Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, FRS (7 January 1833 - 18 December 1915) was an English chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

. He is particularly noted for early work on vanadium

Vanadium

Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...

 and for photochemical

Photochemistry

Photochemistry, a sub-discipline of chemistry, is the study of chemical reactions that proceed with the absorption of light by atoms or molecules.. Everyday examples include photosynthesis, the degradation of plastics and the formation of vitamin D with sunlight.-Principles:Light is a type of...

 studies.

Life and work

Henry Enfield Roscoe was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the son of Henry Roscoe

Henry Roscoe (legal writer)

-Life:The youngest son of William Roscoe, he was born at Allerton Hall, near Liverpool, on 17 April 1800. He was educated by private tutors, and in 1817 was articled to Messrs. Stanistreet & Eden, solicitors, Liverpool. In January 1819 he moved to London and began studying for the bar, almost...

 (1800–1836), and grandson of William Roscoe

William Roscoe

William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...

 (1753–1831).
Stanley Jevons was a cousin.

Roscoe studied at the Liverpool Institute for Boys

Liverpool Institute for Boys

The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys was an all-boys grammar school in the English port city of Liverpool.The school had its origins in 1825 but occupied different premises while the money was found to build a dedicated building on Mount Street. The Institute was first known as the...

 and University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

. He then went to Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 to work under Robert Bunsen

Robert Bunsen

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium and rubidium with Gustav Kirchhoff. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic...

, who became a lifelong friend. In 1857, Roscoe was appointed to the chair of chemistry at Owens College, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, where he remained until 1886 by which time the Victoria University

Victoria University (UK)

Victoria University was an English federal university established by Royal Charter, 20 April 1880 at Manchester: a university for the North of England open to affiliation by colleges such as Owens College which immediately did so. University College Liverpool joined the University in 1884, followed...

 had been established. From 1885 to 1895 he was MP for Manchester South

Manchester South (UK Parliament constituency)

Manchester South was one of six parliamentary constituencies created in 1885 by the division of the Parliamentary Borough of Manchester, England. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system...

. He served on several royal commissions appointed to consider educational questions, in which he was keenly interested, and from 1896 to 1902 was vice-chancellor of the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. He was knighted in 1884.

Roscoe's scientific work includes a memorable series of researches carried out with Bunsen between 1855 and 1862, in which they laid the foundations of comparative photochemistry. In 1864 they carried out what is reputed to be the first flashlight photography

Flash (photography)

A flash is a device used in photography producing a flash of artificial light at a color temperature of about 5500 K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a dark scene. Other uses are capturing quickly moving objects or changing the quality of light...

, using magnesium

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...

 as a light source. In 1867, Roscoe began an elaborate investigation of vanadium and its compounds, and devised a process for preparing it pure in the metallic state, at the same time showing that the substance which had previously passed for the metal was contaminated with oxygen

Oxygen

Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

. In so doing he corrected Berzelius

Berzelius

Berzelius is a secret society at Yale University named for the Swedish scientist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, considered one of the founding fathers of modern chemistry...

's value for the atomic mass

Atomic mass

The atomic mass is the mass of a specific isotope, most often expressed in unified atomic mass units. The atomic mass is the total mass of protons, neutrons and electrons in a single atom....

. Roscoe was awarded the 1868 Bakerian Lecture

Bakerian Lecture

The Bakerian Lecture is a prize lecture of the Royal Society, a lecture on physical sciences.In 1775 Henry Baker left £100 for a spoken lecture by a Fellow on such part of natural history or experimental philosophy as the Society shall determine....

 for this work. He also carried out researches on niobium

Niobium

Niobium or columbium , is a chemical element with the symbol Nb and atomic number 41. It's a soft, grey, ductile transition metal, which is often found in the pyrochlore mineral, the main commercial source for niobium, and columbite...

, tungsten

Tungsten

Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...

, uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

, perchloric acid

Perchloric acid

Perchloric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula HClO4. Usually encountered as an aqueous solution, this colourless compound is a strong acid comparable in strength to sulfuric and nitric acids. It is a powerful oxidizer, but its aqueous solutions up to appr. 70% are remarkably inert,...

, and the solubility

Solubility

Solubility is the property of a solid, liquid, or gaseous chemical substance called solute to dissolve in a solid, liquid, or gaseous solvent to form a homogeneous solution of the solute in the solvent. The solubility of a substance fundamentally depends on the used solvent as well as on...

 of ammonia

Ammonia

Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...

.

Roscoe's publications include, besides several elementary books on chemistry that had a wide circulation and were translated into many foreign languages, Lectures on Spectrum Analysis (1869); a Treatise on Chemistry (the first edition of which appeared in 1877-1892); A New View of Dalton's Atomic Theory, with Dr Arthur Harden

Arthur Harden

Sir Arthur Harden FRS was an English biochemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1929 with Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin for their investigations into the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes....

 (1896); and an Autobiography (1906). The Treatise on Chemistry, written in collaboration with Carl Schorlemmer

Carl Schorlemmer

Carl Schorlemmer FRS was a German chemist who did research on hydrocarbons and contributed to the study of the history of chemistry.- Life and work :...

 (1834–1892), who was appointed his private assistant at Manchester in 1859, official assistant in the laboratory in 1861, and professor of organic chemistry in 1874, was long regarded as a standard work. Roscoe's Lessons in Elementary Chemistry (1866) passed through many editions in England and abroad.

He was the uncle of Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...

. The mineral Roscoelite

Roscoelite

Roscoelite is a green mineral from the mica group that contains vanadium.The chemical formula is K2AlSi3O102.Crystals of roscoelite take on the monoclinic form, and are from the 2/m point group....

 was named after him, due to its vanadium content and Roscoe's work on that element.

Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe was awarded the Franklin Institute

Franklin Institute

The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...

's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912.

Selected works

Commemoration

The Roscoe Building at the University of Manchester was named after Professor Roscoe: it is a large general-purpose teaching facility used for various levels of teaching in Brunswick Street.

External links

• Comments on photograph of Kirchhoff, Bunsen, and Roscoe
• Henry Enfield Roscoe (Open University)
• Obituary (by Charles A. Keane, The Analyst, 1916, 41, 63 – 700)