Chemistry

From Special Collections Research Center Wiki

"The study of Chemistry has a long and rich history at the College of William and Mary, with references dating back to Thomas Jefferson. In 1905, chemistry became an autonomous department with its own professor. Van Franklin Garrett (A.M., M.D.), who had been Professor of Natural Science since 1888, became the first Professor of Chemistry. Chemistry has continued with vigor since that time."[1]

"The first references to the teaching of chemistry at William and Mary occur near the end of the 18th century. (In 1723 monies from the estate of the famous chemist Robert Boyle were given to erect the College’s Brafferton building; however, this was to house the Indian School, not scientific studies.) Thomas Jefferson mentioned chemistry when he wrote: 'What are the objects of an useful American Education? Classical knowledge, modern languages, chiefly French, Spanish and Italian; mathematics, natural philosophy, natural history, civil history, and ethics. In natural philosophy I mean to include chemistry and agriculture, and in natural history to include botany, as well as the other branches of those departments. It is true that the habit of speaking the modern languages cannot be so well acquired in America; but every other article can be as well acquired at William and Mary as at any place in Europe.'"[2]

"Bishop James Madison, president of the College from 1777 to 1812 and the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, included lectures on chemistry in his Natural Philosophy curriculum as early as 1772. Topics in his syllabus at the turn of the century included: Chemical Affinity; Of the Properties of Air; Of Air as Necessary to Combustion, etc.; Of some Gasses (sic) [oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen]; Of Nitrous Air [including also “of carbonic acid, of the analysis of atmosphere air”]; etc. Madison was a member of the American Philosophical Society and contributed a number of original papers to its scientific journals."[3]

"The “modern” era of chemistry at William and Mary can reasonably be said to have begun with the completion of a spacious three-story chemistry-physics building Rogers Hall (1927) (the present-day Tyler Hall) in 1927. At this time William George Guy joined the chemistry faculty, having completed study at Oxford as a Rhodes’ Scholar and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of Chicago. Professor Guy was at the College for 42 years, serving as chairman for the last twenty-two."[4]

References

• Department of Chemistry, http://web.wm.edu/chemistry/history.php, accessed 18 February 2009.

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