Thomas Stewart Patterson

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 Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

LLD (1872–1949) was a Scottish organic chemist.

Early life and education

He was born in

Greenock Greenock (; ; , ) is a town in Inverclyde, Scotland, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The town is the administrative centre of Inverclyde Council. It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms ...

, in 1872, but his family came to Edinburgh in his youth and he was then educated at Merchiston Castle School. He then studied Chemistry at Andersonian college in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

under Prof William Dittmar. He then went to

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 ...

where he gained his first doctorate (PhD) in 1896. He was greatly influenced there by

Victor Meyer Viktor Meyer (8 September 18488 August 1897) was a German chemist and significant contributor to both organic chemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry. He is best known for inventing an apparatus for determining vapour densities, the Viktor Meye ...

. Returning to Britain, he was the first Priestley scholar at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

. In 1904, he began lecturing in Chemistry at Glasgow University. In 1919, he became the first Gardiner chair of Organic Chemistry.

Career

In 1919, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) 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 establis ...

. His proposers were Alexander Gray, George Alexander Gibson, John Glaister, Diarmid Noel Paton, Ralph Stockman, Thomas Hastie Bryce, Robert Muir, Frederick Orpen Bower and Robert Alexander Houston. He resigned from the Society in 1931. He retired in 1942 and died in 1949.

Publications

*''An International Language for Chemistry'' (1924)

References

1872 births 1949 deaths British organic chemists 20th-century Scottish chemists People educated at Merchiston Castle School People from Greenock Academics of the University of Glasgow Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh {{UK-chemist-stub