norman de Bruyne was born 8 November
1904 in Chile to a family of Dutch origin. He was
educated at Lancing and Trinity College Cambridge.
He became a Fellow at Trinity in 1928 to research
atomic physics under Rutherford.
An interest in flying led to him
designing and building his own aircraft which he
called the Snark. He soon became aware of the
inadequacy of the currently used glues - then
based on casein - and established Aero Research
Ltd. at Duxford to research better adhesives for
aircraft construction. In 1937 the company
introduced Aerolite, an adhesive based on urea
formaldehyde resins.
In 1948 he sold control of the
company to Ciba (now Ciba-Geigy) but remained as
managing director until 1960. In 1948 also, he
founded Techne Ltd. to manufacture laboratory
instruments, including equipment for measuring
polymer properties.
De Bruyne was a Member of the
Fellowship of Engineering, Fellow of the
Institute of Physics and Royal Aeronautical
Society and in 1967 was elected Fellow of the
Royal Society.
He died in 1997 aged 92 years.
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