Alias J. J. Connington: The Life and Work of Alfred W. Stewart (1880-1947), Chemist and Novelist George 8. Kauffman' California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740
I first encountered the name of Alfred W. Stewart in connection with charges of plagiarism made by Alfred Werner against Stewart's book "Stereochemistry" ( 1 , 2 ) .T o the layman, however, Stewart is known, not as a chemist, hut as the author of twenty-seven novels written under the nom de plume of J. J. Connington. The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to the life and career of a man who was little known as a scientist hut well known as a novelist. Life
Alfred Walter Stewart was horn in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 5, 1880, the youngest of three sons of the Rev. William Stewart, Professor of Divinity and Dean of Faculties a t Glaseow Universitv (3). Educated at Glaseow Universitv Universitit ~ a r b u r g(where he ( ~ . ~ c l , ~ 1 9D. 0 2~c.,iEiOl), ; worked for a vear under Ernst Carl Theodor Zincke). and University College, London (where he was influenced by William Ramsay, John Norman Collie, and Samuel Smiles), he was a brilliant student, winning the Mackay-Smith Scholarship (1901). the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship Belfast (1909-14), ~ e c t u r e in r physical chemistry and Radioactivity at Glasgow University (1914-191, and Professor of Chemistry at Queen's University, Belfast for a quartercentury-from 1919 to 1944, when he retired because of had health that had begun in the 1930s (failing sight, deafness, and a painful heart condition). In 1916 he married Jessie Lily with hrond interests and wide l&rnine. In his later vears he lectured only from about 11A.M. to 1?5 P.M. and spent his afternoons writine novels. to which he devoted all his time following his retirement. He died of a heart attack at home in the early morning of July 1,1947, while engaged in his literary work, Chemist
Stewart's doctoral research involved the reaction of aliphatic ketones with hisulfite and hydroxylamine. His studies on the selective absorption spectra of organic compounds, initially carried out in 1906 a t University College, London, with Edward Charles Cyril Baly ( 4 ) ,led to the concept of isorrepsi-a state of balance in the valence distribution of the form that these compounds could assume without any shift of atoms. This concept, expressed two decades before the application of electronic theory to organic chemistry, foreshadows later ideas of resonance. His interest in stereoc I w n ~ i < t
