John A. McClelland was an eminent man of science. A native of Coleraine, he received his education at Queens College Galway. In 1895 he received a fellowship from the Royal University of Ireland and in 1897 took up a research degree at Cambridge. Among his distinguished posts he served as a Commissioner of National Education, a member of the Senate of the NUI and, in 1907, secretary to the Royal Irish Academy. Such was his distinction in his field that in 1909 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. During World War One he served as a member of the Inventions Committee and the Committee for Organisation in Industrial Research. He is best known in Ireland as Professor of Experimental Physics at University College Dublin.