Profession: chemist

A scientist of major importance, Frankland remains far too little-known. He worked as Playfair’s assistant before going to Germany with his lifelong friends Kolbe and Tyndall to study with Bunsen, returning later to study with Liebig. Hofmann became a colleague back in London, while Spencer and Hooker, as well as Tyndall and occasionally Darwin (a frequent correspondent), were fellow-members of Huxley’s exclusive ‘X Club’. Tyndall also camped out high up Mont Blanc with Frankland, experimenting on combustion and pressure. Faraday was a friend, and godfather to Frankland’s son. Kekulé, despite professional proximity and ill-feeling, had no meaningful contact.

Runge discovered aniline and phenol, isolated caffeine, and anticipated chromatography. He studied with Döbereiner, whose aged friend Goethe was shown by Runge how to dilate a cat’s pupils with belladonna (Runge, tagged ‘Doctor Poison’, carried his cat round to Goethe’s: the delighted Goethe gave him the coffee-beans and the challenge that started his work on caffeine). Humboldt, Gay-Lussac and Liebig were all met in Paris during a 3-year European journey undertaken after his studentship. Bunsen (first met in Berlin) and Kirchhoff became younger colleagues at the University of Breslau, now Wrocław.

Stromeyer taught Mitscherlich in Göttingen, and inspired his turn towards chemistry. He became Berzelius’s protégé, studying with him in Stockholm, and working up the theory (isomorphism) that made his name and that fleshed out Berzelius’s own findings; Heinrich Rose was a fellow-student, while Rose’s brother Gustav taught him the precise measurement of crystal angles. The young chemist Bunsen joined him on one of his mineralogical visits to the Eifel. Helmholtz, Traube and Cohn were all students of his, Faraday a correspondent, and Humboldt, a friend, godfather to his son.

Meyer’s work on the periodic table paralleled Mendeleev’s, while lacking some of the Russian’s crucial insights; Mendeleev, wary of Meyer, eventually warmed to him — Meyer translated for him on a Manchester visit. Virchow, Bunsen and Kirchhoff all taught him, Virchow before he turned to chemistry. He was close to Kekulé (who initiated the conference where Cannizzaro’s ideas so forcibly struck him), and to Baeyer, Strecker and Roscoe (all working in Bunsen’s labs at the same time). The future Nobel-winner Arrhenius, finding his work unappreciated, wrote to Meyer and got warm encouragement in return.

Roscoe studied with Bunsen in Heidelberg, taking his English gas-burner; they collaborated for 10 years (usually during long vacations), and stayed friends for life. Kirchhoff and Kekulé also taught him. Meyer and Baeyer were fellow-students and friends, Pasteur and Ross correspondents. Helmholtz was his greatest friend; Roscoe took him to visit the aged Faraday and the sadly decrepit Joule. Roscoe started a lecture-series for unemployed Manchester cotton-workers, Huxley (a close friend) and Tyndall also contributing. Potter was his niece; he took her (and her fungi drawings) to Kew to meet the director.

Wöhler studied with Gmelin, and then, wanting the best education possible, with Berzelius, who became a lifelong friend; he later translated Berzelius’ work into German. He collaborated extensively with his great friend Liebig, though they initially spent two years challenging each other’s work. Ørsted told Wöhler about his isolation of aluminium, but Wöhler built on his research and took most of the credit. He met Sainte-Claire Deville through contesting discovery of the aluminium-production process, but they also went on to collaborate industrially (Wöhler acting as consultant) and became good friends.

Kekulé’s importance is primarily for his role in propounding the importance of molecular structure in chemistry — though no fewer than three of his students (Fischer, van’t Hoff and Baeyer) went on to win the Nobel Prize. He himself was a student of Liebig’s, who suggested he go on to work under Bunsen, while failing to recommend him for a position in Zürich. The famous dream in which he saw the true structure of benzene occurred while dozing in Ghent, though an earlier dream, on a Clapham (London) bus, is what gave him the key to his structural theory. Dumas was met while studying further in Paris.

Hofmann was a research student in Liebig’s lab, working on aniline (which became tremendously important industrially and commercially). Perkins (the discoverer of synthetic mauve/purple dyes) was a research student of Hofmann’s in London, where he worked for two decades, and Crookes another; Stieglitz (so influential on 20th-century photography) studied under him in Berlin, as also did Haber. Hofmann has been described as the greatest of Liebig’s many notable students; his own father, an architect, designed Liebig’s enlarged laboratories.