During his three-year stay on a farm, Augustus Matthiessen nevertheless developed an interest in chemistry. At this time agricultural chemistry was attracting wide attention as a result of the writings of Liebig. It, therefore, was natural for Matthiessen to choose the University of Giessen to continue his education in chemistry, and he took his Doctor of Philosophy there in 1853.
Career
Achievements
Membership
Royal Society
1861 - 1870
Augustus Matthiessen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1861.
During his three-year stay on a farm, Augustus Matthiessen nevertheless developed an interest in chemistry. At this time agricultural chemistry was attracting wide attention as a result of the writings of Liebig. It, therefore, was natural for Matthiessen to choose the University of Giessen to continue his education in chemistry, and he took his Doctor of Philosophy there in 1853.
Augustus Matthiessen was a British chemist an physicist. He is known for his work on the isolation of calcium and strontium in their pure states.
Background
Augustus Matthiessen was born on January 2, 1831, in London, City of London, United Kingdom to the family of a merchant. As a young child, Matthiessen suffered a seizure that left him handicapped with a permanent twitching of the right hand. As a result, he was considered unfit physically for most careers and was sent to learn farming.
Education
During his three-year stay on a farm, Augustus Matthiessen nevertheless developed an interest in chemistry. At this time agricultural chemistry was attracting wide attention as a result of the writings of Liebig. It, therefore, was natural for Matthiessen to choose the University of Giessen to continue his education in chemistry, and he took his Doctor of Philosophy there in 1853.
From 1853 to 1857 Matthiessen worked in Bunsen’s laboratory at the University of Heidelberg. Under Bunsen’s direction, Matthiessen prepared significant quantities of lithium, strontium, magnesium, and calcium by electrolysis of their fused salts. He then carried out a study with Kirchhoff on the electrical conductivity of these metals and of sodium and potassium.
In 1857 Matthiessen left Heidelberg and returned to London. He worked for a few months in Hofmann’s laboratory at the Royal College of Chemistry. Here he studied the steps in the action of nitrous acid on aniline. Soon he moved to a small laboratory in his home and worked there for four years. At this time he began one of his most important studies, on the chemistry of narcotine and related opium alkaloids. In 1861 Matthiessen was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He held the lectureship in chemistry at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School from 1862 to 1868, and then became a lecturer at St. Bartholomew's Medical School, both schools of the University of London. During this time he pursued research on the electrical, physical, and chemical properties of metals and their alloys. From 1862 to 1865 he served on the British Association Committee on the Standards of Electrical Resistance. Augustus Matthiessen committed suicide on 6 October 1870.