Victor
Emmanuel
Yarsley
(1901-1994)
Industrial
chemist
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Dr Yarsley was an
eminent and renowned expert on cellulose acetate
film production, having completed a thesis in
1928 in Zurich on the physical properties of
cellulose acetate, and, thereafter in the UK,
following a period as chief chemist of the Non-Inflammable
Film Company, spending a lifetime on sponsored
research and expert witness work. His monthly
contributions to the Times Review of Industry (1935-1960)
were greatly admired, but it was the Penguin book
(1941) entitled Plastics (co-author E G
Couzens) and its later version Plastics in
the Service of Man that established his
reputation as a protagonist for the diverse group
of materials that were coming forward.
In 1951 Dr Yarsley formed the Yarsley Research
Laboratories at Chessington, to be followed in
1961 by a separate testing company at Ashtead. At
the time Dr Yarsley relinquished control of these
organisations the total staff numbered 150.
Dr Yarsley was associated with a number of
plastics and polymer associations, the Plastics
Institute (President 1953-55), Society of
Chemical Industry, Plastics Industry Educational
Fund (Chairman), Worshipful Company of Horners.
He was also an active Freemason.
Dr Yarsley's great service to industry was
recognised somewhat belatedly by the award of the
OBE in 1982
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