a+history+of+chemistry

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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He was the son of John Johnson, then sole Commercial Assayer in London, from whom he inherited his aptitude for chemistry and metallurgy. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to his father by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Ore samples then being analysed in Johnson's office introduced him to the new metal platinum, and resulted in a paper to Philosophical Magazine in 1812. Johnson established himself as a "practical mineralogist" in Maiden Lane, London, in 1818 and in Hatton Garden after 1822. He was greatly assisted by a fellow metallurgist, Thomas Cock (1787–1842), who developed the platinum fabrication and pigment sides of die business. In 1827 Johnson was consulted by the Russian government about the exploitation of the rich platinum deposits that had been discovered in the Urals in 1819. Between 1829 and 1832 Johnson became the first in England to manufacture nickel, extracted from nickel-bearing material imported from Germany at his plant at Bow Common on the Regent's Canal. In 1832 he began to réfine gold imported from the Imperial Brazilian Association by a process which separated without loss the metals silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium. This profitable activity continued until the Brazilian company was wound up in 1852. Since 1824, Johnson had been named "assay master" by a number of mining companies. From 1843 until the mid-1850s he had a considerable mining interest in the West Country. Meanwhile, the Hatton Garden establishment continued to prosper. In 1839 he was joined by George Matthey, who particularly fostered the Russian platinum business, and in 1851 he was taken unto partnership and the firm became the celebrated Johnson Matthey. In the following year the firm was officially recognized as one of the four Assayers to the Bank of England appointed to handle the flood of gold dust then arriving in England from the Australian gold fields. Soon after, however, ill health compelled him to retire to his Devon country house.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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The son of a Wesleyan minister, Mees was interested in chemistry from an early age and studied at St Dunstan's College in Catford, where he met Samuel E.Sheppard, with whom he went on to University College London in 1900. They worked together on a thesis for BSc degrees in 1903, developing the work begun by Hurter and Driffield on photographic sensitometry. This and other research papers were published in 1907 in the book Investigations on the Theory of the Photographic Process, which became a standard reference work. After obtaining a doctorate in 1906, Mees joined the firm of Wratten \& Wainwright (see F.C.L.Wratten), manufacturers of dry plates in Croydon; he started work on 1 April 1906, first tackling the problem of manufacturing colour-sensitive emulsions and enabling the company to market the first fully panchromatic plates from the end of that year.

During the next few years Mees ran the commercial operation of the company as Managing Director and carried out research into new products, including filters for use with the new emulsions. In January 1912 he was visited by George Eastman, the American photographic manufacturer, who asked him to go to Rochester, New York, and set up a photographic research laboratory in the Kodak factory there. Wratten was prepared to release Mees on condition that Eastman bought the company; thus, Wratten and Wainwright became part of Kodak Ltd, and Mees left for America. He supervised the construction of a building in the heart of Kodak Park, and the building was fully equipped not only as a research laboratory, but also with facilities for coating and packing sensitized materials. It also had the most comprehensive library of photographic books in the world. Work at the laboratory started at the beginning of 1913, with a staff of twenty recruited from America and England, including Mees's collaborator of earlier years, Sheppard. Under Mees's direction there flowed from the Kodak research Laboratory a constant stream of discoveries, many of them leading to new products. Among these were the 16 mm amateur film-making system launched in 1923; the first amateur colour-movie system, Kodacolor, in 1928; and 8 mm home movies, in 1932. His support for the young experimenters Mannes and Godowsky, who were working on colour photography, led to their joining the Research Laboratory and to the introduction of the first multi-layer colour film, Kodachrome, in 1935. Eastman had agreed from the beginning that as much of the laboratory's work as possible should be published, and Mees himself wrote prolifically, publishing over 200 articles and ten books. While he made significant contributions to the understanding of the photographic process, particularly through his early research, it is his creation and organization of the Kodak Research Laboratory that is his lasting memorial. His interests were many and varied, including Egyptology, astronomy, marine biology and history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Mitchell's early education commenced at Ledingham's Academy, Correction Wynd, Aberdeen, and from there he became a premium apprentice at the Footdee Engineering Works of Wm Simpson \& Co. Despite being employed for around twelve hours each day, Mitchell matriculated at Marischal College (now merged with King's College to form the University of Aberdeen). He did not graduate, although in 1840 he won the chemistry prize. On the completion of his apprenticeship, like Andrew Leslie (founder of Hawthorn Leslie) and other young Aberdonians he moved to Tyneside, where most of his working life was spent. From 1842 until 1844 he worked as a draughtsman for his friend Coutts, who had a shipyard at Low Walker, before moving on to the drawing offices of Maudslay Sons and Field of London, then one of the leading shipbuilding and engineering establishments in the UK. While in London he studied languages, acquiring a skill that was to stand him in good stead in later years. In 1852 he returned to the North East and set up his own iron-ship building yard at Low Walker near Newcastle. Two years later he married Anne Swan, the sister of the two young men who were to found the company now known as Swan Hunter Ltd. The Mitchell yard grew in size and reputation and by the 1850s he was building for the Russian Navy and Merchant Marine as well as advising the Russians on their shipyards in St Petersburg. In 1867 the first informal business arrangement was concluded with Armstrongs for the supply of armaments for ships; this led to increased co-operation and ultimately in 1882 to the merger of the two shipyards as Sir W.G.Armstrong Mitchell \& Co. At the time of the merger, Mitchell had launched 450 ships in twenty-nine years. In 1886 the new company built the SS Gluckauf, the world's first bulk oil tanker. After ill health in 1865 Mitchell reduced his workload and lived for a while in Surbiton, London, but returned to Tyneside to a new house at Jesmond. In his later years he was a generous benefactor to many good causes in Tyneside and Aberdeen, to the Church and to the University of Aberdeen.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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Born in Belgium of German stock, Monckhoven spoke German and French with equal fluency. He originally studied chemistry, but devoted the greater part of his working life to photography. His improved solar enlarger of 1864 was seen by his contemporaries as one of the significant innovations of the day. In 1867 he moved to Vienna, where he became involved in portrait photography, but returned to Ghent in 1870. In 1871 he announced his discovery of a practicable collodion dry-plate process, and later in the decade he conducted research into the carbon printing process. In 1879 Monckhoven constructed a comprehensively equipped laboratory where he commenced a series of experiments on gelatine dry-plate emulsions, including some which yielded the discovery that the ripening of silver bromide was greatly accelerated by ammonia; this allowed the production of emulsions of much greater sensitivity. He was a prolific author, and his 1852 book on photography, Traité général de photographie, published when he was only 18, became one of the standard texts of his day.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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After leaving school before the age of 14 Neilson followed his father in tending colliery-steam engines. He continued in this line while apprenticed to his elder brother and afterwards rose to engine-wright at Irvine colliery. That failed and Neilson obtained work as Foreman at the first gasworks to be set up in Glasgow. After five years he became Manager and Engineer to the works, remaining there for thirty years. He introduced a number of improvements into gas manufacture, such as the use of clay retorts, iron sulphate as a purifier and the swallow-tail burner. He had meanwhile benefited from studying physics and chemistry at the Andersonian University in Glasgow.

Neilson is best known for introducing hot blast into ironmaking. At that time, ironmasters believed that cold blast produced the best results, since furnaces seemed to make more and better iron in the winter than the summer. Neilson found that by leading the air blast through an iron chamber heated by a coal fire beneath it, much less fuel was needed to convert the iron ore to iron. He secured a patent in 1828 and managed to persuade Clyde Ironworks in Glasgow to try out the device. The results were immediately favourable, and the use of hot blast spread rapidly throughout the country and abroad. The equipment was improved, raising the blast temperature to around 300°C (572°F), reducing the amount of coal, which was converted into coke, required to produce a tonne of iron from 10 tonnes to about 3. Neilson entered into a partnership with Charles Macintosh and others to patent and promote the process. Successive, and successful, lawsuits against those who infringed the patent demonstrates the general eagerness to adopt hot blast. Beneficial though it was, the process did not become really satisfactory until the introduction of hot-blast stoves by E.A. Cowper in 1857.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Railways and locomotives

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Page graduated from Harvard in 1832 and subsequently attended Boston Medical School. He began to practise in Salem and also engaged in experimental research in electricity, discovering the improvement effected by substituting bundles of iron wire for solid bars in induction coils. He also created a device which he termed a Dynamic Multiplier, the prototype of the auto-transformer. Following a period in medical practice in Virginia, in 1841 he became one of the first two principal examiners in the United States Patent Office. He also held the Chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy at Columbian College, later George Washington University, between 1844 and 1849.

A prolific inventor, Page completed several large electric motors in which reciprocating action was converted to rotary motion, and invested an extravagant sum of public money in a foredoomed effort to develop a 10-ton electric locomotive powered by primary batteries. This was unsuccessfully demonstrated in April 1851 on the Washington-Baltimore railway and seriously damaged his reputation. Page approached Thomas Davenport with an offer of partnership, but Davenport refused.

After leaving the Patent Office in 1852 he became a patentee himself and advocated the reform of the patent procedures. Page returned to the Patent Office in 1861, and later persuaded Congress to pass a special Act permitting him to patent the induction coil. This was the cause, after his death, of protracted and widely publicized litigation.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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Born into a Quaker family, he was educated at private schools; his studies included electricity and chemistry, with a bias towards metallurgy. Around 1821 Pattinson became Clerk and Assistant to Anthony Clapham, a soap-boiler of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1825 he secured appointment as Assay Master to the lords of the manor of Alston. There he was able to pursue the subject of special interest to him, and in January 1829 he devised a method of separating silver from lead ore; however, he was prevented from developing it because of a lack of funds.

Two years later he was appointed Manager of Wentworth Beaumont's lead-works. There he was able to continue his researches, which culminated in the patent of 1833 enshrining the invention by which he is best known: a new process for extracting silver from lead by skimming crystals of pure lead with a perforated ladle from the surface of the molten silver-bearing lead, contained in a succession of cast-iron pots. The molten metal was stirred as it cooled until one pot provided a metal containing 300 oz. of silver to the ton (8,370 g to the tonne). Until that time, it was unprofitable to extract silver from lead ores containing less than 8 oz. per ton (223 g per tonne), but the Pattinson process reduced that to 2–3 oz. (56–84 g per tonne), and it therefore won wide acceptance. Pattinson resigned his post and went into partnership to establish a chemical works near Gateshead. He was able to devise two further processes of importance, one an improved method of obtaining white lead and the other a new process for manufacturing magnesia alba, or basic carbonate of magnesium. Both processes were patented in 1841.

Pattinson retired in 1858 and devoted himself to the study of astronomy, aided by a 7½ in. (19 cm) equatorial telescope that he had erected at his home at Scot's House.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Stratingh spent five years working for a relative who was a chemist in Groningen, and studied pharmacy under Professor Driessen. Encouraged to become a medical student, he qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1809. Later becoming a professor of chemistry at Groningen, he was honoured by a personal visit from the King to his laboratory in 1837. In 1835, assisted by Christopher Becker, an instrument maker, he built a table-top model of an electrically propelled vehicle. The motor, with wound armature and field coils, was geared to a wheel of a small carriage which also carried a single voltaic cell. A full-scale road vehicle was never built, but in 1840 he succeeded in making an electrically powered boat.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Textiles

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After education at the local school, Tennant went to Kilbachan to learn the manufacture of silk. He then went on to Wellmeadow, where he acquired a knowledge of the old bleaching process, which enabled him to establish his own bleachfield at Darnly. The process consisted of boiling the fabric in weak alkali and then laying it flat on the ground to expose it to sun and air for several months. This process, expensive in time and space, would have formed an intolerable bottleneck in the rapidly expanding textile industry, but a new method was on the way. The French chemist Berthollet demonstrated in 1786 the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent and James Watt learned of this while on a visit to Paris. On his return to Glasgow, Watt passed details of the new process on to Tennant, who set about devising his own version of it. First he obtained a bleaching liquor by passing chlorine through a stirred mixture of lime and water. He was granted a patent for this process in 1798, but it was promptly infringed by bleachers in Lancashire. Tennant's efforts to enforce the patent were unsuccessful as it was alleged that others had employed a similar process some years previously. Nevertheless, the Lancashire bleachers had the good grace to present Tennant with a service of plate in recognition of the benefits he had brought to the industry.

In 1799 Tennant improved on his process by substituting dry slaked lime for the liquid, to form bleaching powder. This was patented the same year and proved to be a vital element in the advance of the textile industry. The following year, Tennant established his chemical plant at St Roll ox, outside Glasgow, to manufacture bleaching powder and alkali substances. The plant prospered and became for a time the largest chemical works in Europe.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Thomson accompanied his parents to Philadelphia in 1858; he received his education at the Central High School there, and afterwards remained as a teacher of chemistry. At this time he constructed several dynamos after studying their design, and was invited by the Franklin Institute to give lectures on the subject. After observing an arc-lighting system operating commercially in Paris in 1878, he collaborated with Edwin J. Houston, a senior colleague at the Central High School, in working out the details of such a system. An automatic regulating device was designed which, by altering the position of the brushes on the dynamo commutator, maintained a constant current irrespective of the number of lamps in use. To overcome the problem of commutation at the high voltages necessary to operate up to forty arc lamps in a series circuit, Thomson contrived a centrifugal blower which suppressed sparking. The resulting system was efficient and reliable with low operating costs. Thomson's invention of the motor meter in 1882 was the first of many such instruments for the measurement of electrical energy. In 1886 he invented electric resistance welding using low-voltage alternating current derived from a transformer of his own design. Thomson's work is recorded in his technical papers and in the 700plus patents granted for his inventions.

The American Electric Company, founded to exploit the Thomson patents, later became the Thomson-Houston Company, which was destined to be a leader in the electrical manufacturing industry. They entered the field of electric power in 1887, supplying railway equipment and becoming a major innovator of electric railways. Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric were consolidated to form General Electric in 1892. Thomson remained associated with this company throughout his career.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Volta had an early command of English, French and Latin, and also learned to read Dutch and Spanish. After completing studies at the Royal Seminary in Como he was involved in the study of physics, chemistry and electricity. He became a teacher of physics in his native town and in 1779 was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Pavia, a post he held for forty years.

With a growing international reputation and a wish to keep abreast of the latest developments, in 1777 he began the first of many travels abroad. A journey started in 1781 to Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France and England lasted about one year. By 1791 he had been elected to membership of many learned societies, including those in Zurich, Berlin, Berne and Paris. Volta's invention of his pile resulted from a controversy with Luigi Galvani, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bologna. Galvani discovered that the muscles of frogs' legs contracted when touched with two pieces of different metals and attributed this to a phenomenon of the animal tissue. Volta showed that the excitation was due to a chemical reaction resulting from the contact of the dissimilar metals when moistened. His pile comprised a column of zinc and silver discs, each pair separated by paper moistened with brine, and provided a source of continuous current from a simple and accessible source. The effectiveness of the pile decreased as the paper dried and Volta devised his crown of cups, which had a longer life. In this, pairs of dissimilar metals were placed in each of a number of cups partly filled with an electrolyte such as brine. Volta first announced the results of his experiments with dissimilar metals in 1800 in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. This letter, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, has been regarded as one of the most important documents in the history of science. Large batteries were constructed in a number of laboratories soon after Volta's discoveries became known, leading immediately to a series of developments in electrochemistry and eventually in electromagnetism. Volta himself made little further contribution to science. In recognition of his achievement, at a meeting of the International Electrical Congress in Paris in 1881 it was agreed to name the unit of electrical pressure the "volt".

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Although he developed dynamos for electroplating and lighting, Weston's major contribution to technology was his invention of a moving-coil voltmeter and the standard cell which bears his name. After some years as a medical student, during which he gained a knowledge of chemistry, he abandoned his studies. Emigrating to New York in 1870, he was employed by a manufacturer of photographic chemicals. There followed a period with an electroplating company during which he built his first dynamo. In 1877 some business associates financed a company to build these machines and, later, arc-lighting equipment. By 1882 the Weston Company had been absorbed into the United States Electric Lighting Company, which had a counterpart in Britain, the Maxim Weston Company. By the time Weston resigned from the company, in 1886, he had been granted 186 patents. He then began the work in which he made his greatest contribution, the science of electrical measurement.

The Weston meter, the first successful portable measuring instrument with a pivoted coil, was made in 1886. By careful arrangement of the magnet, coil and control springs, he achieved a design with a well-damped movement, which retained its calibration. These instruments were produced commercially on a large scale and the moving-coil principle was soon adopted by many manufacturers. In 1892 he invented manganin, an alloy with a small negative temperature coefficient, for use as resistances in his voltmeters.

The Weston standard cell was invented in 1892. Using his chemical knowledge he produced a cell, based on mercury and cadmium, which replaced the Clark cell as a voltage reference source. The Weston cell became the recognized standard at the International Conference on Electrical Units and Standards held in London in 1908.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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Wollaston qualified in medicine at Cambridge University but gave up his practice in 1800 to devote himself to chemistry and metallurgy, funded from the profits from making malleable platinum. In partnership with Smithson Tennant, a friend from his Cambridge days, he worked on the extraction of platinum by dissolving it in aqua regia. In 1802 he found that in addition to platinum the solution contained a new metal, which he named palladium. Two years later he identified another new metal, rhodium.

Wollaston developed a method of forming platinum by means of powder metallurgy and was the first to produce malleable and ductile platinum on a commercial scale. He produced platinum vessels for sulphuric acid manufacture and scientific apparatus such as crucibles. He devised an elegant method for forming fine platinum wire. He also applied his inventive talents to improving scientific apparatus, including the sextant and microscope and a reflecting goniometer for measuring crystal angles. In 1807 he was appointed Joint Secretary of the Royal Society with Sir Humphry Davy, which entailed a heavy workload and required them to referee all the papers submitted to the Society for publication.

Wollaston's output of platinum began to decline after 1822. Due to ill health he ceased business operations in 1828 and at last made public the details of his secret platinum fabrication process. It was fully described in the Bakerian Lecture he delivered to the Royal Society on 28 November 1828, shortly before his death.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Metallurgy

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The son of a Birmingham chemist, Woolrich was educated at King Edward's Grammar School, Birmingham, and later became a lecturer in chemistry. As an alternative to primary cells for the supply of current for electroplating, he devised a magneto generator.

His original machine had a single compound permanent magnet; the distance between the revolving armature and the magnet could be varied to adjust the rate of deposition of metal. A more ambitious machine designed by Woolrich was constructed by Thomas Prime \& Sons in 1844 and for many years was used at their Birmingham electroplating works. Faraday, on a visit to see the machine at work, is said to have expressed delight at his discovery of electromagnetic induction being put to practical use so soon. Similar machines were in use by Elkington's, Fern and others in Birmingham and Sheffield. One of Woolrich's machines is preserved in the Birmingham Science Museum.

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