Sir William Ramsay

William Ramsay was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 2, 1852. His father, William Ramsay, was a civil engineer, and his mother was Catherine (née Robertson). He was an only child.⁠[1][2]

The geologist Sir Andrew Ramsay, the first Professor of Geology at University College London, was his uncle. In his early teens Ramsay experimented with making fireworks, using equipment and chemicals obtained by his father.⁠[1][3]

Ramsay studied at the University of GlasgowUniversity of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow is a research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1451, it describes itself as the fourth oldest university in the UK, and it is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry from 1866 to 1870. From 1869 he worked for about 18 months in the laboratory of the Glasgow city analyst Robert Tatlock to gain practical experience in chemistry.⁠[4][2]

In October 1870 Ramsay left Glasgow intending to study under Robert Bunsen at Heidelberg, but instead became a doctoral student of Rudolf Fittig at the University of Tübingen, where he received his PhD in 1872 for a thesis on orthotoluic acid and its derivatives.⁠[2][1]

After returning to Scotland in 1872, Ramsay became an assistant in chemistry at Anderson College, Glasgow. In 1874 he was appointed tutorial assistant in the Chemistry Department of the University of Glasgow, where he carried out research in organic chemistry.⁠[1][4]

In 1880 Ramsay was appointed Professor of Chemistry at University College, Bristol. In 1881 he succeeded Alfred Marshall as the college’s second Principal, while also giving more than sixty lectures a year and supervising the laboratory.⁠[3][5]

Between 1885 and 1890 Ramsay published studies on the oxides of nitrogen.⁠[6]

In 1881 Ramsay married Margaret, daughter of George Stevenson Buchanan; they had a son and a daughter.⁠[1]

In the same year he joined the Society of Chemical Industry at its foundation.⁠[7]

In 1887 Ramsay left Bristol to take the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, where he also headed the Department of Chemistry until his retirement in 1913.⁠[6][8]

From 1887 to 1902 the Ramsay family lived at 12 Arundel Gardens in Notting Hill, London; his joint paper with Morris Travers on the discovery of neon was written in his study there.⁠[3]

In 1888 Ramsay was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).⁠[2][3]

In 1894, after hearing a lecture by Lord Rayleigh, Ramsay began working with him, and in August that year the two announced the discovery of argon.⁠[7][6][3]

Later that year Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh received the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is a museum, education and research institution created by the U.S. Congress in 1846 with the bequest of the English scientist James Smithson. Based in Washington, D.C., it runs museums such as the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History, as well as the National Zoo.Open the full entry’s Hodgkins Prize.⁠[3]

In 1895, while searching mineral sources of argon, Ramsay liberated helium from the mineral cleveite; helium had previously been known only from the solar spectrum.⁠[2][6]

From 1895 to 1898 Ramsay spent three years refining his experiments in support of his theory of a group of inert gases.⁠[3]

In 1898 Ramsay and Morris W. Travers, testing gaps in Mendeleev’s periodic system, isolated neon, krypton and xenon.⁠[2][6]

In 1902 Ramsay was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (K.C.B.), becoming Sir William Ramsay.⁠[1][4]

In 1903 Ramsay and Frederick Soddy showed that helium is produced during the radioactive decay of radium, providing experimental evidence for Ernest Rutherford’s theory of radioactive disintegration.⁠[2][1][4]

Ramsay served as President of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1903–1904.⁠[7][3]

Ramsay was the sole recipient of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded “in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system.” At the time of the award he was affiliated with University College London.⁠[9][10]

Ramsay was the first Briton to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; in the same year Lord Rayleigh received the Nobel Prize in Physics.⁠[3][7]

On December 12, 1904, Ramsay delivered his Nobel Lecture, “The Rare Gases of the Atmosphere.”⁠[11]

Ramsay was President of the Chemical Society from 1907 to 1909.⁠[2]

In 1910 Ramsay and colleagues proved that radon was a sixth noble gas.⁠[2][7]

In 1911 Ramsay served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was appointed a Knight of the Prussian Order of Merit.⁠[2][3]

Ramsay died of cancer at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, on July 23, 1916.⁠[10][2]

After Ramsay’s death, the Ramsay Memorial Fellowships were endowed by public subscription to support young chemistry researchers in the United Kingdom; each Fellow must give one lecture at a university in Glasgow. The Ramsay Memorial Fellowships Trust that awards them was founded in 1920.⁠[8][12]

University College London held a series of events in 2004 to mark the centenary of Ramsay’s Nobel Prize. The first was a Centenary Memorial Dinner on June 3, co-hosted by the Department of Chemistry and the Ramsay Memorial Fellowships Trust, at which the Trust presented special Centenary Fellowships.⁠[12]

In February 2011 English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque to Ramsay at 12 Arundel Gardens, inscribed “Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY 1852-1916 Chemist Discoverer of the Noble Gases lived here 1887-1902.”⁠[3][7]

Ramsay discovered five of the six inert gases, argon, helium, krypton, neon and xenon, confirming a new group of elements in the periodic table.⁠[3][4]

He began his research career in organic chemistry, but his best-known discoveries were in inorganic chemistry.⁠[6]

Ramsay’s books include A System of Inorganic Chemistry and Elementary Systematic Chemistry for the Use of Schools and Colleges (both 1891), The Gases of the Atmosphere (1896) and Essays Biographical and Chemical (1908).⁠[2]

His biography was written by his friend and colleague Morris Travers.⁠[8]

Ramsay’s other honours included the Davy and Longstaff Medals, the Barnardo Medal, the A.W. Hofmann Medal (1903) and a French prize shared with Henri Moissan, as well as honorary membership of many academies and societies around the world.⁠[1]

He was made an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1896, and also received the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh and honorary degrees in Britain and abroad.⁠[3][4]

The University of Bristol lists Ramsay among its Nobel laureates, recording that he was Principal and Professor of Chemistry at University College, Bristol, the forerunner of the University of Bristol, from 1880 to 1887.⁠[13]

After Ramsay left in 1887 he was succeeded as Principal by Conwy Lloyd Morgan. He remained influential in the college’s campaign to become a university with its own Royal Charter, and in 1904, as a former Principal, he recommended Morris Travers for the post of Professor of Chemistry.⁠[5]

Ramsay was also a co-founder of the Bristol Scientific Club.⁠[7]