John Francis Richardson OBE (29 July 1920 – 4 January 2011) was a UK chemical engineering academic, notable for his research into multiphase flow and rheology, but best known for a series of textbooks.
In 1946 he was one of the founder members of the Society for International Folk Dancing, along with Joan White, whom he married in 1955.
[5] In 1960 he was appointed Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at University College Swansea, where he remained till his retirement in 1987.
[3] He was awarded the OBE in the 1981 New Year Honours List for services to industry via his work on various government and other committees.
[8] Richardson's first paper was on the fire hazards of liquid methane[9] and further papers on fire hazards followed until 1952 when he began to move into multi-phase flow (particularly gas–liquid flows) and rheology which became his main focus: his research was honoured in two issues of Chemical Engineering Research and Design.