Heriot-Watt College
What was the name of the employer William Henry Perkin Jr. work for from 1887 to 1892?
William Henry Perkin Jr . William Henry Perkin Jr. , FRS HFRSE ( 17 June 1860 – 17 September 1929 ) was an English organic chemist who was primarily known for his groundbreaking research work on the degradation of naturally occurring organic compounds . Early life . He was the eldest son of Sir William Henry Perkin who had founded the aniline dye industry , and was born at Sudbury , England , close to his fathers dyeworks at Greenford . His brother was Arthur George Perkin ( 1861–1937 ) , Professor of Colour Chemistry and Dyeing at the University of Leeds . Perkin was educated at the City of London School and then at the Royal College of Science , South Kensington , London , and then in Germany at the universities of Würzburg and Munich . At Munich , he was a doctoral student under Adolf von Baeyer . From 1883 to 1886 , he held the position of Privatdozent at the University of Munich . He never lost contact with his friend Baeyer , and delivered the memorial lecture following Baeyers death in 1917 . In 1887 he returned to Britain and became professor of chemistry at Heriot-Watt College , Edinburgh , Scotland , for which the Chemistry wing of the main campus is currently named The William Perkin Building . Manchester . In 1892 he accepted the chair of organic chemistry at Owens College , Manchester , England , succeeding Carl Schorlemmer , which he held until 1912 . During this period his stimulating teaching and brilliant researches attracted students from all parts , and he formed at Manchester a school of organic chemistry famous throughout Europe . This was possible because he was assigned new laboratory buildings , which he planned together with the famous architect Alfred Waterhouse , similar to those built by Baeyer in Munich . The speech at the opening ceremony was given by Ludwig Mond . An additional laboratory building together with a library and £20,300 , was a donation of the chemist and industrialist Edward Schunck in 1895 . His laboratory was removed brick by brick and recreated at Owens College . Frank Lee Pyman , Robert Robinson ( who later won a Nobel Prize in chemistry ) , Walter Haworth and Eduard Hope graduated at Owens College while Perkin was there . The conflict with Chaim Weizmann , who held a postdoctoral position and was a friend of Perkin , over the fermentation of starch to isoamyl alcohol which was the starting material for synthetic rubber and therefore industrially relevant , led to the dismissal of Weizmann . In 1912 , following a planned change in University politics involving industrial co-operations , which would have resulted in a significant loss of income for Perkin , he accepted a position in Oxford . Oxford . In 1912 he succeeded Professor William Odling as Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University , England , a position he held until 1929 . When he started five colleges had their own laboratories . He first had to move into the Odling laboratory , a replica of the mediaeval Abbots Kitchen at Glastonbury . During Perkins time there , new and more extensive laboratories were built ( the Dyson Perrins Laboratory ) , and for the first time in England a period of research became a necessary part of the academic course in chemistry for an honours degree . But the constant rivalry with the physical chemistry department , for example Frederick Soddy , lead to the situation that most of the graduates chose physical or inorganic chemistry as their subject , and Perkin got most of his postdoctoral employees from other universities . Published work . Perkins work was published in a series of papers in Transactions of the Chemical Society . The earlier papers dealt with the properties and modes of synthesis of cloud chain hydrocarbons and their derivatives . This work led naturally to the synthesis of many terpenes and members of the camphor group ; and also to the investigation of various alkaloids and natural dyes . In addition to purely scientific work , Perkin kept in close touch with the chemical industry . Together with his brother-in-law Professor Frederick Kipping , Perkin wrote textbooks on practical chemistry , inorganic and organic chemistry ; their Organic Chemistry appeared in 1899 . Honours and awards . Perkin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1890 and was awarded their Davy Medal in 1904 and their Royal Medal in 1925 . He was president of the Chemical Society from 1913 to 1916 and was awarded their Longstaff Medal in 1900 . In 1910 , he was made an honorary graduate of the University of Edinburgh , receiving the degree of Doctor of Laws ( LL.D. ) . Later life . In 1887 he married Mina Holland , one of three sisters . They had no children . Both of his brothers-in-law were eminent scientists themselves ( Arthur Lapworth and Frederick Kipping ) . He died in Oxford on 17 September 1929 and is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery there .