Thomas Martin Lowry (; 26 October 1874 – 2 November 1936) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

physical chemist Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mech ...

who developed the

Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory The Brønsted–Lowry theory (also called proton theory of acids and bases) is an acid–base reaction theory which was proposed independently by Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry in 1923. The fundamental concept of this the ...

simultaneously with and independently of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and was a founder-member and president (1928–1930) of the

Faraday Society The Faraday Society was a British society for the study of physical chemistry, founded in 1903 and named in honour of Michael Faraday. In 1980, it merged with several similar organisations, including the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Che ...

Biography

Lowry was born in

Low Moor, Bradford Low Moor is a village in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. History Before 1790 Low Moor was nothing but a hamlet where a small number of cottages housed a few handloom weavers who sold their produce ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, England, in a Cornish family. He was the second son of the Reverend E. P. Lowry who was the minister of the

Wesleyan Church The Wesleyan Church, also known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Wesleyan Holiness Church depending on the region, is a Methodist Christian denomination in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, Sierra Leone, L ...

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alder ...

from 1892 to 1919. He was educated at

Kingswood School (''In The Right Way Quickly'') , established = , closed = , type = Independent , religious_affiliation = Methodist , president = , head_label = Headmaste ...

, Bath, Somerset, and then at the

Central Technical College The City and Guilds of London Institute is an educational organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded on 11 November 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies – to develop a national system of technical education, the institute has ...

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

. During those years he realized that he wanted to be a chemist. He studied chemistry under

Henry Edward Armstrong Henry Edward Armstrong FRS FRSE (Hon) (6 May 1848 – 13 July 1937) was a British chemist. Although Armstrong was active in many areas of scientific research, such as the chemistry of naphthalene derivatives, he is remembered today largely for h ...

, an English chemist whose interests were primarily in

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...

but also included the nature of

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...

s in aqueous solutions. From 1896 to 1913 Lowry was assistant to Armstrong, and between 1904 and 1913 worked as lecturer in chemistry at the Westminster Training College. In 1913, he was appointed head of the chemical department in Guy’s Hospital Medical and became the first teacher of chemistry in a Medical School to be made a University Professor, at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. From 1920 till his death, Lowry served as the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. He married a daughter of the Rev. C. Wood in 1904 and was survived by his widow, two sons and a daughter. Since the establishment of the Faraday Society in 1903, Lowry had been its active member and served as its president between 1928 and 1930. In 1914 he was elected a fellow 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 ...

. During and after the World War I, Lowry acted as director of shell-filling (1917–1919) and worked for the Trench Warfare Committee, Chemical Warfare Committee and Ordnance Committee. For this service, he was awarded the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.

Research

In 1898, Lowry noted the change in optical rotation on nitro-''d''-camphor with time and invented the term ''mutarotational'' to describe this phenomenon. He studied changes in optical rotation caused by acid- and base-

catalyzed Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

reactions of camphor derivatives. This led in 1923 to his formulation of the protonic definition of acids and bases, now known as

, independently of the work by Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted.Brönsted, J. N. (1923) "Einige Bemerkungen über den Begriff der Säuren und Basen" (Some observations about the concept of acids and bases), ''Recueil des Travaux Chimiques des Pays-Bas'', 42 (8) : 718–728. Lowry published a few hundred papers and several books. His 1935 monograph on "Optical Rotatory Power" (1935) has long been regarded as a standard work on the subject.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, Thomas Martin 1874 births 1936 deaths English physical chemists Scientists from Bradford Fellows of the Royal Society Professors of Physical Chemistry (Cambridge)