Hughes brought to the Cardiff department his enormous vitality and drive; he was a dynamo, and he made everything seem possible. His vast experience ('as a problem-solver; I started as a chemist, then became a biochemist, and now I don't know what I am') was liberally shared in seminars by undergraduates and senior staff alike. His sense of fun and of the ridiculous was infectious. Twenty-seven of the students from an era that has become to many la belle epoque of Cardiff microbiology have to date become Professors.

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An iconoclastic figure, he is remembered for his devotion to communication of the importance of microbiology to the general public, his great curiosity, insight, wisdom and humanity. He was well known for his outspoken and dismissive attitude to administrative red tape and pomposity.

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He had no time for people who talk about education; he was above all a practical scientist, and his attitude to teaching and learning was pragmatic and flexible. However, sometimes he was a master of self-contradiction. Thus he was impatient of our peers from the humanities ('people who don't know how to wire a plug'), and yet his own self-taught and eclectic understanding of ancient cultures, philosophy and the fine arts often left his younger colleagues astonished.

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Born in Islington at the beginning of the First World War, he left school at 15 to become a microanalytical laboratory assistant at University College, London. During his training as a microanalyst one of his first tasks was to process thousands of gallons of pregnant mares' urine, collected himself daily from the local stables across the road. This work in the laboratory of Professor Guy Marrian led eventually to the crystallization of oestradiol, the first sex hormone to be isolated. Later David Hughes worked with Sir Jack Drummond and Professor F.G. Young. His first involvement in microbiology came when Sir Paul Fildes set up the MRC Unit for Bacterial Nutrition; this group established the role of the B-group vitamins in bacterial growth, and more specifically, the action of the sulphonamide drugs as competitive inhibitors of p-aminobenzoic acid. This for the first time established a rationale of antibacterial chemotherapy and paved the way for the successful treatment of infections. Later during the year, David Hughes (now a senior technician) and Professor Henry McIlwain were transferred to the Department of Pharmacology at Sheffield by invitation of Professor H.A. (later Sir Hans) Krebs. A BSc in Biochemistry was followed in 1953 by a PhD for work on the synthesis of the nicotinamide nucleotides in bacteria. He joined the Unit for Research in Cell Metabolism at is inception in 1974 and moved with Krebs to Oxford in 1954. His work at Sheffield included the invention of a press for the breakage of bacteria ('Brute force and bloody ignorance - their walls are as strong as reinforced concrete') driven by the impact of a very heavy weight falling down a drainpipe. The Hughes Press, extensively used worldwide for the release of enzymes, was described by its inventor (in his citation classic) as 'a simple, perhaps crude device: 'crude, Hughes crush' is now accepted in some journals. The comma is sometimes misplaced, I suspect deliberately'. In 1961, he spent a year as visiting Professor in the Microbiology Department of Dartmouth Medical School at Hanover, New Hampshire, where he worked with Dr Clark Gray and Julian Wimpenny on the effects of anaerobiosis and nitrate on enzyme activities in bacteria. His work on the biological effects and uses of ultrasound (with Wes Nyborg, Ernest Neppiras , Terry Coakley, Floyd Dunn, and others) won him a prize from the American Acoustic Society.

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On arrival at the age of 49 at Cardiff, to his first academic appointment, his pioneering work on microbial structure and function received a five-year period of support in the MRC Group established under his direction. Subsequent achievements included activities of the Wolfson Laboratory for industrial microbiology, including with Mr Ted Hill, some of the earliest work on bioremediation of oil spillage in coastal waters (Torrey Canyon Disaster, off the Cornish coast in 1967). Over the next decade this group pioneered the scientific study of large scale anaerobic digestion treatment plants for the treatment of farm and domestic wastes and the recovery and use of methane.

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In the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, General Bacteriology had been taught by Professor R. McLean in the Botany Department since 1946; a microbiology degree course was in place from 1958. At the time of its foundation under David Hughes as its first Professor, the independent Department in Cardiff was one of only five in the UK in 1964. Encouraged and supported by our first-rate young new Principal, Bill Bevan, it expanded rapidly to a total of 10 academic staff; the annual student intake was restricted to less than 20,'lest we loose the family atmosphere of the place'. It soon became a hive of activity and the egalitarian attitude of the leader ensured an unusually happy working place.

Collaborative work across disciplines included work on civil and mechanical engineering and metallurgy projects as well as more traditional ones in agriculture and medicine. Work on microbial growth and differentiation and novel continuous culture systems was also pursued. As a highly energetic leader and innovator, as well as a mentor for young scientists, David Hughes made a lasting and highly influential contribution.

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In his long retirement Hughes was able to continue his wide-ranging artistic activities. He had a long-standing interest in archaeology, philosophy and in left-wing politics as well as science. He remarried and divided his time fairly between Spain and St Neots.

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At the 25th joint annual meeting of the Microbiology Departments of the Aberystwyth and Cardiff Colleges of the University of Wales, held at Gregynog in 1998, he gave a memorable lecture about his early introduction to science by inspired teachers in East London, and his early years as a lab boy. It was the last time we were to hear about his unusually interesting formative years.

He was predeceased by Ivy and Gwen; he is survived by his third wife, Sylvia, his children, Mary, Stephen and Richard, and his stepchildren Brenda and Denny.

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David Lloyd, Cardiff, UK

https://www.socgenmicrobiol.org.uk/pubs/micro_today/obituaries.cfm#DHughes