Profession: chemist

Vauquelin and Fourcroy taught him, and helped him get a post as Gay-Lussac’s demonstrator at the École Polytechnique, the start of a lifelong friendship and professional relationship; both Gay-Lussac and Biot did important collaborative work with Thénard. He queried Berthollet’s views on oxides; Berthollet invited him to join his Société d’Arcueil. With Chaptal, he co-founded La SEIN, an influential Society for the Encouragement of Industry; Chaptal’s demands also led him to develop the pigment cobalt blue. Wöhler (whose collaborator Liebig had studied with Thénard) wrote excitedly to Berzelius about meeting him on a visit to Paris.

Liebig was immensely influential, not least in founding modern organic chemistry, and the research laboratory. He worked as an assistant in Gay-Lussac’s laboratory; Humboldt introduced them. Among his research students, Hofmann worked with him on aniline, Strecker on amino acids, Pettenkofer on meat juices (Liebig’s company eventually patented Oxo), and Schmidt on fertilisers. Wöhler was a regular collaborator, Regnault and Voit were also among his students, while Bunsen went to Giessen to meet him. Kekulé worked with him on benzene; they gave evidence convicting a servant of murder, showing that however much alcohol his employer had drunk, she couldn’t have spontaneously combusted.

Gale was a professor of chemistry at what was to become New York University, where Morse was professor of painting. He advised Morse on batteries and electromagnets for his experiments in telegraphy, so signal strength could be increased, and suggested he read a relevant paper of Henry’s, a personal friend of Gale’s. Vail and Gale as crucial technical collaborators of Morse’s were brought in a business partners in the venture, though perhaps inevitably they eventually fell out over the matter of royalties.

Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Guyton de Morveau and Berthollet together established the modern naming-system for chemical compounds. With Laplace he founded the influential Société d’Arcueil; members included Gay-Lussac and Humboldt, Humboldt naming the brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa) after his friend. Berthollet and Monge, old friends, were sent to Italy to ship paintings and sculptures to France, and jointly ran Napoleon’s Institut d’Egypte. Watt was a close acqaintance and great correspondent, and Berzelius exchanged letters about the presence of fluoride in water. Thénard was one of his students.

Turner was the first professor of chemistry at University College London. He had studied under Stromeyer in Göttingen, and dedicated his ‘Elements of Chemistry’ to him. Draper studied with Turner, who first interested him in the chemical effects of light. Gregory became his assistant. Berzelius was among his correspondents. There are few sources of biographical information online.