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Robert Street's career was often described as magnetic.

The former Vice-Chancellor (1978 - 1986) was a physicist who specialised in the field of magnetism. But Professor Street, who died last month at the age of 93, also had a magnetic personality.

He was a much-loved research mentor at UWA, still in demand in the magnetics labs just a few years ago.  He had a building named after him in 2010 and the number of people who attended the celebration of that was testament to his popularity.

Born in Yorkshire, UK, in 1920, Professor Street was the son of a coalminer, the first in his family to go to university. He studied at the University of London and began his career during WWII working at the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment, researching absolute measurement of power.  This was the subject of his PhD with which he graduated, again from the University of London, in 1948. He became a physics lecturer, working at the universities of Nottingham and Sheffield for the next 12 years.

He moved to Australia at the age of 40, with a wife and two young children and was appointed Foundation Professor of Physics at Monash University, later becoming the Director of the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University.

In 1978, he became Vice-Chancellor at UWA, a position he occupied until his retirement eight years later. But he continued his research and supervision of graduate students in magnetism through the CSIRO and UWA. It was an extraordinarily active retirement that lasted more than 20 years.

He will be missed by many people in the University community.