Henry Minchin Noad
Encyclopedia
Biography
Noad, born at Shawford, near FromeFrome
Frome is a town and civil parish in northeast Somerset, England. Located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, the town is built on uneven high ground, and centres around the River Frome. The town is approximately south of Bath, east of the county town, Taunton and west of London. In the 2001...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, 22 June 1815, was son of Humphrey Noad, by Miss Hunn, a half-sister of the Rt. Hon. George Canning
George Canning
George Canning PC, FRS was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and briefly Prime Minister.-Early life: 1770–1793:...
. He was educated at Frome grammar school, and was intended for the civil service in India, but the untimely death of his patron, William Huskisson
William Huskisson
William Huskisson PC was a British statesman, financier, and Member of Parliament for several constituencies, including Liverpool...
, caused a change in his career, and he commenced the study of chemistry and electricity. About 1836 he delivered lectures on these subjects at the literary and scientific institutions of Bath and Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
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He next examined the peculiar voltaic conditions of iron and bismuth, described some properties of the water battery, and elucidated that curious phenomenon the passive state of iron. In 1845 he came to 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...
, and studied chemistry under August Wilhelm Hofmann, in the newly founded Royal College of Chemistry
Royal College of Chemistry
The Royal College of Chemistry was a college originally based on Oxford Street in central London, England. It operated between 1845 and 1872....
. While with Hofmann he made researches on the oxidation of cymol or cymene, the hydro-carbon which Gerhardt and Cahours discovered in 1840 in the volatile oil of Roman cumin. The results were in part communicated to the Chemical Society
Chemical Society
The Chemical Society was formed in 1841 as a result of increased interest in scientific matters....
at the time, and more fully afterwards to the Philosophical Magazine
Philosophical Magazine
The Philosophical Magazine is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. Initiated by Alexander Tilloch in 1798, in 1822 Richard Taylor became joint editor and it has been published continuously by Taylor & Francis ever since; it was the journal of choice for such luminaries as...
, 1848, xxxii. 15–35.
Among other organic products, legumine and vitelline also formed materials for his investigations. In 1847 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry in the medical school of St. George's Hospital, which he held till his death. About 1849 he obtained the degree of doctor of physics from the university of Giessen, and in 1850–1 conducted, conjointly with Henry Gray, an inquiry into the composition and functions of the spleen. The essay resulting from this investigation gained the Astley Cooper prize of 1852.
He next experimented on the chemistry of iron, and in 1860 contributed the article ‘Iron’ to Robert Hunt's edition of ‘Ure's Dictionary.’ This led to his appointment as consulting chemist to the Ebbw Vale Iron Company, the Cwm Celyn and Blaina, the Aberdare and Plymouth, and other ironworks in South Wales. In 1866 he became examiner of malt liquors to the India office, and in 1872 an examiner in chemistry and physics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. When the Panopticon of Science and Arts in Leicester Square was opened in 1854, he was appointed instructor in chemistry there. On 5 June 1856 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
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In 1839 he published A Course of Eight Lectures on Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, and Electro-Magnetism, which became a recognised text-book, passing through four editions; in 1857 it gave place to A Manual of Electricity in two volumes, which was long a standard book. In 1848 he wrote a valuable treatise on Chemical Manipulation and Analysis, Qualitative and Quantitative, for the Library of Useful Knowledge, and re-wrote in 1875 A Normandy's Commercial Handbook of Chemical Analysis, a volume which meets the wants of the analyst while discharging his duties under the Adulteration Act.
He died at his son's residence in High Street, Lower Norwood, Surrey, on 23 July 1877. Charlotte Jane, his widow, died on 25 March 1882, aged 67. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery
West Norwood Cemetery
West Norwood Cemetery is a cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery.One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries of London, and is a site of major historical, architectural and...
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