Alan D McNaught
7th February 1940 – 29th October 2025
Alan’s Life
Alan was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland. Both his parents were teachers and they had another son, Colin, born five years later.
At the age of 11 Alan received a free place at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-on-Tyne (RGS) based on the school’s entrance exam which took 30 places from 1,000 applicants.
He started playing the violin there and soon graduated through the four different orchestras, eventually becoming the First Orchestra leader during his final two years at school. He also proudly appeared as piano soloist with the orchestra, performing Mozart piano concerto K466. There were some serious discussions about a professional music career but in the end music became his major spare-time activity for the rest of his life.
Father Mick and mother Phyllis were keen Country Dancers; Mick was secretary of the North-East English Folk Dance and Song Society. Alan’s Uncle Stanley was a brilliant pianist with a strong right foot keeping time on the loud pedal and often provided the music at weekend country dance events around Northumberland. Alan was encouraged to play with Uncle Stanley at many of these events. Family get-togethers with Uncle Stanley also involved music with Alan and Stanley playing together, sometimes a violin concerto with Stanley sight-reading off a full score.
Evening entertainment at the McNaughts’ almost always involved playing cards. Many different games were played and Mick taught the family bridge at a very early age. Alan’s younger brother Colin had to sort his hand on the floor behind the couch as his hands weren’t big enough. Mother Phyllis was not so keen, joined in if requested, but often nodded off during a game.
Alan was a good student, excelling in Physics and Chemistry, and received a scholarship to attend Cambridge University from Gonville and Caius College in 1957 which provided additional funding support.
The RGS was an all-male school but conveniently situated near two all-female Grammar Schools. Alan had an active social life with his male and female school-friends, engaged in obligatory under-age drinking and, unbeknown to his parents, some wild parties. Alan’s favourite musician at the time was Frank Sinatra.
A reflection from Alan’s brother, Colin:
Most of my memories of Alan are of life growing up together in Whitley Bay. As a younger brother of 5 yrs he was a hard act to follow. Alan was always over-achieving academically, musically and even in cross-country running. His chemistry experiments in the garage were momentous!
He was a dedicated musician, put in many many hours of violin and piano practice until (eventually) we enjoyed listening to him through the wall. Dad, Alan and I played many card games together in the evening which is likely when I picked up my competitive streak from him. I remember some fiercely competitive table tennis games with him on the dining room table. He never subscribed to the view that he should let his younger brother win once in a while.
We were once marooned on a rock together in the middle of a fast flowing river as the waters were rising. He stayed calm and reassuring, even though he had just learned how to swim, while our parents were panicking on the river bank. I always looked up to him even though we developed in different directions. He was more comfortable with a pen or a violin in his hand. For me it was a screwdriver or a soldering iron.
Alan spent 7 years at Cambridge doing his degree and doctorate, followed by an enjoyable year doing research in America. There, and while at Cambridge, he spent all his spare time playing music. On coming back to UK he joined a group of mainly ex Caius musicians in a house-share near Sloane Square.
Alison first met Alan playing in orchestras in London in the late 60’s. They met playing with Chelsea Opera Group and the Salomon orchestra which he was involved with from its beginnings. Somehow they started playing in string quartets together and in 1969 they got married and moved to a house in Wandsworth which was in a then an unknown part of London, which turned out to be a most astute financial move. It was able to house their four children and fund subsequent house moves plus a 7ft grand piano. They moved to Streatham in 1985 and then to Cambridge in 1988, due to relocation of Alan’s work with the Royal Society of Chemistry.
While in London Alan and subsequently Alison joined a 20th century music group at Morley College and later formed their own group called NOMOS with several like-minded friends. Nomos performed lots of challenging contemporary pieces. Alan listened to masses of new music and in later life continued exploring little known music. He was always keen to introduce new works to their chamber music friends, to mixed reception!
Alan’s working life
Alan always worked strictly to 9 to 5 so that he was back home to help with the children at bedtime, and later to join us for supper in the evening. This enabled him and Alison to get to rehearsals in the evening in London. On moving to Cambridge he gave up orchestral playing and concentrated on practising, listening to and playing chamber music.
Alan had three most dominate interests. They were, his work, his music, and his family and he kept them mostly separate. He worked for the Royal Society of Chemistry all his working life, starting as a subeditor of the RSC Journal and subsequently rising through the ranks ending up as a General Manager of publications. He got nominated to join the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Leisure Time
The family had many UK based family holidays, notably with Alan’s parents in Northumberland, with the Gifford cousins, and on canal boats while the children were small. Later, Alan and Alison enjoyed many holidays cycling in Ireland, UK and Europe.
Alan retired in 2005 and spent his time practising his instruments, reading novels and listening to lots of music. He must have also known an awful lot about modern fiction: he read countless novels, but he rarely shared that with family, other than through carefully chosen Christmas and birthday presents to his children. He had a huge CD, tape and sheet music collection which he enjoyed and catalogued them all. During
this time Alan and Alison enjoyed going to concerts and operas in London.
Music was something Alan & Alison shared all their lives together, initially playing in orchestras and then playing lots of chamber music. In the lockdown of 2020, before his stroke, they would play both violin or viola and cello duets, and piano duets. Alan downloaded lots of piano
duets with easier top parts for Alison to manage!
They continued to play the piano duets as well as plenty of chamber music with friends after his stroke. It was while playing a string trio by Dohnanyi that he had his last conscious moments.
This next part is courtesy of his colleague at IUPAC, Steve Heller.
Alan’s Working life – A pioneer and a visionary
Throughout the latter decades of the twentieth century and into the 21st, few figures have shaped the language of chemistry as profoundly as Dr Alan D. McNaught. A tireless advocate for precision, clarity, and consistency in scientific communication, Alan dedicated his career to building the frameworks that allow chemists across the world to speak a common tongue.
Alan had a long and distinguished association with IUPAC, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, from the late 1970s.
His meticulous attention to linguistic and structural detail, combined with a generous collaborative spirit, quickly established him as one of IUPAC’s foremost authorities on nomenclature and chemical terminology. By the late 80s, Alan became secretary of the Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols, and he went on to serve as the first President of the Division of Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation from 2002 to 2005, a post from which he guided IUPAC through a transformative era.
His contributions extended far beyond organizational leadership. In 1987, he co-authored the first IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology with Victor Gold, K.L. Loening and P. Shemi. Ten years later, the second edition of what became the famous Gold Book was again co-edited by Alan with Andrew Wilkinson.
Not to stop there, Alan also ensured that generations of chemists would have access to the definitive record of standardized terminology by organizing a digital edition, available online for free. This was just one example of Alan embracing using computers and digital, when going from print to electronic was not mainstream thinking.
The Gold Book remains a cornerstone of IUPAC’s intellectual heritage; its authority grounded in the care and exactitude that Alan brought to every page.
Equally visionary was his role some quarter of a century ago, in the development of the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier (InChI): an open source, freely available, digital standard that has revolutionized the representation of chemical structures in databases and information systems. Collaborating with Steve Heller and colleagues, he brought to life a universal chemical language for the digital age.
Alan and Steve achieved making InChI a Gold standard for chemists around the world to use. InChI’s are now found in virtually every publication that contains chemical structures.
Beyond his work with IUPAC, Alan served as General Manager of the Production Division at the Royal Society of Chemistry, where his quiet authority and commitment to excellence influenced a generation of editors, authors, and scientific communicators. His professional life reflected a rare balance of scholarship and service, intellect and humility.
Today, as IUPAC continues to uphold and extend the standards he helped to define, we remember Alan not only for his scholarship but for his enduring belief that the language of chemistry is a shared human enterprise — one that must be tended with care, clarity, and compassion.r