Background
Edward Frankland Armstrong was born on September 5, 1878 in London, England. He was the eldest son of Henry Edward Armstrong, a fellow of the Royal Society.
Armstrong originally attended the St Dunstan’s College in Catford.
Armstrong continued his studies at the Royal College of Science at seventeen years old.
Edward went to Germany, where in 1898 he completed his training in organic chemistry with Claisen and in physical chemistry with van’t Hoff at the University of Berlin, where he received the Ph.D. in 1901.
Armstrong was a member of the Royal Society of Arts from 1938 to 1945.
Armstrong was awarded the Chevreul Medal from the French Chemical Society.
Armstrong was awarded the Medal of the Chemical Industry Society.
chemist Industrialist scientist
Edward Frankland Armstrong was born on September 5, 1878 in London, England. He was the eldest son of Henry Edward Armstrong, a fellow of the Royal Society.
Armstrong originally attended the St Dunstan’s College in Catford (the administrative center of Lewisham). At seventeen, he continued his studies at the Royal College of Science and a year later became a scholar of the City of London Institute (The Central Technical College), where his father was a professor of chemistry since 1884.
Then, on the advice of his father, Edward went to Germany, where in 1898 he completed his training in organic chemistry with Claisen and in physical chemistry with van’t Hoff at the University of Berlin, where he received the Ph.D. in 1901.
After receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1901, Edward Armstrong conducted research with Emil Fischer, work that aroused his lifelong interest in carbohydrates. He returned to London to continue work on disaccharides, glucosides, and enzymes at Central Technical College, for which he received the first D.Sc. by research of the University of London.
In 1905 Armstrong entered the chemical industry but continued with his research; his monograph on carbohydrates—one of the first—appeared in 1910. He was intimately involved in the negotiations that resulted in the formation of Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., one of the largest industrial concerns in Great Britain. During World War I, he and associates solved a problem of great wartime importance—the large-scale catalytic production of acetic acid and acetone from ethyl alcohol. This was an important application of his extensive research on heterogeneous catalysis.
During World War II, Armstrong served as scientific adviser to several important governmental agencies. At his untimely death he was a principal adviser to the British delegates and a delegate to the founding conference of UNESCO.
From 1928 Armstrong was a consultant to the chemical industry.
He died on December 14, 1945 in London after surgery for appendicitis at the age of 67 and was interred at the Golders Green Crematorium cemetery.
Armstrong was a member of the Society of Chemical Industry, Association of British Chemical Manufacturers, and British Association of Chemists. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Arts.
In 1907 Edward Armstrong married Ethel Mary Turpin from Plumstead, Kent county. They moved to Reading where they had two sons: Kenneth and Maurice (died at an early age). Two other children were born in Warrington: Richard Giles and Joyce Mary. During later years he lived with his family in their own home in Greenbank, Latchford.