Henry Enfield Roscoe

Biography

Roscoe is born with London, his/her father, Henry Roscoe (1799-1837), a lawyer is the son of William Roscoe and his/her mother Maria Fletcher is the girl of William Enfield (1741-1797). He studies with the Liverpool Institute for Boys then with the University College of London, at the time the only high level university which does not base admissibility on religious criteria, the maternal and paternal family having roots presbytérienne and unitarian, she is nonconformist from this point of view. The professor who more influenced it in University College is Thomas Graham. Roscoe works then in the laboratory of Alexander William Williamson.

In 1853 Roscoe leaves in Germany to Heidelberg where it meets Robert Bunsen. It obtains a doctorate with Heidelberg. In 1857, and for thirty years, Roscoe is chemistry teacher with the Université of Manchester. Roscoe joined the Chemical Society in 1855 of which he is president of 1880 with 1882. He becomes member of the Royal Society in 1863 and receives his royal Médaille in 1873. He is made knight in 1884.

Roscoe has also political responsibilities, of 1885 with 1895 it is member of the Parliament for the district of Manchester - Southern. He is also member of several commissions relating to questions of education, during his stay in Germany he had studied the German university system. Of 1892 with 1902 he is vice-chancellor of the Université of London.

A mineral containing of the Vanadium, the Roscoelite bears its name.

Research

After its stay in Germany, Roscoe continues its collaboration with Bunsen, together they make important contributions in Photochimie between 1855 and 1862. The action of the Light on the Hydrogen and the Chlore is already known, this mixture loses its characteristic color and is converted into Chlorure of hydrogen. Bunsen and Roscoe use this property to build a measuring device of the intensity of the chemical action of the light. Part of this work already was made by Henry Draper thirteen years earlier.

In 1865 it starts to study the Vanadium and its compounds, it invents a method to purify it and shows that what one had taken for vanadium previously in is done samples contaminated by Oxygène and Azote. Roscoe also works on the Niobium, the Tungstène, the Uranium, the Perchloric acid , the solubility of the Ammoniac.

Roscoe works on the evacuation of waste water in the rivers and the bacterial and chemical pollution of the the Thames.

Publications

Roscoe writes several school handbooks, Lessons in Elementary Chemistry , published in 1866, is translated into nine languages, Chemistry Primer , is published in 1870 and Inorganic Chemistry , which exists in two versions, for beginner and the other for more advanced students, is written in collaboration with Arthur Harden. Beside these handbooks, Roscoe writes several books whose Treatise one Chemistry whose first volume appears in 1877, the fifth edition The Metals and to their Compounds published in 1913 comprises more 1 500 pages, this treaty which wanted to be exhaustive comprises a part on the organic chemistry which will never be supplemented. Again in collaboration with Harden it publishes off New View Dalton' S Atomic Theory a book tracing the discovery by John Dalton of his atomic Théorie. Roscoe writes also its autobiography.

Sources

the right and Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, Edward Thorpe, 1916
Given biographical

External bonds

Henry Enfield Roscoe, Internet Files

Random links: