Alfred Alexander Peter Kleczkowski, 1908-1970

Abstract Alfred Alexander Peter (‘Fred’) Kleczkowski died suddenly on 27 November 1970, prematurely ending a research career that was as rich in achievement as it was varied in content. Prematurely, because his curiosity, industry and ingenuity were still as great as ever, and there had seemed promise of yet more to come, especially in photobiology, which in recent years had become one of his main interests. Kleczkowski was born of Polish parents (father, Alfred Bruton Kleczkowski; mother, Isabella Rinkiewicz) on 4 December 1908 in Leningrad, then Petrograd, where his father was a State Architect. His only relatives with any scientific connexions were an uncle who was Professor of Electrification at Leningrad University and Director of the Electrification Institute at Leningrad, and an aunt who was medically qualified. The aunt had built a hospital on her father’s estate near Ufa, where she gave free medical attention to the poor of the district. As a boy Fred spent many of his holidays on this estate, and was so impressed by the good deeds of his aunt that he early decided to follow in her footsteps and become a doctor, an intention that stayed with him until well into his university training, when he realized his prime interests lay elsewhere than in the practice of medicine.