James Cosmo Newbery (28 June 1843 – 1 May 1895), generally referred to as Cosmo Newbery or J. Cosmo Newbery, was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

-educated

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n museum administrator and industrial chemist, and co-developer of the Newbery-Vautin chlorination process for

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

extraction. Newbery was the fourth son of William Boxer Newbery, born near

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(Leghorn),

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze''). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...

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. When quite young he emigrated to America, and ultimately graduated as

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. After leaving Harvard, Newbery studied at the

Royal School of Mines The Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London. The Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and parts of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Bioe ...

, Jermyn Street, London, and in 1865 was appointed analyst to the

Geological Survey of Victoria Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV) is a government agency responsible for mapping the geology of Victoria, Australia. The Geological Survey was founded in the 1852 in the Victorian gold rush era, and proceeded to actively explore the state of ...

—an appointment which he held until 1868, when the department was abolished. In 1870 he was appointed to Superintendent of the Melbourne Industrial and Technological Museum and Analyst to the Department of Mines; he additionally assumed the role of Instructor in Chemistry and Metallurgy at the Museum Laboratory. Newbery was a member of the

Royal Society of Victoria The Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) is the oldest scientific society in the state of Victoria in Australia. Foundation In 1854 two organisations formed with similar aims and membership, these being ''The Philosophical Society of Victoria'' (fou ...

and was Honorary Superintendent of Juries and Awards at the

Melbourne International Exhibition (1880) The Melbourne International Exhibition is the eighth World's fair officially recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) and the first official World's Fair in the Southern Hemisphere. Preparations After being granted self-go ...

. He married, in 1870, Catherine Maud Florence, daughter of George Hodgkinson. In 1881 he was created C.M.G. Newbery collected food samples and analysed them for contaminants in his laboratory, laying the foundation for the prevention of adulterated foods of 1905. An improved method of gold extraction using chlorination—developed by Newbery and Claude Vautin in 1890 (the Newbery-Vautin chlorination process)—achieved global adoption, and Newbery was recognized as an authority on

gold amalgamation Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...

. Newbery died at home in Hotham Street,

East St Kilda St Kilda East is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Glen Eira and Port Phillip local government areas. St Kilda East recorded a population of 1 ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

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on 1 May 1895. The town of

Cosmo Newbery, Western Australia Cosmo Newbery (also spelt Cosmo Newberry) is a small Aboriginal community in Western Australia, east of Perth between Laverton and Warburton in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. In the , Cosmo Newberry had a total popul ...

is named for him.

References

External links

The Newbery-Vautin Chlorination Process
at Gutenberg.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Newbery, James Cosmo 1843 births 1895 deaths Australian chemists Australian metallurgists 19th-century Australian inventors Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Harvard University alumni 19th-century Australian public servants Italian emigrants to the United States American emigrants to Australia