Alexander William Williamson
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Alexander William Williamson
British chemist (1824–1904)
Williamson's father was a clerk in the East India Company in London. After his retirement in 1840 the family lived on the Continent, where Williamson was educated. He studied at Heidelberg and at Giessen (under Justus von Liebig), where he received his PhD in 1846. He also studied mathematics in Paris. In 1849 he took up the chair of chemistry at London University, a post he occupied until 1887.
Between 1850 and 1856 Williamson showed that alcohol and ether both belong to the water type. Type theory, developed by Charles Gerhardt and Auguste Laurent, was based on the idea that organic compounds are produced by replacing one or more hydrogen atoms of inorganic compounds (which form the types) by radicals. Using the correct formula for alcohol (which he had recently established) Williamson represented the water type as: H2O (water); C2H5OH (alcohol); C2H5OC2H5 (ether), where the H of water is progressively replaced by C2H5.
A further contribution to chemical theory was his demonstration (in 1850) of reversible reactions: two substances, A and B, react to form the products X and Y, which in turn react to produce the original A and B. Under certain conditions the system could be in dynamic equilibrium, when the amount of A and B reacting to form X and Y is equal to the amount of A and B produced by X and Y. He is remembered for what is now known as Williamson's synthesis, a method of making ethers by reacting a sodium alcoholate with a haloalkane.
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Alexander William Williamson
| Alexander William Williamson | |
|---|---|
 Alexander William Williamson |
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| Born | 1 May 1824 London |
| Died | 6 May 1904 Surrey |
| Nationality | British |
| Doctoral advisor | Leopold Gmelin Justus von Liebig |
| Known for | Synthesis of ethers |
Alexander William Williamson FRS (1 May 1824 – 6 May 1904) was an English chemist of Scottish descent. He is best known today for the Williamson ether synthesis.
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Biography
After working under Leopold Gmelin at Heidelberg, and Justus von Liebig at Gießen, Williamson spent three years in Paris studying higher mathematics under Comte. In 1849, Williamson was appointed professor of practical chemistry at University College, London, and from 1855 until his retirement in 1887 he also held the professorship of chemistry. He died on 6 May 1904, at Hindhead, Surrey, England, and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.[1][2]
Research on ether
Williamson is credited for his research on the formation of ether by the interaction of sulphuric acid and alcohol, known as the Williamson ether synthesis. He regarded ether and alcohol as substances analogous to and built up on the same type as water, and he further introduced the water-type as a widely applicable basis for the classification of chemical compounds. The method of stating the rational constitution of bodies by comparison with water he believed capable of wide extension, and that one type, he thought, would suffice for all inorganic compounds, as well as for the best-known organic ones, the formula of water being taken in certain cases as doubled or tripled.
So far back as 1850 he also suggested a view which, in a modified form, is of fundamental importance in the modern theory of ionic dissociation, for, in a paper on the theory of the formation of ether, he urged that in an aggregate of molecules of any compound there is an exchange constantly going on between the elements which are contained in it; for instance, in hydrochloric acid each atom of hydrogen does not remain quietly in juxtaposition with the atom of chlorine with which it first united, but changes places with other atoms of hydrogen. A somewhat similar hypothesis was put forward by Rudolf Clausius about the same time.
Honours and awards
For his work on etherification, Williamson received a Royal medal from the Royal Society in 1862, of which he became a fellow in 1855, and which he served as foreign secretary from 1873 to 1889. He was twice president of the London Chemical Society, from 1863–1865 and from 1869-1871.
Williamson and the Chōshū Five
In 1863 five students from the Chōshū clan in Japan came to study in London under the guidance of Professor Williamson. They were Ito Shunsuke (later Ito Hirobumi), Inoue Monta (later Inoue Kaoru), and Yamao Yozo. Endo Kinsuke and Nomura Yakichi (later Inoue Masaru). They all later made enormous contributions to the modernization of Japan.
References
- ^ Harris, J.; Brock, W. H. (1978). "From Giessen to Gower Street: Towards a Biography of Alexander William Williamson (1824–1904)". Annals of Science (Taylor & Francis) 31 (2): 95–130. doi:10.1080/00033797400200171.
- ^ "Brookwood Cemetery Ltd (October 2007)". http://brookwoodcemetery.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html. Retrieved 2008-12-01. - Contains a link to a file (pdf format) showing Williamson's grave.
Further reading
- Foster, G. Carey; Tilden, W. A.; McLeod, Herbert; Mills, Edmund J.; Scott, A.; Foster, G. Carey (1905). "Alexander William Williamson". Journal of the Chemical Society 87: 605–618. doi:10.1039/CT9058700565. http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=CT9058700565&JournalCode=CT.
- Foster, G. Carey (1911). "Gedächtnisfeier: Alexander William Williamson". Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft 44 (3): 2253–2269. doi:10.1002/cber.19110440339.
- Paul, E. Robert (1978). "Alexander W. Williamson on the atomic theory: A study of nineteenth-century British atomism". Annals of Science 35 (1): 17–31. doi:10.1080/00033797800200111. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a750882479~db=all.
- Williamson, Alexander William (1868). Chemistry for Students. Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://books.google.com/?id=_rEXAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=alexander+williamson+chemistry.
- Williamson, Alexander William (1902). Papers on Etherification and on the Constitution of Salts. Edinburgh: The Alembic Club. http://books.google.com/?id=WIk6AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA64&dq=alexander+williamson+ether.
External links
- Williamson, Alexander (1850). "Theory of Aetherification". Philosophical Magazine 37: 350–356. http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/williamson.html. - Excerpted from Williamson's paper on the synthesis of ethers
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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