Morris William Travers, FRS (24 January 1872 – 25 August 1961) was an English

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

who worked with Sir

William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements ...

in the discovery of

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

neon Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

and

krypton Krypton (from grc, κρυπτός, translit=kryptos 'the hidden one') is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas that occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere and is often ...

. His work on several of the rare gases earned him the name ''Rare gas Travers'' in scientific circles. He was the founding director of the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

Early life

Travers was born in Kensington, London, the son of William Travers MD, FRCS (1838-1906), an early pioneer of aseptic surgical techniques. His mother was Anne Pocock. Travers went to school at Ramsgate, Woking and

Blundell's School Blundell's School is a co-educational day and boarding independent school in the English public school tradition, located in Tiverton, Devon. It was founded in 1604 under the will of Peter Blundell, one of the richest men in England at the tim ...

Career

He then went to University College, where he began to work with Sir

. Travers helped Ramsay to determine the properties of the newly discovered gases argon and helium. They also heated minerals and meteorites in the search for further gases, but found none. Then in 1898 they obtained a large quantity of liquid air and subjected it to

fractional distillation Fractional distillation is the separation of a mixture into its component parts, or fractions. Chemical compounds are separated by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the mixture will vaporize. It uses distillation to ...

. Spectral analysis of the least volatile fraction revealed the presence of krypton. They examined the argon fraction for a constituent of lower boiling point, and discovered neon. Finally xenon, occurring as an even less volatile companion to krypton, was identified spectroscopically. He knew the entire research story and wrote the biography of Sir William Ramsay in 1956 "A life of Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S." In 1904 he became a professor at University College. In May 1904 he was selected 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 1901-1902 Ramsay had been asked to advise the Indian government on the founding of a science institute and the institute was established in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

with the help of the Government of Mysore and JN Tata. Ramsay suggested Travers as a possible director for this institute and in 1906, Travers was appointed as the director of the new

. The aim was to build the institute along the lines of the Imperial College of Science and Technology but Travers had conflicts with the Tata family especially in the interpretation of clauses in JN Tata's will. The institute was started in June 1911 with four departments: General, Organic, and Applied Chemistry and Electrical Engineering. He returned to Britain at the outbreak of World War I and directed the manufacture of glass at Duroglass Limited. In 1920 he started a company with F W Clark called Travers and Clark Ltd. which was involved with high-temperature furnaces and fuel technology, including the gasification of coal. In 1927 he went back to Bristol as Honorary Professor in Applied Chemistry. Travers continued his researches in cryogenics and made the first accurate temperature measurements of liquid gases. He also helped to build several experimental liquid air plants in Europe. He died in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Publications

The following is a partial list of publications: * 1893. The preparation of acetylene from calcium carbide. ''

Proc. Chem. Soc. The ''Proceedings of the Chemical Society'' was a scientific journal published at various times in the life of the Chemical Society, a scientific society in the United Kingdom that combined with other societies to form the Royal Society of Chemistr ...

'' p. 15. * 1894. Metallic derivatives of acetylene. I. Mercuric acetylide. Trans. Chem. Soc. p. 264. * 1895. (With W. Ramsay and J. Norman Collie) Helium, a constituent of certain minerals. Trans. Chem. Soc. p. 684. * 1896–1897. Some experiments on helium. Proc. Roy. Soc. 60,449. * 1898. The origin of the gases evolved on heating mineral substances, meteorites, etc. Proc. Roy. Soc. 64, 130. * 1898. (With W. Ramsay) n a new constituent of atmospheric air rypton Proc. Roy. Soc. 63,405. * 1901. The liquefaction of hydrogen. Phil. Mag. (6), 1,41 1. * 1915. (With N. M. Gupta and R. C. Ray.) Some compounds of boron, hydrogen and oxygen. London: H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd. * 1918. On the firing of glass pots. Trans. Soc. Glass Tech. 2, 170. * 1928. The complete gasification of coal for towns' gas. Trans. Soc. Chem. Ind. p. 203. * 1934. On a new view of the covalent bond, and the formation of free radicals. Trans. Faraday Soc. 30, 100. * 1956. The life of Sir William Ramsay. London: Arnold.

References

External links

* http://www.chem.ucl.ac.uk/resources/history/people/travers.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20081023122248/http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/MainBiographies/T/Travers/1.html
The Experimental Study of Gases (1901)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Travers, Morris 1872 births 1961 deaths English chemists Directors of the Indian Institute of Science People educated at Blundell's School Fellows of the Royal Society 19th-century English people 19th-century British chemists 20th-century English people 20th-century British chemists Neon Krypton Xenon