Charles Blachford Mansfield

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Charles Blachford Mansfield

Charles Blachford Mansfield (born May 8, 1819 in Rowner , Hampshire , † February 26, 1855 in London ) was an English chemist and social reformer.

Life

Mansfield was the son of a clergyman (rector), attended Winchester College and studied at Cambridge University from 1839 with a bachelor's degree in 1846 and a master's degree in 1849. The delay in his degrees was due to his poor health (apparently also depression and Phases of mental instability), which is why he had to drop out of school and was then brought up by a private teacher. In Cambridge he made friends with Charles Kingsley . Shared with him an interest in mesmerism, Magic and science. In 1842 he married Catherine Shafto, but they separated soon afterwards, although his wife refused to divorce. He wanted to become a doctor, so he continued his studies in London at St. George's Hospital, but then turned to chemistry in London. He heard lectures from August Wilhelm Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry , to which he belonged from 1847, and invented a process for the fractional distillation of benzene from coal tar, which he patented in 1847 and he produced benzene and toluene in larger quantities. He presented also produced nitrobenzene (which was later used as a synthetic perfume) and recognized the great potential of his inventions, for example he suggested the use of benzene as a source for gas lighting or for coal and synthesis gas and as a solvent. One of his buyers was Hofmann, who used it to research aromatics such as aniline (the use of aniline as a coloring agent was not introduced until 1856 by William Henry Perkin ). In 1849 Mansfield came into contact with producers of tar chemicals, but did not pursue his inventions consistently, so that later others made a profit with them and even challenged him for his patent.

He joined the Christian socialists around Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872) (as did his friend Charles Kingsley) and campaigned for the improvement of living conditions for the working class, for example by helping to provide for the 1849 cholera epidemic in London helped a better water supply. In 1851, in Christian Socialist , he proposed the island of Sark for an experiment in a socialist society. At the same time, he came into conflict with his friends because he was living with a lover. He claimed to only teach her, but then had to part with her under pressure from his friends from the Christian Socialists. In 1851/52 he gave lectures on the chemistry of metals at the Royal Institution and developed his own method for their classification based on triangles.

In 1852 he visited Brazil ( Rio de Janeiro ), Buenos Aires and, as one of the first foreign visitors, the long-closed Paraguay . He thought Paraguay was a model company, went there to check it out and dreamed of settling the Gran Chaco . His letters from Paraguay and South America appeared posthumously and describe the population, opportunities for trade in Great Britain and nature (flora, fauna). In 1853 he was back in London and continued his chemical investigations. He experimented with fermenting sugar at his Weybridge home and began a relationship with George Meredith's wife . When he wanted to test his benzene system, which was intended for the Paris World Exhibition of 1855, a laboratory accident occurred. He and his assistant suffered severe burns while carrying the burning material from his rented rooms, and he succumbed to the hospital nine days later. When Hofmann visited the dying man, Mansfield greeted him with the words: Here lie the Ashes of Charles B. Mansfield .

His main work is the Theory of Salts , which he gave to the publisher before his death and which arose from lectures at the Royal Institution.

In 1850 he wrote the posthumously published Aerial Navigation about his vision of steam-powered airships after studying balloon flights in Paris from this time. In 1850 his Hints for Hygea appeared in Fraser's Magazine , also a utopia about balloon aviation powered by a battery.

Fonts

  • Benzoles: its nature and utility, London 1849
  • Researches on Coal Tar, Journal of the Chemical Society, Vol. 1, 1849, pp. 244-268.
  • Theory of salts: A Treatise on the Constitution of Bipolar (Two Membered) Chemical Compounds. London, 1865 (editor Nevil Story Maskelyne )
  • Paraguay, Brazil and the Plate. Letters Written in 1852, 53.… With a Sketch of the Author's Life by C. Kingsley, Cambridge, UK: Macmillan, 1856
  • Aerial navigation. Edited by RB Mansfield, with a preface by JM Ludlow, London: Macmillan, 1877

A Portuguese translation of his letters from Rio de Janeiro appeared in 1861/62.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anthony Travis, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. ↑ The then President of the Royal Society, the Marquess of Northampton, became aware of his talents and strengthened his interests in ornithology and science
personal data
SURNAME Mansfield, Charles Blachford
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Rowner
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1855
Place of death London