BY JOHN G. ANDERSON

JOHN S. FORREST, one of the principal leaders in electric power research in Europe and former vice-president of the Royal Society, died on November 11, 1992, at the age of eighty-five. He had been a foreign associate of the National Academy of Engineering since his election in 1979.

His career covered a broad spectrum of creative contributions to the design and performance of high-voltage transmission in Great Britain, development of high-voltage insulation, protection against lightning, enhanced reliability of electricity supply, environmental effects, and leadership in energy research in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe. Founder of the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL) in Leatherhead, England, he led much of the development of the British 275-kV and 400-kV transmission systems, and his work has also been a major influence on energy system development in the Western world.

John was born in Hamilton, Scotland, on August 20, 1907. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1930 with M.A. and B.Sc. degrees in physics, and joined what was then the embryo Central Electricity Board in Glasgow. Within a year he joined the Central Electricity Board in London to take charge of their transmission research activities. He became one of the early pioneers in high-voltage insulation research in Great Britain at that time. From 1931 onward he researched the performance of outdoor insulators on lines and in substations of the British