Edward David Hughes (June 18, 1906June 30, 1963) was a British

organic chemist Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J. ...

. He was a professor first at

University College, Bangor , former_names = University College of North Wales (1884–1996) University of Wales, Bangor (1996–2007) , image = File:Arms_of_Bangor_University.svg , image_size = 250px , caption = Arms ...

and then at University College in London, eventually rising to the rank of dean at each. He was elected as a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1949. Hughes studied

organic reaction mechanisms In chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical change occurs. A chemical mechanism is a theoretical conjecture that tries to describe in detail what takes place at each stage o ...

and

reaction kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in w ...

, including being one of the first chemists to use

isotope Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) ...

s to understand them. He collaborated with

Christopher Kelk Ingold Sir Christopher Kelk Ingold (28 October 1893 – 8 December 1970) was a British chemist based in Leeds and London. His groundbreaking work in the 1920s and 1930s on reaction mechanisms and the electronic structure of organic compounds was resp ...

, leading to development of the eponymous

Hughes–Ingold rules In chemistry, solvent effects are the influence of a solvent on chemical reactivity or molecular associations. Solvents can have an effect on solubility, stability and reaction rates and choosing the appropriate solvent allows for thermodynamic ...

and

Hughes–Ingold symbol A Hughes–Ingold symbol describes various details of the reaction mechanism and overall result of a chemical reaction. For example, an SN2 reaction is a substitution reaction ("S") by a nucleophilic process ("N") that is bimolecular ("2" molec ...

References

Fellows of the Royal Society 20th-century British chemists Academics of Bangor University Academics of University College London Organic chemists {{UK-chemist-stub