Sir Edward Frankland, (18 January 18259 August 1899) was an English chemist. He was one of the originators of organometallic chemistry and introduced the concept of combining power or valence.

An expert in water quality and analysis, he was a member of the second royal commission on the pollution of rivers, and studied London's water quality for decades. He established the then revolutionary possibility of biological treatment of sewage using a contact bed to oxidize the waste. This concept was taken up by the chief chemist for the London Metropolitan Board of Works, William Dibdin, in 1887.

He also studied luminous flames and the effects of atmospheric pressure on dense ignited gas, and was one of the discoverers of helium.

Biography

thumb|Edward Frankland's indenture

Edward Frankland was born in Catterall, Lancashire and baptised at Churchtown, Lancashire on 20 February 1825. As his baptismal record shows, his birth was illegitimate. His natural father was Edward Chaddock Gorst, the father of John Eldon Gorst. His mother, Margaret "Peggy" Frankland, later married William Helm, a Lancaster cabinet-maker. "His illegitimacy cast a shadow over all his life since he was pledged to silence as to the identity of his natural father, although a handsome annuity was paid to his mother".

From age 3 to 8 Edward lived and was educated in Manchester, Churchtown, Salford and his duties included "mortar and pestle work", pounding and mixing large quantities of chemicals to create medicinal preparations such as ointments. Others in that youthful circle were the scientific writer Robert Galloway (also apprenticed to Ross) and the anatomist William Turner.

In January 1850, Lyon Playfair revealed his intention to resign from his professorship at Putney College for Civil Engineers in London and arrange to have Frankland become his successor. Hence Frankland abruptly terminated his studies in Germany and returned to take up Playfair's former position in England. A year later Frankland became professor of chemistry at a newly established school now known as the University of Manchester. In 1857, he became lecturer in chemistry at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and, in 1863, professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, London. For two decades Frankland also had a teaching role at the Royal School of Mines in London;

Edward Frankland was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853. He was awarded the Society's Royal Medal in 1857 and its Copley Medal in 1894 and was also a member of the X Club. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1897. They had first met on Frankland's 1847 trip. After Sophie's death from tuberculosis in 1874, in 1875 Edward Frankland married Ellen Frances Grenside. whilst on a holiday in Norway. His body was returned to Britain and he was buried near his home in Reigate, Surrey.

Frankland's papers are held at The University of Manchester Library.

Scientific work

thumb|200px|Edward Frankland

From an early age, Frankland engaged in original research with great success. Analytical problems, such as the isolation of certain organic radicals, attracted his attention at first, but he soon turned to chemical syntheses. Robert Bunsen is believed to have directed his students, Edward Frankland and Hermann Kolbe, to the investigation of cacodyl, leading to Frankland's discovery of organometallic compounds. After his return to England Frankland achieved the synthesis of diethylzinc and dimethylzinc by the reaction of ethyl iodide and methyl iodide with metallic zinc.

The theoretical deductions Frankland drew from considering these bodies were even more interesting and important than the bodies themselves. Perceiving a molecular isonomy between them and the inorganic compounds of the metals from which they may be formed, Frankland saw their true molecular type in the oxygen, sulphur or chlorine compounds of those metals, from which he held them to be derived by the substitution of an organic group for the oxygen, sulphur, &c. In this way they enabled him to overthrow the theory of conjugate compounds, and they further led him in 1852 to publish the conception that the atoms of each elementary substance have a definite saturation capacity, so that they can only combine with a certain limited number of the atoms of other elements. The theory of valency thus founded has dominated the subsequent development of chemical doctrine, and forms the groundwork upon which the fabric of modern structural chemistry reposes.

In applied chemistry Frankland's great work was in connection with water-supply. Appointed a member of the second royal commission on the pollution of rivers in 1868, he was provided by the government with a completely equipped laboratory, in which, for a period of six years, he carried on the inquiries necessary for the purposes of that body, and was thus the means of bringing to light an enormous amount of valuable information respecting the contamination of rivers by sewage, trade-refuse, &c., and the purification of water for domestic use. In 1865, when he succeeded August Wilhelm von Hofmann at the School of Mines, he undertook the duty of making monthly reports to the registrar-general on the character of the water supplied to London, and these he continued down to the end of his life. At one time he was an unsparing critic of its quality, but in later years he became strongly convinced of its general excellence and wholesomeness.

Awards and honours

  • Fellow of the Royal Society, 1853
  • National Chemical Landmark Blue plaque from the Royal Society of Chemistry, at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, 2015
  • Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, for Frankland's 1852 publication on the discovery of the theory of valence, awarded to the University of Manchester, 2015
  • Elected to membership of The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 18 January 1825..

Bibliography

  • (collected papers to 1877)
  • Ueber die Isolirung des Aethyls. Inaugural-Dissertation, welche mit Genehmigung der philosophischen Facultät zu Marburg zur Erlangung der Doctorwürde einreicht Edward Frankland aus Lancaster. Marburg, 1849. Druck von George Westermann in Braunschweig. [45 pages].

References

  • , Audio program and transcript about Frankland
  • Frankland Family Archive, University of Manchester Library.