Professor William Dittmar FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

LLD (1833 – 1892) was a German-born scientist renowned as a chemical analyst. He was based largely in Scotland. He did much analytical work on the findings from the

Challenger expedition The ''Challenger'' expedition of 1872–1876 was a scientific program that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the naval vessel that undertook the trip, . The expedition, initiated by Wil ...

. He was the first to confirm the Principle of Constant Proportions, a theory first conjectured in 1865 by

Johan Georg Forchhammer Johan Georg Forchhammer (26 July 1794 – 14 December 1865) was a Danish mineralogist and geologist. Early life and education Forchhammer was born at Husum, Schleswig. He studied at the universities of Kiel and Copenhagen from 1815 to 1818. C ...

regarding the major ions of sea-water: that whilst salinity varied across the oceans, the ratios of ionic abundance remained constant. As a result, the Principle is often called "Dittmar's Principle" or "Forchhammer's Principle". His research also included calculations of the atomic weight of

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

Life

He was born in Umstadt near

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

in western

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

on 14/15 April 1833, the son of Fritz Dittmar an Assessor at Umstadt. In 1848 he was apprenticed as a pharmacist at the Hof Apotheker in

.Nature (magazine): obituary 24 March 1892 In 1857, went to work in the illustrious Bunsen laboratory in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, and his focussed changed to chemical analysis. Here he met

Henry Enfield Roscoe Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (7 January 1833 – 18 December 1915) was a British chemist. He is particularly noted for early work on vanadium, photochemical studies, and his assistance in creating Oxo (food), in its earlier liquid form. Life an ...

who brought him back to Britain with him to work as his assistant at

Owen's College The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. Afte ...

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 ...

, Roscoe then being Professor of Chemistry there. In 1861 he received a post as Chief Laboratory Assistant in the Chemistry Department of the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

and stayed there until 1869. In 1863, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

, his Proposer being

Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair (1 May 1818 – 29 May 1898) was a British scientist and Liberal politician who was Postmaster-General from 1873 to 1874. Early life Playfair was born at Chunar, Bengal, the son of George Playfair (1782-1846 ...

. He served as a Counillor to the Society 1868-9. In 1882 he was also elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. In 1869, he took a break from the UK and returned to

, and worked in the Poppelsdorf district of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

as a lecturer in meteorology at the local Agricultural College. In 1872 he declined the Chair in Chemistry at

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

instead wishing to await for a post back in the United Kingdom. In 1873 he returned to Owen’s College as a lecturer, but then moved to the Andersonian college in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

as a full Professor in 1874, a post he then held until death. The

awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in 1887. He died suddenly at home, 11 Hillhead Street in

Hillhead Hillhead ( sco, Hullheid, gd, Ceann a' Chnuic) is an area of Glasgow, Scotland. Situated north of Kelvingrove Park and to the south of the River Kelvin, Hillhead is at the heart of Glasgow's fashionable West End, with Byres Road forming th ...

on 9 March 1892, shortly after returning from giving his morning lecture. His obituary in the

was written and delivered by

Alexander Crum Brown Alexander Crum Brown FRSE FRS (26 March 1838 – 28 October 1922) was a Scottish organic chemist. Alexander Crum Brown Road in Edinburgh's King's Buildings complex is named after him. Early life and education Crum Brown was born at 4 Bellev ...

.Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: 19 June 1893

Publications

*''A Manual of Chemical Analysis'' (1874) *''Composition of Ocean Water'' (1884)

Family

Dittmar’s son, also William Dittmar (1859-1951) came with him to Britain and is thought to have also been a chemist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dittmar, William 1833 births 1892 deaths Scientists from Hesse 19th-century Scottish scientists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society People from Groß-Umstadt Academics of the University of Strathclyde