Portrait of Robert May, Baron May of Oxford

Birthday profile

Robert May, Baron May of Oxford

Australian scientist who has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government (1936-2020)

Born
January 8, 1936
Died
April 28, 2020
Zodiac sign
Capricorn
Birth year
1936

About Robert May, Baron May of Oxford

Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford (8 January 1936 – 28 April 2020) was an Australian scientist who was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society, and a professor at the University of Sydney and Princeton University. He held joint professorships at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. He was also a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 2001 until his retirement in 2017. May was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and an appointed member of the council of the British Science Association. He was also a member of the advisory council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering. == Early life and education == May was born in Sydney on 8 January 1936, to lawyer Henry Wilkinson May and Kathleen Mitchell (née McCredie), who divorced when he was seven years old. His father was of prosperous middle-class Northern Irish origin, and his mother was the daughter of a Scottish engineer. May was educated at Sydney Boys High School. He then attended the University of Sydney, where he studied chemical engineering and theoretical physics (BSc 1956) and received a PhD in theoretical physics in 1959. He was a patron of the Sydney High School Old Boys Union.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Robert May, Baron May of Oxford timeline

  1. From 1988 until 1995, he held a Royal Society Research Professorship jointly at Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, where he became a fellow of Merton College and a Master of Arts.
  2. In 2001, on the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, he was created a life peer.

The world when Robert May, Baron May of Oxford was born

Robert May, Baron May of Oxford was born in 1936. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1936

  • #1 song"The Way You Look Tonight" – Fred Astaire
  • Top movieModern Times (Charlie Chaplin)
  • Top TV showBBC Television Service launches
  • Best-selling bookGone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at Berlin Olympics
  • Top headlineJesse Owens dominates the Berlin Olympics
  • Technology milestoneBBC launches the world's first regular television service
  • Defining fadSwing dancing
  • Notable inventionSun glasses (mass-produced)
  • World population2.26 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population128.1M

1936 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Robert May, Baron May of Oxford's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19362026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,100$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population128.1M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.