Arthur de Ramon Penfold (4 August 1890 – 16 June 1980) was an Australian chemist and museum director. He is best known today for his work on the essential oils of Australian plants, especially tea tree oil.

Early life

Penfold was born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, New South Wales, the oldest of four sons of David de Ramon Penfold (1864-1901), a clerk, and his wife Elizabeth (Emanuel) Penfold (1866-1937). His father's death when Penfold was eleven years old forced him to leave school at fourteen to work as an office boy at a paint company. He went on to work at another paint company, becoming an accountant there in 1908.

Phytochemistry

However, Penfold was curious about the technology of paints and started taking evening classes in chemistry at

Sydney Technical College The Sydney Technical College, now known as the TAFE New South Wales Sydney Institute, is a technical school established in 1878, that superseded the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. The college is one of Australia's oldest technical education i ...

. He was inspired by the lectures of

Henry George Smith Henry George Smith (26 July 1852 – 19 September 1924) was an Australian chemist whose pioneering work on the chemistry of the essential oils of the Australian flora achieved worldwide recognition. Smith was born at Littlebourne, Kent, Englan ...

and became interested in plant extracts and essential oils, as Smith was. In 1915 he became a research chemist and assistant plant manager for the eucalyptus oil distillers Gillard Gordon Ltd. In 1919 he became Smith's assistant at the

Technological Museum The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle Hill. Although often de ...

in Sydney, and a year later became the museum's economic chemist on Smith's retirement. Penfold's work in

phytochemistry Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemicals derived from plants. Phytochemists strive to describe the structures of the large number of secondary metabolites found in plants, the functions of these compounds in human and ...

soon gained world-wide recognition. By 1921 he had demonstrated the molecular structure of piperitone and how

menthol Menthol is an organic compound, more specifically a monoterpenoid, made synthetically or obtained from the oils of corn mint, peppermint, or other mints. It is a waxy, clear or white crystalline substance, which is solid at room temperature and ...

and thymol could be produced from it. In all he published about a hundred research papers, many with fellow phytochemists Frank Richard Morrison and J. L. Willis. Penfold's work testing a number of essential oils produced from Australian plants in the 1920s led him to suggest the commercial production of tea tree oil, as it seemed to have antiseptic properties.

Museum work

In 1927 Penfold was appointed curator and in 1948 director of the Technological Museum. Penfold's interest in plastics led to a 1934 Plastics Industry Exhibition, a joint project with the Sydney Technical College. On a 1938 grant from the

Carnegie Corporation of New York The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

he travelled to study the practices of American and European museums. He introduced fluorescent lighting of the museum's exhibits in the 1930s and opened the first museum

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

in Australia at the museum in 1950. In 1945 legislation placed the museum under a trust, a measure Penfold had worked for.

Other work

Penfold was active in scientific societies in Australia. He was a council member and in 1935 president of the

Royal Society of New South Wales The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. The Governor of New South Wales is the vice-regal patron of the Society. The Society was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June ...

, and a founder and the first secretary-treasurer of the Art Galleries and Museums Association of Australia and New Zealand. During World War II he served on various government scientific advisory committees and visited North America in 1945 to investigate recent advances in plastics. Following his retirement from the museum in 1955 he went to work for Monsanto Chemicals (Australia) Ltd., a plastics manufacturer. He became a life member and the first technical secretary of the Plastics Institute of Australia.

Honours

He was given the H. G. Smith Memorial Medal in 1934 by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, the medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1951, and the Fritzsche Award from the American Chemical Society in 1954.

Personal life

Penfold married Eunice Gilbert Gardner (died 1957) on 17 August 1915; they had one daughter, Dulcie Joy Penfold (1917-2011). On 18 June 1959 Penfold married Lorna Mae Gardner, his first wife's sister. He died in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

on 16 June 1980. Dulcie Penfold rose to level of Director at the National Library of Australia and received an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in 1976 for her service there.https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/penfold-dulcie-joy-14829 "Dulcie Joy Penfold", Obituaries Australia

Publications

* ''Guide to the extraction of eucalyptus oil in the field'' (with F. R. Morrison) - 1922 * ''Australian tea trees of economic value'' (with F. R. Morrison) - 1929 * ''Eucalyptus: The Essence of Australia'' - 1930 * ''Grass Tree Resin'' - 1931 * ''Commercial eucalyptus oils'' - 1933 * ''Tung oil (Chinese wood oil) from Australian grown trees of Aleurites fordii (Hemsley) : with a note on A. montana'' (with F. R. Morrison) - 1934 * ''The volatile oils of the Australian flora'' - 1950 * ''Plastics and synthetic fibres'' - 1956 * ''The Eucalypts: Botany, Chemistry, Cultivation and Utilization (with J. L. Willis)'' - 1961

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penfold, Arthur de Ramon 1890 births 1980 deaths Australian chemists Botanists active in Australia Scientists from Sydney