Obituary of Sir Edward Frankland 1825

THE TIMES

Monday Aug 14, 1899

DEATH OF SIR EDWARD FRANKLAND

It is with great regret that we announce the death of Sir Edward Frankland, which took place on Wednesday in Norway, where he had gone to indulge in his favourite pastime of salmon fishing. This country thus loses one of her most distinguished chemists, a man whose range was of extraordinary width and variety, whose brilliance as an experimentalist was unrivalled, and who made notable additions to our knowledge in almost every one of the numerous branches of chemical science to which he devoted his attention.
Born at Churchtown, near Lancaster, in 1825, he was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and afterwards studied chemistry at the Museum of Practical Geology and in laboratories of Liebig and Bunson, at Giessen and Marburg. He had barely attained his majority when he began to engage in original work in pure chemistry, and even his earliest researches had an important influence on the development of chemical theory. Undertaken in conjunction with Kolbe and prosecuted in the laboratories of Playfair and Bunson, these were at first analytical in character, their aim being the isolation and identification

of the proximate radicals composing certain organic bodies. Soon, however, he began to turn his attention to synthetical problems, to the artificial building up of organic bodies, and here his efforts were rewarded by the important discovery of the organo-metallic compounds resulting from the direct union of a positive organic radical with a metal. It was in 1850 that he announced the preparation of compounds of zinc with methyl and ethyl, and predicted the existence of 20 other similar bodies. Intrinsically interesting as are these substances, their importance lies rather in the theoretical deductions which he drew from a consideration of their composition. In this way he evolved the conception that the atoms of zinc, tin, etc., had only room, so to speak, for the attachment of a fixed and definite number of the atoms of other elements; and this hypothesis, which was communicated to the Royal Society in 1852, was the basis of the doctrine of atomicity or equivalence of the elements which may be said to have dominated the course of all subsequent chemical theory since its enunciation. These views, together with others that followed from them, shared the usual fate of new ideas in failing to command universal and immediate acceptance; and that Frankland did not always receive full credit for them may be ascribed to the fact that, in the discussion of their value, their authorship

was sometimes forgotten and other men came to be looked upon as their originators. This result was probably due in part to Frankland's standing aloof from the controversies that arose, and to his general objection to self advertisement, which it is permissible to say he sometimes carried so far as to shrink from legitimate self-assertion.
In applied chemistry, his first piece of work was begun in 1851, when he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Owens College, Manchester, and related to the manufacture of water-gas. He also investigated the chemical composition of the gases evolved from different kinds of gas coal, and incidentally invented a form of gas-burner which, like many other old inventions, has recently been brought forward as something new. By using two concentric chimneys, he made the waste heat of the flame raise the temperature both of the gas and the air consumed by the burner to 500 or 600 deg. F., and so ensured a much more efficient light. But his most important contributions to applied chemistry had reference to water supply and sewage questions. When in 1865 he succeeded Hofmann as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal College of Chemistry (Royal School of Mines) he undertook to continue the monthly analysis of the water supplied to the metropolis, which Hofmann had begun a few months before for the Registrar-General. These monthly analyses, it may be mentioned, he continuously performed ever since that date, and his comments and

reports form a most interesting and valuable feature of the Registrar-General's mortality returns in which they are to be found. This task involved the elaboration of a new method of water-analysis, since the processes then known he found seriously imperfect and untrustworthy especially for the detection of pollution by sewage or animal matters, and it was only after two years of laborious experiments, in which he was helped by his then pupil, Professor H. E. Armstrong, that he succeeded in devising means with the accuracy of which he was satisfied. In 1868 he was appointed a member of the second Royal Commission on the Pollution of Rivers, and the Government provided him with a splendidly equipped laboratory in which to carry out the inquiries necessary for the purposes of that body. These researches occupied six years, and that they were on a most elaborate and exhaustive scale is sufficiently shown by the long list of subjects investigated. Among these were the chemical qualities of water from various strata and from different sources of supply, such as lakes, rivers, wells, etc.; the possibility of rendering water once polluted again wholesome; the propagation of disease by drinking the water; the influence of hard water on health; the deterioration of water in mains and service pipes; and the quality of London water taken from the Thames. Of the last he did not at that time at all approve, because he held the belief that, no matter how satisfactory might be the chemical purification of polluted water by domestic or

other artificial filtration, there was evidence that such water was still capable of propagating epidemic diseases. But this opinion was profoundly modified in the course of time as filtration became better understood and more effectively applied. Lecturing before the Royal Institution in 1896, he declared unequivocally in favour of the Thames as the source of water supply for London, and, after emphasizing the astounding effect of sand filtration as practised by the London companies upon the living matter contained in raw river water, said that, with the provision of the storage reservoirs recommended by the Balfour Commission, London would possess an ample water supply, unsurpassed for palatability, wholesomeness, and general excellence. The purification of sewage and the means of preventing the pollution of rivers by trade refuse, etc., were among the other matters he investigated in connection with the commission.
Sir Edward Frankland was one of the few men who have spent a night on the very summit of Mount Blanc. This he did in August, 1859, in company with Tyndall, and the circumstances proved the starting point for a long series of investigations in physical chemistry. On the summit the rate of combustion of stearin candles was observed, with the object of discovering whether the rate of burning of bodies needing a supporting of combustion is independent of the density of the atmosphere in which they are burnt - a question which was answered in the affirmative.

But Frankland noticed that the candles gave a very feeble light, and this observation induced him on his return to England to institute a series of experiments on the source of light in luminous flames. The results led him to believe that the light was not always due to solid particles, since many luminous flames had none, and he showed that incandescent gases and vapours emit light in proportion to their density - hydrogen, for example, having a luminous flame, if burnt in a pressure of 10 or 20 atmospheres. Other experiments, in which Sir Norman Locyker also had a share, he regarded as showing that brilliancy of light and continuity of spectrum are not peculiar to ignited solid or liquid matter, but that the same phenomenon is produced by the ignition of compressed gases. A consequence of this discovery was the conviction that the sun cannot be ignited solid or liquid matter, but that, at least, the photosphere, or outer layer of luminous matter, must consist of gases or vapours only.
In physiological chemistry he took part in a crucial experiment to settle the vexed question of the origin of muscular power. He, Fick, and Wislicenus proposed to confine themselves to a non-nitrogenous diet and ascend the Faulhorn, taking a strict account of the greatest possible muscular oxidation by determining the amount of nitrogen expelled from each body before, during, and after the ascent. In the end however, he was unable to make the experiment on his own person, but Fick and

Wislicenus performed the ascent while he did the difficult laboratory experiments and calculations necessary for the interpretation of the results. The latter, in his opinion, left little room for doubt. He thought it impossible to account for more than a small fraction of the work done in the ascent by the force evoked by the transformation of muscle into the quantities of its products observed by the experimenters, and he concluded that a large proportion at least of the force was developed by the oxidation of non-nitrogenous substances, such as fat. A few personal details of his life may be added. He held professorships of chemistry successively in Owens College, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the Royal Institution, where he followed Faraday, and the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, retiring from the last in 1885. The Royal Society, which made him a Fellow in 1853, gave him a Royal medal in 1857, and he also acted as it's

foreign secretary. Abroad, the French Academy of Sciences recognized his merits by making him a corresponding member in 1866, and he was also a foreign member of the Academies of Sciences of Bavaria, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Upsala, America, and Bohemia. Oxford gave him the degree of D.C.L. in 1873, and Edinburgh that of LL.S. in 1884. He was the first president, in 1877, of the Society of Chemical Industry, and served as president of the Chemical Society in 1871, being one of the six ex-presidents entertained at the recent banquet. The honor of K.C.B. was bestowed on him in 1897.
He was twice married, first to Sophie, daughter of Herr F. W. Fick, of Hesse-Cassel, who died in 1874, and second in 1875 to Ellen Frances, daughter of Mr. C. K. Grenside, of Wimbledon. She also predeceased him. Professor Percy Frankland, of Birmingham, is the second son of the first marriage.