JAMES R. PARTINGTON (1886Few Enelish chemists are better known to American students and teach& than James Partington, whose text-books on inorpnic, physical, therm~rl.vnnmws,hmgher msthrmatics for chemical rtudenrr, and so iorth, nrr n i J r l j uwd and respected. Born nt Tloulton in 1.ancnrhirr an lune 20. 1Hh6. he shoued an intrrrst in chemistry a t an early age, making experiments in a modest home laboratory. Later he t w k evening courses while working in a public a n a y laboratory. In 1906 he entered Manchester University, stu led wtth Dmon and Perkin, and then did research with Lapworth. As 1851 Exhibition Scholar he spent 1911-13 a t Berlin with Nernst, then returned to Manchester as assistant, lecturing on advanced physical chemistry. In 1914 he entered the army as a private, later was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and saw service on the Somme. Recalled, he was assigned to the Munitions Inventions Department and took part in research on synthetic nitric acid. In 1919 he was made professor of chemistry in East London (later Queen Mary) College in the east end of London. He still ~
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holds thischair, which is a professorship in the University of London. The college is in a poor district, the facilities for research are uite limited, hut Partington has ersisted in meetin these han3icaps and together with his stufents has publisheb: some two hundred papers. The fields of work necessarily are ada ted to the needs and facilities available, and comprisechIefly prohEms in thermodynamics, inorganic, electrochemistry, and dipole moments. Dr. Partington's contributions to the literature of the history of chemistry include his outstanding "Origins and Develo ment of Applied Chemistry'' (1935) and his "Short History of 8hemistr.y" (1937) based largely on original sources. H e is chairman of the new Society for the Study of Alchem and Early Chemistry. He is also chairman of the Publication 6ommittee of the Faraday Society and associate editor of the Journal of Pky,rienl Ckcmi~tr~.
