Alan Walsh FRS[1] (Born Hoddlesden 19 December 1916: Died Melbourne 3 August 1998) was a British and Australian physicist who won the Royal Medal in 1976.[2] He was most notable for his work on Atomic absorption spectroscopy. In 1977, he was created a Knight Bachelor for 'his distinguished service to science'. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Science (1958) and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (1982). He worked at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Melbourne, Australia from 1945 to his retirement in 1977.[3]