Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen (3 March 1843,

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...

– 22 November 1902,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

noted for his research on the physical properties of metals and their alloys. The

austenite Austenite, also known as gamma-phase iron (γ-Fe), is a metallic, non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron with an alloying element. In plain-carbon steel, austenite exists above the critical eutectoid temperature of 1000 K ...

class of

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

alloys is named after him. He was born William Chandler Roberts in Kennington, Surrey, the son of George and Maria née Chandler Roberts. He later (1885) assumed the name of Roberts-Austen at the request of his uncle, Major Nathaniel Lawrence Austen, as a condition of inheritance. He was educated privately and 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 ...

(1861–1865). He was appointed Assistant to the Master of the Mint and then Chemist of the

Royal Mint The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's oldest company and the official maker of British coins. Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by His Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclus ...

(1869), Professor of Metallurgy at the School of Mines (1880) and Chemist and Assayer to the

(1882–1902). He developed procedures for the analysis of alloy constituents and an automatic recording pyrometer used to record temperature changes in furnaces and molten materials;. He became a world authority on the technical aspects of minting coins. His work had many practical and industrial applications. He was elected 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 June 1875 and was their

Bakerian Lecture The Bakerian Medal is one of the premier medals of the Royal Society that recognizes exceptional and outstanding science. It comes with a medal award and a prize lecture. The medalist is required to give a lecture on any topic related to physical ...

r in 1896. He was made CB in 1890 and knighted ( KCB) in 1899. He was also a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur. He was largely responsible for the building of St Martin's chapel of ease, Blackheath,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, in 1893. He died at his residence in the Royal Mint and was buried in St Martin's churchyard, Canterbury, Kent. He had married Florence Maude Alldridge in London in 1876.

References

External links

Encyclopædia Britannica Article

- link broken August 2009
Biographical sketch on CAT.INIST (some French)

Imperial College London Stub Bio
1843 births 1902 deaths People from Kennington Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath British metallurgists Fellows of the Royal Society Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur {{UK-scientist-stub