John Rex Whinfield
CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(16 February 1901 in
Sutton
Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
England
In alphabetical order by county:
* Sutton, Bedfordshire
* Sutton, Berkshire, a location
* Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire
* ...
,
Surrey,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
– 6 July 1966 in
Dorking, Surrey)
was a British chemist. Together with James Tennant Dickson, Whinfield investigated
polyesters and produced and patented the first polyester fibre in 1941, which they named
Terylene
Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...
(also known as
Dacron
Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...
) equal to or surpassing
nylon
Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic.
Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...
in toughness and resilience.
He was born in
Accrington, but moved out of town before the age of 4.
Education
Whinfield attended
Merchant Taylors' School and
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...
where he read natural sciences (1921) and chemistry (1922).
Career
He worked initially as an assistant to
Charles Frederick Cross
Charles Frederick Cross FRS (11 December 1855 – 15 April 1935) was a British chemist.
Born in Brentford, Middlesex, his fatherCharles James Cross (14 October 1827 - 19 November 1910) was a schoolmaster turned soap manufacturer. After graduati ...
and
Edward John Bevan
Edward John Bevan (11 December 1856 – 17 October 1921) was an English chemist. He became a leader in the affairs of the Society of Public Analysts and editor of The Analyst.
Bevan was notable for his caustic wit. He was born in Birkenhead. Af ...
, who had done earlier work on
viscose
Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber, made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecular structure as cellulose. It is also called viscose. Many types and grades of viscose ...
rayon in 1892. In 1924 he was employed as a research chemist by the
Calico Printers' Association
The Calico Printers' Association Ltd was a British textile company founded in 1899, from the amalgamation of 46 textile printing companies and 13 textile merchants. The industry had prospered in the latter half of the 19th century but the fierce ...
based in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
.
During the late 1930s, the hunt was on for new synthetic fibres to rival
Wallace H. Carothers' nylon. Whinfield and his assistant James Tennant Dickson investigated other types of polymers with textile fibre potential. Whinfield and Dickson discovered how to condense
terephthalic acid and
ethylene glycol
Ethylene glycol (IUPAC name: ethane-1,2-diol) is an organic compound (a vicinal diol) with the formula . It is mainly used for two purposes, as a raw material in the manufacture of polyester fibers and for antifreeze formulations. It is an odo ...
to yield a new polymer which could be drawn into a fibre. Whinfield and Dickson patented their invention in July 1941, but due to wartime secrecy restrictions, it was not made public until 1946.
[Frank Greenaway, ‘Whinfield, John Rex (1901–1966)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200]
accessed 20 June 2011
/ref> ICI (Terylene
Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...
) and DuPont (Dacron
Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...
) went on to produce their own versions of the fibre.
Whinfield served as an assistant director of chemical research in the Ministry of Supply during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. In 1947 he joined ICI.
The library in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York is named in memory of Whinfield.
Awards
* Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(1954)
* Honorary fellowship of the Textile Institute (1955)
* Perkin Medal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists The Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC) is an international professional society, with headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, specializing in colour in all its manifestations. Founded in 1884, it was granted a Royal Charter of Incorporati ...
(1956)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whinfield, John Rex
1901 births
1966 deaths
English chemists
Textile scientists
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Imperial Chemical Industries people
20th-century British inventors
20th-century agronomists