Lyon Playfair

Background

Lyon Playfair was born at Chunar, Bengal on May 1, 1818. He was the son of George Playfair (1782-1846), Inspector General of Hospitals in that region, and Janet Ross (1795-1862), daughter of John Ross. Eventually, Playfair was brought up by relatives in Scotland.

Education

After school in St. Andrews, Playfair attended Arts courses in St. Andrews University from 1832-34. In Playfair's chemical education the chief influence was Thomas Graham under whom he studied at the Andersonian College in Glasgow (1835-37) and whose private assistant he became at University College, London, in 1838. In the following year, on Graham's advice, Playfair went to study under Liebig at Giessen where he graduated Ph.D. in 1841.

Career

Playfair spent 1839-1841 in Liebig’s laboratory at Giessen, where he did outstanding work on myristic acid and caryophyllene; he increased his reputation by translating Liebig’s Die organische Chemie in ihre Anwendung auf Agricultur and Physiologie into English. After leaving Germany, Playfair became a chemical manager at the Primrose Mill, near Clitheroe, Lancashire; but, sensing a decline in trade, he left in the autumn of 1842 to become a professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, Manchester. During his three years there, Playfair collaborated with Joule on laborious but ultimately fruitless work on the atomic volumes of substances in solution; he also worked with Bunsen on the analysis of blast-furnace gases.

In 1842 Playfair’s application for a chair in chemistry at Toronto had elicited the unprecedented intervention of the prime minister (Sir Robert Peel), who offered Playfair an important post if he would stay in Britain. This offer could not be implemented until 1845 when he became a chemist to the Geological Survey and professor of chemistry at the new School of Mines. Meanwhile, however, he was much in governmental favor and served on important Royal Commissions on the Health of Towns and on the Irish Potato Famine. In 1848 Playfair was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and was subsequently Prince Albert’s chief adviser on the Great Exhibition of 1851. While holding the post of inspector of schools of science in London (1850-1858) he made his most important discovery, the nitroprussides.

In 1858 Playfair accepted the chair of chemistry at Edinburgh with high hopes, although in his eleven years there he achieved little. In 1868, as a Liberal party candidate, he was elected Member of Parliament for the universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and the rest of his life was spent in politics.

He was active in the cause of universal compulsory education (1870) and took a prominent part in the reform of the Civil Service; he was briefly postmaster general (1873-1874) under Gladstone and deputy speaker of the House of Commons (1880-1883).

He played an important role, however, as one of the first government scientists in Britain.

Achievements

• Playfair's major achievement was in becoming a great spokesman for technical and scientific education; with his wide circle of friends in high places, including Prince Albert, he has been compared to Joseph Banks as an influential figure. He promoted awareness of the importance of science for the prosperity of the country.
  
  Of Playfair's contributions to pure chemistry, the most important was the discovery and investigation of the nitroprussides, and to applied chemistry, the work undertaken by him and Bunsen on the gases evolved in iron furnaces.
  
  Playfair's greatest service to the University was in the institution of Degrees in Science. At this time there were Edinburgh Degrees in Arts, Divinity, Law, and Medicine; Chemistry and some other sciences, e.g. Botany, were in the Faculty of Medicine and classes in these subjects were only for Medical students. In February 1863 Playfair proposed in the Senate, the body regulating the academic affairs of the University, "That a Committee be appointed to consider the best means by which a Degree in Science may be initiated in this University". The Senate agreed and a Committee of ten was appointed with Playfair as Convener. The Committee's proposals were reported to the Senate in December and in February 1864 were generally accepted, John Goodsir, Professor of Anatomy, alone dissenting.
  
  In 1848 Lyon Playfair was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and was subsequently Prince Albert’s chief adviser on the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was knighted on retirement from this office, and in 1892 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Playfair of St. Andrews. He was awarded the Harben Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of Public Health in 1897. Playfair is also remembered for promoting a new cipher system invented by Charles Wheatstone, now known as the Playfair cipher.

Works

More photos

• article

  • On the Aid given to Fisheries, etc., in North America 1885
  • Lecture on the Applications of Physiology to the Rearing and Feeding of Cattle 1843
  • On the Treatment of Decayed Potatoes, and on Seed for a future Year 1846
  • Analysis of the Soil and Subsoil of a very Productive Field near Sutton, in Norfolk 1846
  • On Patents and the new Patent Bill 1877
  • On The Nitroprussides, a New Class of Salts 1849
  • Lord Armstrong and technical education 1888
  • Report on the Gases Evolved from Iron Furnaces, with Reference to the Theory of the Smelting of Iron 1846

• book

  • Small-Pox and Vaccination 1883
  • Subjects of Social Welfare 1889
  • On Teaching Universities and Examining Boards 1873
  • The Presidential Election in the United States 1888
  • On Industrial Competition And Commercial Freedom, An Address 1882
  • Science in Its Relations to Labour 1853
  • Chemistry in Its Application to Agriculture and Physiology 1842
  • On The Origin of Muscular Force in Animals 1866
  • Analysis of a Marl which, having been used for Manure, rendered the subsequent Application of Bones inoperative. 1846

Politics

In 1868, as a Liberal party candidate, Playfair was elected Member of Parliament for the universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and the rest of his life was spent in politics.

Views

Quotations: "An ignorant or half-informed teacher may present science as an accumulation of unconnected facts. … To teach in that fashion is like going to the tree of science with its glorious fruit in order to pick up a handful of the dry fallen leaves from the ground."

"I have now said enough to show you that it is indispensable for this country to have a scientific education in connexion with manufacturers if we wish to outstrip the intellectual competition which now, happily for the world, prevails in all departments of industry. As surely as darkness follows the setting of the sun, so surely will England recede as a manufacturing nation, unless her industrial population become much more conversant with science than they are now."

"We are sometimes told that chemistry is a modern science: that is not true. The moment that men’s minds began to experiment on the constitution of matter, there was a science of chemistry."

Membership

In 1848 Playfair was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1859 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was also a member of the Chemical Society where he also served as a President in 1857.

• 

  Royal Society , United Kingdom

  1848 - 1898

• 

  Royal Society of Edinburgh , United Kingdom

  1859 - 1898

Personality

Short in stature and with more than his share of Victorian pomposity and wordiness, Playfair openly sought the company of the exalted and successful and was consequently disliked by many.

Quotes from others about the person

• Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer: "At present good work in science pays less well very often than mediocrity in other subjects. This, as was pointed out by Sir Lyon Playfair in his Presidential Address to the British Association in 1885 helps to arrest progress in science teaching."

Connections

Playfair married three times. He firstly married Margaret Eliza Oakes, daughter of James Oakes, in 1846. After her death in August 1855, he married Jean Ann Millington, daughter of Crawley Millington, in 1857. There were children from both marriages. Jean Ann died in 1877 and is buried in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh facing the section known as "Lords Row". After her death, he married Edith Russell of Boston, whose 1884 portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Father:

George Macdonald Playfair

1782-1846

Mother:

Janet Ross

1795-1862

Friend:

Prince Albert

Playfair became great friends with the Prince Consort (1819-1861) who himself as a German citizen and educated in Germany shared a commitment to technical education and provided significant support to advocates of technical education during his life.

Wife:

Edith Russell

died 1932

Uncle:

Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair

Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (20 February 1787 – 19 January 1861) was a Scottish politician, army officer, and photographic pioneer. He was Provost of St Andrews from 1842 until his death in 1861.

ex wife:

Margaret Eliza

died 1855

ex wife:

Jean Millington

died 1877

Brother:

William Smoult Playfair

Doctor William Smoult Playfair (1835-1903); Professor of Surgery, Calcutta Medical College (1856); Professor of Obstetric Surgery, King's College, London; President of the Obstetric Society, London; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh.

Brother:

Robert Lambert Playfair

Sir Robert Lambert Playfair (1828-1899). He was in the Indian Political Service before becoming Consul-General of Algeria.

Daughter:

Jessie Anne Stewart (Playfair)

1847-1927

Son:

George James Playfair

1849-1939

collaborator:

James Joule

Playfair collaborated with Joule on laborious but ultimately fruitless work on the atomic volumes of substances in solution; he also worked with Bunsen on the analysis of blast-furnace gases.

teacher:

Thomas Graham

teacher:

Justus Liebig

supporter:

Thomas Huxley

One of Playfair's greatest supporters and someone who continued to lobby for science and technology was the great scientist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895).

colleague:

Robert Angus Smith

Robert Angus Smith (15 February 1817 – 12 May 1884) was a Scottish chemist, who investigated numerous environmental issues. He is known for his research on air pollution in 1852, in the course of which he discovered what came to be known as acid rain. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Acid Rain". In Manchester Institution he worked with Lyon Playfair.

References

• Memoirs and correspondence of Lyon Playfair
  1976
• Sir Lyon Playfair Taken to Pieces and Disposed of: Likewise Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart., Being a Dissection of Their Speeches in the House of Commons
  2016
• Chemistry in Its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology: Edited from the Manuscript of the Author by Lyon Playfair. from the Last London Edition, Much Improved
  2016
• Lyon Playfair (1818-1898)
  1970
• Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair, First Lord Playfair of St. Andrews
  1899
• List of the Papers and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair, First Baron Playfair of St. Andrews, preserved in the Imperial College Archives
  1967