Obituaries

E. Taylor Chewning Jr.Business Owner

E. Taylor Chewning Jr., 84, retired president of the Washington-based United Clay Products, died of complications of cancer Jan. 26 at his home in Middletown, R.I.

Mr. Chewning, named for his father, who founded Washington's largest brickyard, was born in Titusville, Pa. His grandfather was one of the first to discover oil on the East Coast in the mid-1800s.

Mr. Chewning grew up in Bethesda and graduated from St. Albans School in the District. During World War II, he served in the Army in the Philippines and the Far East. He graduated from Yale University.

After the war, Mr. Chewning joined his father in the family business. The company, which also sold air conditioning and shingles, provided the bricks for many now-familiar structures in Washington: the Internal Revenue Service, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the departments of Commerce and Agriculture, the Kennedy-Warren apartment building, Alban Towers, the National Institutes of Health and the Mayflower, Ambassador and what is now the Omni Shoreham hotels.

Mr. Chewning brought the first automated brick kilns to the United States from Germany, and after the brickyard at New York Avenue NE closed in 1971, he donated the 33-acre property to the National Arboretum.

He was a steeplechase rider and a transatlantic sailor, and he piloted his own plane.

He served on the board of directors of the Phillips Collection in Washington and on the National Committee of the Boy Scouts of America. He was a member of the Metropolitan Club in Washington.

While he lived in Washington until the late 1980s, he was a member and served on the vestry of St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square.

His marriage to Mary Wallach Mitchell Chewning ended in divorce. Two of their sons died, Alexander M. Chewning in 1969 and Taylor Chewing in 2005.

Survivors include his wife of 17 years, Jonna Chewning of Middletown; two children from his first marriage, Emily Blair Stribling of Markham and William S. Chewning of Upperville; three stepsons; and four grandchildren.

Robert L. BinghamNuclear Physicist

Robert L. Bingham, 76, a nuclear physicist who retired from the Energy Department in 1996 as a senior scientist in the office of nonproliferation and national security, died of pulmonary fibrosis Jan. 28 at his home in Gaithersburg.

Dr. Bingham began his federal government career in 1974 with what was then the Atomic Energy Commission. At the time, he worked on magnetic fusion energy while consulting with the agency's intelligence office.

His career continued with the commission's successor agencies, the Energy Research and Development Administration and then the Energy Department, where in the early 1980s he was a manager in the office of intelligence.

He was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for exceptional service and contribution to the intelligence community.

Dr. Bingham was born in Amsterdam and grew up in England and New York. He graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. He received a master's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1954 and a doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1958.

In 1969 and 1970, he was a Sloan Executive Fellow at Stanford University School of Business.

Dr. Bingham worked in the private sector for a few years as general manager of a joint venture company in Newark, Ohio.

Survivors include his wife of 46 years, Valerie Wolstencroft Bingham of Gaithersburg; three children, Antonia Glynn of Rockville, David Bingham of Cincinnati and Matthew Bingham of Mount Kisco, N.Y.; four brothers; a sister; and eight grandchildren.