Snow, C(harles) P(ercy), 1st Baron 1905-80
English novelist and physicist

Born in Leicester, he was educated at Alderman Newton's School, then studied science at Leicester University College, and Christ's College, Cambridge, and became a Fellow of Christ's College (1930-50) and a tutor there (1935-45). He was chief of scientific personnel for the Ministry of Labour during World War II, and a Civil Service commissioner from 1945 to 1960. His major sequence of novels began with Strangers and Brothers (1940), which gave its name to the series as a whole, and features the character Lewis Eliot, through whose eyes the dilemmas of the age are focused. It was followed after the war by The Light and the Dark (1947) and Time of Hope (1949). The Masters (1951) stages the conflict aroused by the election of a new master in a Cambridge college. The New Men (1954) poses the dilemma faced by scientists in the development of nuclear fission. Other books include Corridors of Power (1964) and The Sleep of Reason (1968). Several have been adapted for theatre and television. Though the chief characters of his cycle are rather supine, being manipulated to exhibit the expressed problems, mostly of power and prestige, his work shows a keen appreciation of moral issues in a science-dominated age. His controversial Two Cultures (Rede Lecture, 1959) discussed the dichotomy between science and literature and his belief in closer contact between them. Created a life peer in 1964, he was made Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Technology (1964-66) and Lord Rector of St Andrews University (1961-64). In 1950 he married the novelist, Pamela Hansford Johnson.

Bibliography: J Thale, C P Snow (1964)