John Bennet Lawes
Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baronet (born December 28, 1814 in Rothamsted, Hertfordshire , † August 31, 1900 ibid) was a British agricultural chemist .
He was the owner of Rothamsted Manor , an estate in Rothamsted, on which he set up an agricultural chemistry laboratory in 1843 and founded the Rothamsted Experimental Station together with the agricultural chemist Joseph Henry Gilbert .
Initially, Lawes worked on the production of artificial fertilizers ( artificial fertilizers ). In 1842 he succeeded in producing superphosphate for the first time by digesting bone meal with sulfuric acid . He received a patent for this process, which was registered on May 23, 1842.
Like Justus von Liebig , Lawes was a staunch supporter of the theory of the mineral nutrition of plants. However, he could not accept his thesis, first put forward in 1843, that the quantities of nitrogen present in the atmosphere in the form of ammonia are sufficient for the nutrition of plants. That is why he set up field tests in Rothamsted that had been designed for many years in order to refute Liebig's nitrogen thesis. In the following decades a fierce scientific dispute developed: Liebig responded to the results, mostly published by Bennet in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England , with violent, sometimes polemical counter-writings.
The results of the Rothamsteder long-term fertilization tests, however, largely agreed with the experience of agricultural practice and received the highest recognition worldwide. In the second half of the 19th century, leading German agricultural scientists traveled to Rothamsted and reported extensively on these attempts in specialist journals.
In 1854 he was elected a member of the Royal Society , which in 1867 awarded him the Royal Medal . In 1879 he became a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences .
On May 19, 1882 he was given the hereditary title of Baronet , of Rothamsted in the County of Hertford .
literature
- Paul Behrend: The results of the most important field fertilization tests carried out in England by Lawes and Gilbert and their significance for German agriculture. In: Landwirthschaftliche Jahrbücher Vol. 10, 1881, pp. 343-480.
- AD Hall: The Book of Rothamsted . London 1905.
- GV Dyke: John Lawes of Rothamsted. Pioneer of Science, Farming and Industry . Harpenden (Great Britain) 1993.
Individual evidence
- ^ List of members since 1666: Letter L. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 9, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Baronetage: LAWES of Rothamsted, Herts at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
| predecessor | title | successor |
|---|---|---|
| New title created | Barone, of Rothamsted 1882-1900 |
Charles Lawes |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lawes, John Bennet |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British agricultural chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 28, 1814 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rothamsted, Hertfordshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 31, 1900 |
| Place of death | Rothamsted, Hertfordshire |