Professor Edmund Albert Letts

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This so ...

FCS FIC (27 August 1852 – 19 February 1918) was a 19th-century English chemist. He was a pioneer of analytical chemistry. The

Letts Nitrile Synthesis The Letts nitrile synthesis is a chemical reaction of aromatic carboxylic acids with metal thiocyanates to form nitriles. The reaction includes the loss of carbon dioxide and potassium hydrosulfide. The polar basic substitution reaction was ...

is named after him. He spent much time analysing the content of carbon dioxide in air and water and the latter part of his life looked at pollution in tidal waters. Queens University Belfast give a Letts Chemical Research Scholarship in his memory.

Life

He was born at Clare Lodge in Sydenham in

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on 27 August 1852 the son of Emma Harwood Barrie and her husband, Thomas Letts. He was educated at Bishop's Stortford School in Hertfordshire. He studied science at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King' ...

then undertook postgraduate studies at both

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and

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. Aged 20 he became Chief Assistant in the Chemistry Department of the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. In 1876 he became the first Professor of Chemistry at

University College, Bristol University College, Bristol was an educational institution which existed from 1876 to 1909. It was the predecessor institution to the University of Bristol, which gained a royal charter in 1909. During its time the college mainly served the mi ...

, aged 24. Only three years later he transferred to

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to be Professor of Chemistry at

Queens College, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

where he then remained for 38 years. In 1874 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were

Alexander Crum Brown Alexander Crum Brown FRSE FRS (26 March 1838 – 28 October 1922) was a Scottish organic chemist. Alexander Crum Brown Road in Edinburgh's King's Buildings complex is named after him. Early life and education Crum Brown was born at 4 Bell ...

Joseph Lister Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, (5 April 182710 February 1912) was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine. Joseph Lister revolutionised the craft of ...

Peter Guthrie Tait Peter Guthrie Tait FRSE (28 April 1831 – 4 July 1901) was a Scottish mathematical physicist and early pioneer in thermodynamics. He is best known for the mathematical physics textbook ''Treatise on Natural Philosophy'', which he co-wrote wi ...

and

Sir James Dewar Sir James Dewar (20 September 1842 – 27 March 1923) was a British chemist and physicist. He is best known for his invention of the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction with research into the liquefaction of gases. He also studied ato ...

. He won the Society’s

Keith Prize The Keith Medal was a prize awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy, for a scientific paper published in the society's scientific journals, preference being given to a paper containing a discovery, either in mathem ...

for the period 1887-89. He retired to South View on the

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, his father’s holiday home, in 1917. He was killed in a cycling accident on the Isle of Wight on 19 February 1918.

Publications

*''Qualitative Analysis Tables'' (1892) *''Some Fundamental Problems of Chemistry, Old and New'' (1914)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Letts, Edmund Albert 1852 births 1918 deaths Alumni of King's College London British chemists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Chemical Society