University College School, Frognal, Hampstead, London NW3 6XH, United Kingdom
Percy studied at University College School in London from 1869 to 1874.
College/University
Gallery of Percy Frankland
Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
Frankland entered the Royal School of Mines in 1875. His teachers there included his father and Thomas Henry Huxley.
Gallery of Percy Frankland
Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, German
From 1878 to 1880 Frankland studied organic chemistry under Wislicenus at the University of Würzburg, taking his Ph.D. summa cum laude in the latter year.
From 1878 to 1880 Frankland studied organic chemistry under Wislicenus at the University of Würzburg, taking his Ph.D. summa cum laude in the latter year.
Micro-Organisms in Water: Their Significance, Identification and Removal, Together with an Account of the Bacteriological Methods Employed in Their with the Sanitary Aspects of Water-Supply
Percy Faraday Frankland was a British chemist. He was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham.
Background
Percy Frankland was born on October 3, 1858, in London, United Kingdom. He was the second son of Edward Frankland, professor of chemistry at the Royal School of Mines in London. His middle name was given in honor of the eminent chemist Michael Faraday, who was his godfather.
Education
After studying at University College School in London from 1869 to 1874, Frankland entered the Royal School of Mines in 1875. His teachers there included his father and Thomas Henry Huxley. In 1877 he won a Brackenbury scholarship at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, but his father dissuaded him from a medical career and induced him to take up chemistry instead. From 1878 to 1880 he studied organic chemistry under Wislicenus at the University of Würzburg, taking his Ph.D. summa cum laude in the latter year.
After graduating, Percy was appointed demonstrator under his father at South Kensington, where the Royal School of Mines had been transferred and its name changed to the Normal School of science. He was professor of chemistry at University College, Dundee, from 1888 to 1894 and at Mason Science College (later the University of Birmingham) from 1894 to 1919. At the latter institution, he also served as dean of the Faculty of Science from 1913 until his retirement. He was president of the Institute of Chemistry from 1906 to 1909 and of the Chemical Society in 1912 and 1913. During World War I, Frankland worked with the Chemical Warfare Committee on synthetic drugs, explosives, and mustard gas.
Frankland’s early research work seems to have been strongly influenced by his father. In the early 1880’s he undertook a systematic study of the coal gas supplied to consumers in the larger British towns, thus following a path his father had trod thirty years before. Comparing his results with his father’s, Frankland noted that the nitrogen content had increased because of a change in the methods of combustion. This study led to the publication of a series of five papers on the illuminating power of various hydrocarbons.
Frankland’s interest in water analysis probably also derived originally from his father, who had concentrated on the purely chemical aspects of water analysis. Frankland was also attracted to its biological or bacteriological aspects. From 1885 to 1895 much of his research had as its goal the elucidation of the chemical reactions taking place in the presence of fermentative bacteria, and especially the development of effective methods for analyzing and preventing the bacterial contamination of water supplies. Largely as a result of his efforts, a monthly bacteriological examination of London’s water supplies was inaugurated in 1885. He tested the efficacy of such materials as coke and greensand as agents for filtering bacteria from water and studied alterations in the viability and virulence of the anthrax and typhoid bacilli in drinking water. From 1892 to 1895 Frankland was coauthor, with Harry Marshall Ward, of four experimentally based reports to the Water Research Committee of the Royal Society. He also acted as a private consultant to many of the largest water companies in Great Britain. His experience in original research added to the authority of his book, written with his wife, Microorganisms in Water: Their Significance, Identification, and Removal. Frankland also wrote a more popular book on bacteriology, Our Secret Friends and Foes, which went through four editions by 1899.
Most of Frankland’s research concerned the stereochemistry of optically active substances. His interest in this topic was first aroused while he was working on his Ph.D. under Wislicenus, and it ultimately became his major preoccupation. By carrying out an exhaustive study of the rotatory effects of a large number of molecular groups, Frankland developed valuable methods for testing the quantitative relationship between molecular structure and degree of optical activity. Although he thought he had uncovered a few regularities, he admitted that his research had not produced any broad generalizations. His work showed mainly that the relationship between structure and optical activity was too complex to be explained by existing theories. No great original contributions resulted from his bacteriological work either.
In his scientific interests and approach, Frankland recognized a kinship between himself and Louis Pasteur. With his wife he wrote an admirable biography bearing the simple title Pasteur, to which William Bulloch frequently referred in his History of Bacteriology.
Frankland was a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Personality
A leading advocate of original research by students, Frankland was considered an inspiring, if rather stern and demanding, teacher.
Connections
Frankland’s wife, Grace Coleridge Toynbee, whom he married in 1882, was the youngest daughter of Joseph Toynbee, the pioneer ear specialist. She was herself a research bacteriologist and frequently contributed to her husband’s scientific work. They had a son, Edward.