William Henry Bragg

Sir
William Bragg
OM KBE CBE FRS
Sir William Bragg OM KBE CBE FRS
	Bragg in 1915
46th President of the Royal Society
	In office; 1935–1940
Preceded by	Frederick Hopkins
Succeeded by	Henry Hallett Dale
Personal details
Born	2 July 1862; Westward, England, UKGBI
Died	12 March 1942 (aged 79); London, UK
Education	Robert Smyth Academy; King William's College;
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for	Bragg's law (1913)
Spouse	Gwendoline Todd (m. 1889)
Children	3, including Lawrence
Awards	Matteucci Medal (1915) Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science (1915); Nobel Prize in Physics (1915); Rumford Medal (1916); Order of the British Empire (Knight Commander, 1920); Copley Medal (1930); Order of Merit (1931); IET Faraday Medal (1936); John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science (1939);
	Scientific career
Fields	X-ray crystallography
Institutions	University of Adelaide ; (1886–1909); University of Leeds ; (1909–15); University College London (1915–23); Royal Institution (1923–42);
Academic advisors	Edward Routh
Notable students	See list William Astbury ; Kedareswar Banerjee ; John Bernal ; Lawrence Bragg ; John Burton Cleland ; Ernest Gordon Cox ; Richard Kleeman ; Kathleen Lonsdale ; John Madsen ; Arthur Lindo Patterson ; Alexander Rankine ; John Monteath Robertson ;
Signature

Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was a British X-ray crystallographer who uniquely^[2] shared a Nobel Prize with his son Lawrence Bragg – the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays".^[3]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l "William Henry Bragg - Physics Tree". academictree.org. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
^ This is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nobel Prize (in any field). In several cases, a parent has won a Nobel Prize, and then years later, the child has won the Nobel Prize for separate research. An example of this is with Marie Curie and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, who are the only mother-daughter pair. Several father-son pairs have won two separate Nobel Prizes.
^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1915". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 9 October 2008.