School_of_Chemistry,_University_of_Manchester

Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester

Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester

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The Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester is one of the largest Departments of Chemistry in the United Kingdom, with over 600 undergraduate and more than 200 postgraduate research students.

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The department has comprehensive academic coverage across the chemical sciences and in all the core sub-disciplines of chemistry, with over 120 postdoctoral researchers.

Current Management Board

  • Head of Department: Prof. David Procter
  • Head of Education: Dr. Alan Brisdon
  • Undergraduate Program Director: Dr. Andrew Regan
  • Subject Lead (Inorganic): Prof. David Collison
  • Subject Lead (Organic): Dr. Andrew Regan
  • Subject Lead (Physical): Prof. Nick Lockyer
  • Head of Teaching and Scholarship: Dr. Jenny Slaughter
  • PASS Management Staff: Dr. Nicholas Weise
  • Undergraduate Admissions Tutor: Dr. Sam Hay
  • International Studies: Dr. Lu Shin Wong

Notable faculty

As of 2017 The department employs 34 full-time Professors and 11 Emeritus Professors[1] including:

Emeritus

John Joule is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Chemistry

The School is also home to a number of Emeritus Professors, pursuing their research interests after their formal retirement[1] including:

  • John Joule,[5] Emeritus Professor
  • William Byers Brown, Emeritus Professor and first Professor of Computational Chemistry in the department

History of chemistry in Manchester

The Schunck Building, University of Manchester
Four of the former chemical laboratories of the Victoria University of Manchester are shown here: Schunck, Perkin and Dalton (1904; left) and Roscoe (1873, centre); the taller building is the John Owens Building, also 1873

Manchester has a long and distinguished history of Chemistry. John Dalton founded modern Chemistry in 1803 with his atomic theory. William Henry (1774 – 1836) was a Manchester chemist who developed what is known today as Henry's Law. James Joule pioneered the science of thermodynamics in the 1840s while working in Manchester. In the basement of the Royal Manchester Institution a laboratory was installed by Lyon Playfair who worked there briefly as Professor of Chemistry after he left Thomson's of Clitheroe.[6] He was succeeded by Frederick Crace Calvert who made phenol which was used by Joseph Lister as an antiseptic. [7] Carl Schorlemmer,[8] was appointed the first UK Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1874.

The teaching of chemistry in Owens College began in 1851 in a house in St John Street and was later transferred to the main college building in Quay Street. When the college removed to the present university site in 1873 the chemical laboratory was designed by Henry Roscoe. To this was added in 1895 the Schorlemmer laboratory for organic chemistry and in 1904 three more laboratories were added; these were the Dalton and Perkin laboratories and the Schunck laboratory which was brought from Kersal and rebuilt. The Morley laboratories (1909) provided further accommodation for organic chemistry.[9] In October 1909 Rona Robinson and two other women were arrested for dressing in full academic regalia and interrupting a speech by the chancellor of the university at the celebration of the opening of the new chemical laboratories. They were demanding that the chancellor speak out against the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragette alumni of Manchester who were on hunger strike. The police were particularly rough with the women that day and the chancellor was sufficiently moved by the women's protest to pressure the university into not pressing charges, thus preventing Rona from going to prison again.

After the 2nd World War three more laboratories were built further down Burlington Street; these were the Dixon Laboratory (1946), the Robinson Laboratory (1950) and the Lapworth Laboratory (1950);[10] all three were vacated in the 1960s when the present building in Brunswick Street was available. The architect for the present chemistry building was H. S. Fairhurst & Son.[11]

Professors

See also: Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry

Professors at Owens College and the Victoria University of Manchester:[12]

Alumni

Melvin Calvin completed his PhD in the School of Chemistry and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961

Other distinguished alumni and former staff[13] from the school of Chemistry include:

See also Notable chemists (and biologists) at the University of Manchester

References

  1. [1]
    "Staff in the School of Chemistry". 2015. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013.
  2. [2]
    Kay, E. R.; Leigh, D. A.; Zerbetto, F. (2007). "Synthetic Molecular Motors and Mechanical Machines". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 46 (1–2): 72–191. doi:10.1002/anie.200504313. PMID 17133632.
  3. [3]
    "LEIGH, Prof. David Alan". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. [4]
    "MORRIS, Prof. Gareth Alun". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. [5]
    Heterocyclic Chemistry ISBN 1405133007
  6. [6]
    W. P. Doyle, Lyon Playfair (1818-1898), University of Edinburgh School of Chemistry, archived from the original on 5 March 2012, retrieved 16 May 2012
  7. [7]
    Crellin, J. K., "Calvert, Frederick Crace- (1819–1873)" ((Subscription or UK public library membership required)), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 16 May 2012
  8. [8]
    Smith, E. F. (1895). "The Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry, by CARL SCHORLEMMER, LL. D., F. R. S., revised and edited by ARTHUR SMITHELLS, B. Sc., Prof. Chemistry in Yorkshire College, Leeds, Victoria Univ. Macmillan & Co., New York. Pp. 280. Price $1.60". Science. 1 (6): 163–4. doi:10.1126/science.1.6.163. PMID 17789537.
  9. [9]
    Campbell (1939), pp. 39-40
  10. [10]
    Portrait (1951), app. VII
  11. [11]
    Pevsner, Nikolaus (1969) Lancashire. The Buildings of England. 1: The Urban South. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; p. 311
  12. [12]
    Charlton, H. B. (1951) Portrait of a University. Manchester University Press; p. 177
  13. [13]
    "Our Nobel Prize winners". University of Manchester. 2015. Archived from the original on 13 January 2015.
  14. [14]
    Seaborg, G. T.; Benson, A. A. (2008). "Melvin Calvin. 8 April 1911 -- 8 January 1997". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 54: 59–70. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2007.0050.
  15. [15]
    Wigner, E. P.; Hodgkin, R. A. (1977). "Michael Polanyi. 12 March 1891 -- 22 February 1976". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 23: 413–448. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1977.0016.
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    Hopkins, F. G.; Martin, C. J. (1942). "Arthur Harden. 1865-1940". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 4 (11): 2. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1942.0001. S2CID 178418151.
  17. [17]
    Hirst, E. L. (1951). "Walter Norman Haworth. 1883-1950". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 7 (20): 372–404. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1951.0008. JSTOR 769026. S2CID 40701042.
  18. [18]
    Cockcroft, J. D. (1967). "George de Hevesy 1885-1966". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 13: 125–126. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1967.0007.
  19. [19]
    Todd, L.; Cornforth, J. W. (1976). "Robert Robinson. 13 September 1886 -- 8 February 1975". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 22: 414–527. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1976.0018. JSTOR 769748. S2CID 73166960.
  20. [20]
    Eve, A. S.; Chadwick, J. (1938). "Lord Rutherford 1871–1937". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 2 (6): 394. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1938.0025.
  21. [21]
    Brown, D. M.; Kornberg, H. (2000). "Alexander Robertus Todd, O.M., Baron Todd of Trumpington. 2 October 1907 -- 10 January 1997: Elected F.R.S. 1942". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 46: 515. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1999.0099. S2CID 73076704.
  • Campbell, Colin (1939) "The chemistry department", in: The Journal of the University of Manchester; vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 39–45.
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