1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Perkin, William Henry

PERKIN, WILLIAM HENRY (1860–⁠), English chemist, was born at Sudbury, England, in 1860, eldest son of Sir William Perkin, founder of the aniline dye industry. He received his general education at the City of London School, and his scientific education at the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, and at the universities of Würzburg and Munich. During 1883–6 h; held the position of Privatdocent in the university of Munich. In i83; he returned to England and became professor of chemistry at the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh. In 1892 he accepted the chair of organic chemistry at the Victoria University, Manchester, which he held until 1912. During this period his stimulating teaching and brilliant researches attracted stu- dents from all parts, and he formed at Manchester a school of organic chemistry famous throughout Europe. In 1912 he succeeded Prof. Wm. Odling as Waynflete professor of chemistry at Oxford. He soon made his influence felt there—new and more extensive laboratories were built, and for the first time in England a period of research became a necessary part of the academic course in chemistry for an honours degree. Prof. Perkin was president of the Chemical Society from 1913 to 1916. He was awarded the Longstaff medal of the Chemical Society in 1900, and the Davy medal of the Royal Society in 1904. The main results of his work are embodied in a very numerous and brilliant series of papers in the Transactions of the Chemical Society. The earlier papers deal chiefly with the properties and modes of synthesis of cloud chain hydrocarbons and their derivatives. This work led naturally to the synthesis of many terpenes and members of the camphor group; also to the investigation of various alkaloids and natural colouring matters. In addition to purely scientific work Prof. Perkin always kept in close touch with chemical industry. His text-books on practical chemistry, inorganic and organic chemistry, written in conjunction with Prof. Kipping, are in general use.