Friedel Sellschop is remembered as an innovative and visionary scientific leader. He contributed both to his university and country. From 1959 to 1988, Sellschop served as the University of Witwatersrand's chair of Nuclear Physics, the first person to hold such a chair in all of South Africa. In this capacity, as a young man, he began from nothing and developed a significant nuclear physics laboratory and research department. He was therefore the founding director of the Nuclear Physics Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand in 1956. This laboratory was later renamed the Schonland Centre for Nuclear Sciences. In 2005, the Schonland Centre was donated to the state to be run as a National Facility by iThemba LABS.