Carl Schorlemmer FRS (30 September 1834 – 27 June 1892) was a German chemist who did research on hydrocarbons and contributed to the study of the history of chemistry.

Early life and education

Schorlemmer was born in 1834, the son of a

joiner Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes (such as laminate), to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives, ...

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

. He was able to visit

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and later — against the will of his poor father —

trade school A vocational school (alternatively known as a trade school, or technical school), is a type of educational institution, which, depending on the country, may refer to either secondary or post-secondary education designed to provide vocational ...

. Schorlemmer started his training to become a pharmacist in 1853 in

Groß-Umstadt Groß-Umstadt (, , in contrast to " Little Umstadt") is a town in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in the Bundesland (federal state) of Hesse in Germany. It is near Darmstadt and Frankfurt, in the southeastern part of the Rhine-Main Metropolitan ...

. During his training he made own chemical experiments in the laboratory and was interested in

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

and

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. After two and a half years he passed his exam, became an assistant pharmacist and worked in the Schwanen pharmacy in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. Having attended some lectures of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, he studied pharmacy and chemistry in

and in

Gießen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the German state () of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 university students. Th ...

(where he attended lectures of Heinrich Will and

Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp (30 October 1817 – 20 February 1892), German chemist, was born at Hanau, where his father, Johann Heinrich Kopp (1777–1858), a physician, was professor of chemistry, physics and natural history at the local lyceu ...

, a historian of chemistry). He later became demonstrator at

Owens College Owens may refer to: Places in the United States * Owens Station, Delaware * Owens Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota * Owens, Missouri * Owens, Ohio * Owens, Texas * Owens, Virginia People * Owens (surname), including a list of people with ...

in Manchester with

Henry Enfield Roscoe Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (7 January 1833 – 18 December 1915) was a British chemist. He is particularly noted for early work on vanadium, photochemical studies, and his assistance in creating Oxo, in its earlier liquid form. Life and work ...

and was elected to membership of the

Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit. & Phil., is one of the oldest learned societies in the United Kingdom and second oldest provincial learned society (after the Spalding Gentlemen's Society). Promi ...

on 13.12.1870

Professorship

From 1874 on, Schorlemmer was professor of organic chemistry in Manchester. Schorlemmer became a member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in the UK in 1871. In 1878, he was elected as a member to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

Research topics and achievements

* Developed a method to convert a secondary alcohol into a primary alcohol * Proved that "ethane" and "ethyl hydride" are identical * Research on paraffin hydrocarbons, the compounds aurin, rosaniline, suberone, and

safranin Safranin (Safranin O or basic red 2) is a biological stain used in histology and cytology. Safranin is used as a counterstain in some staining protocols, colouring cell nuclei red. This is the classic counterstain in both Gram stains and endo ...

, and topics in the

history of chemistry The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Examples include the discovery of fire, ex ...

Death

Towards the end of Schorlemmer's life, his health worsened. He died due to a lung disease at his house in Manchester on June 27, 1892. He was unmarried.

Connections with Marx and Engels

Schorlemmer was a friend of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. His sociological analysis of the history of chemistry had a significant influence on Engels and Marx's views on the development of

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

. At Schorlemmer's death, Engels published an obituary in ''

Vorwärts ( ; "Forward") is a newspaper published by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Founded in 1876, it was the central organ of the SPD for many decades. Following the party's Halle Congress (1891), it was published daily as the success ...

'', the central organ of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

. Engels said that Schorlemmer spent his holidays regularly in London with Marx and Engels when he did not visit Germany. Engels also claimed in his obituary that Schorlemmer was open about his allegiance to the Communist cause, and that Schorlemmer was unusual in that he held the German philosopher

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

in high regard at a time when the latter was "much despised". Engels added that, "What we know today about paraffins, we owe mainly to Schorlemmer... Thus he became one the joint founders of today's scientific organic chemistry." For this connection with Marx and Engels, Schorlemmer is sometimes referred to as the "red" chemist.*

Writings

Schorlemmer wrote several books about organic chemistry, the most important one being ''A Treatise on Chemistry'' (1874), which he co-authored with Henry Roscoe. Schorlemmer is considered to have made an essential contribution to the history of chemistry as an academic field in his later works, culminating in his book ''The Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry''. Towards the end of his life, Schorlemmer began to write a book about the history of chemistry from antiquity to the 17th century. He died before finishing his work, so it was never published, the manuscript covers about 1,100 pages and is stored in

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

Selected writings

''A Manual of Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds; or, Organic Chemistry''
(1874)
''A Treatise on Chemistry''
(1877) - with Henry Roscoe
''Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry''
(1879)