John Hall Gladstone

John Hall Gladstone FRS (7 March 1827 – 6 October 1902) was a British chemist. He served as President of the Physical Society between 1874 and 1876 and during 1877–1879 was President of the Chemical Society. Apart from chemistry, where one of his most notable publications was on bromination of rubber, he undertook pioneering work in optics and spectroscopy. Biography He was born to John Gladstone, a wholesale draper in Hackney, London and Alison Hall, as the eldest of three sons. The three brothers were educated entirely at home under tutors, and from very early days all showed a strong inclination toward natural science. In 1842, the father retired from business, and the family spent a year in travelling on the continent. Part of this time was passed in Italy with their old friends: Charles Tilt, his wife and their daughter May, who in 1852 became the wife of John Hall Gladstone. They had seven children, including Isabella Holmes, who later became a noted social reformer, and an expert on London's burial grounds. From early years Gladstone had shown strong religious tendencies, and when, at the age of seventeen, the question of his future career came to be discussed, he wished to enter the Christian ministry. From this course he was dissuaded both by his father and by Mr. Tilt, and in December 1844 he entered University College, London. Here he attended Graham's lectures on chemistry and worked in his private laboratory, and here he prepared his earliest scientific contribution on "Analysis of Sand from St. Michael's Bay, Normandy", which was read at a meeting of the Royal Chemical Society on 16 November 1846. Next year, he received a gold medal from the college for his study on "Gun Cotton and Xyloidine". Later in the same year he went to University of Giessen to work under Justus von Liebig, returning in April 1848 with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The subject of his dissertation was possibly "Artificial Formation of Urea from Fulminic Acid". Although Gladstone had thus formally adopted the pursuit of science as his career, he continued throughout his life to take an active part in religious work. In Clapham his parents were members of the Rev. James Hill's Congregational Church, and here he taught in the Sunday School, beside conducting services in a Mission Room at White Square.