George Downing Liveing FRS (21 Dec 1827 - 29 Dec 1924) was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 chemist and spectroscopist

Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g., by a prism. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any interaction with radiative...

.

He was born in Nayland

Nayland

Nayland is a village in the Stour Valley on the Suffolk side of the border between Suffolk and Essex in England.-History:From an article by Rosemary Knox, Wissington...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, the eldest son of Edward Liveing and educated at St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

, matriculating BA in 1851. He was made a Fellow of the college and then in 1911 President of the college.

He was Professor of Chemistry, Military College, Sandhurst and then Professor of Chemistry, Cambridge University from 1861 to 1908.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1879. He won the Davy Medal in 1901 "for his contributions to spectroscopy".