The Department of Chemistry is the chemistry department of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, England, which is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division

Overview

The department has several laboratories in the

Science Area, Oxford The Oxford University Science Area in Oxford, England, is where most of the science departments at the University of Oxford are located. Overview The main part of the Science Area is located to the south of the University Parks and to the nor ...

Mansfield Road

Mansfield Road Mansfield Road is a road in central Oxford, England. It runs north-south with two of Oxford University's colleges on it, Mansfield College and Harris Manchester College, and Queen Elizabeth House which houses the Oxford Department of Interna ...

* Chemical Biology Laboratory * Chemistry Research Laboratory

South Parks Road

In South Parks Road * Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory (ICL) *

Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory The Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory (PTCL) is a major chemistry laboratory at the University of Oxford, England. It is located in the main Science Area of the university on South Parks Road. Previously it was known as the Physic ...

(PTCL) *

Dyson Perrins Laboratory The Dyson Perrins Laboratory is in the science area of the University of Oxford and was the main centre for research into organic chemistry of the University from its foundation in 1916 until its closure as a research laboratory in 2003. Until 2 ...

(DP) – research laboratory closed

History

Chemistry has a long history at Oxford. The early pioneer of chemistry

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...

and his assistant Robert Hooke began working in Oxford in the mid-seventeenth century. A chemistry laboratory was built in the basement of the Old Ashmolean Building in 1683, which was used until 1860. Chemical research was also conducted in laboratories set up in individual colleges – Christ Church, Oxford (1767), Magdalen College, Oxford (Daubeny Laboratory, 1848), Balliol College, Oxford (1853, later joined with

Trinity College, Oxford (That which you wish to be secret, tell to nobody) , named_for = The Holy Trinity , established = , sister_college = Churchill College, Cambridge , president = Dame Hilary Boulding , location = Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BH , coordinates ...

to become the

Balliol-Trinity Laboratories The Balliol-Trinity Laboratories in Oxford, England, was an early chemistry laboratory at the University of Oxford. The laboratory was located between Balliol College and Trinity College, hence the name. It was especially known for physical chem ...

Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...

(1900), and

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship S ...

(1907).

Chemistry was first recognized as a separate discipline at Oxford with the building of a laboratory attached to the

Oxford University Museum of Natural History The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum or OUMNH, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It a ...

, opening in 1860. The laboratory is a small octagonal structure to the right of the museum, built in stone in the

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The design was based on the Abbot's Kitchen at

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbur ...

and it adopted the same name despite being a laboratory. The building was one of the first ever purpose-built chemical laboratories anywhere and was extended in 1878. The Abbot's Kitchen in Oxford was expanded considerably in 1957 to become the main Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory (ICL). The

opened in 1916 and was the centre of the Department of Organic Chemistry until 2003 when it was replaced by the Chemistry Research Laboratory. The Physical Chemistry Laboratory replaced the

in 1941, and its east wing completed in 1959. The physical and theoretical chemistry departments merged in 1994 and the

became its base in 1995. A number of professors and scientists who worked in the department had won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

; they include

Frederick Soddy Frederick Soddy FRS (2 September 1877 – 22 September 1956) was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. He also prov ...

for his work on radioactivity with

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...

Cyril Norman Hinshelwood Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (19 June 1897 – 9 October 1967) was a British physical chemist and expert in chemical kinetics. His work in reaction mechanisms earned the 1956 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Education Born in London, his parents we ...

for his work on

chemical kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in ...

, and Dorothy Hodgkin on crystallography. Among the notable achievements by professors in the department are the development of the Periodic Table by

William Odling William Odling, FRS (5 September 1829 in Southwark, London – 17 February 1921 in Oxford) was an English chemist who contributed to the development of the periodic table. In the 1860s Odling, like many chemists, was working towards classifying ...

, work on solid state chemistry by

John Stuart Anderson John Stuart Anderson FRS, FAA, (9 January 1908 – 25 December 1990) was a British and Australian scientist who was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

and John B. Goodenough (winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), and

bioinorganic chemistry Bioinorganic chemistry is a field that examines the role of metals in biology. Bioinorganic chemistry includes the study of both natural phenomena such as the behavior of metalloproteins as well as artificially introduced metals, including those t ...

by Robert Williams.

Notable staff and alumni

Heads of department have included: * Mark Brouard * Timothy Softley FRS 2011 to 2015 * Stephen G. Davies 2006-2011 * Graham Richards FRS 1997 to 2006 Current academics in the Department of Chemistry include: * Ed Anderson *

Harry Anderson Harry Laverne Anderson (October 14, 1952 – April 16, 2018) was an American actor, comedian and magician. He is best known for his role of Judge Harry Stone on the 1984–1992 television series '' Night Court''. He later starred in the ...

FRS * Fraser Armstrong FRS *

Hagan Bayley John Hagan Pryce Bayley FRS (born 13 February 1951) is a British scientist, who holds the position of Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of Oxford. Life and education Bayley was educated at The King's School, Chester, Balliol Col ...

FRS * Tom Brown FRSE *

David Clary Sir David Charles Clary, FRS (born 14 January 1953) is a British theoretical chemist. He was president of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 2005 to 2020. He was the first chief scientific adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 200 ...

FRS * Richard G. Compton * William I. F. David FRS * Ben G. Davis FRS * Andrew Goodwin * Veronique Gouverneur FRS * David Hodgson * Peter J. Hore *

Madhavi Krishnan Madhavi Krishnan is a British chemist who is an Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Krishnan invented an electrostatic fluidic trap which permits the spatial control and manipulation of nanoscale materials. Th ...

Iain McCulloch John Balfour "Iain" McCulloch (born 28 December 1954) is a Scottish former footballer. Playing as a winger or forward, McCulloch began his career with his hometown club Kilmarnock before joining Notts County in 1978. He won promotion with the M ...

FRS * John McGrady * Susan Perkin * Carol Robinson FRS * Christopher Schofield FRS *

Christiane Timmel Christiane Renate Timmel is a German chemist who is Director of the Centre for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance at the University of Oxford. Her group make use of electron-spin resonance to understand long-range structures in chemical and biologi ...

* Claire Vallance * Charlotte Williams FRS Other notable staff and alumni include: *

John Albery Wyndham John Albery, FRS (5 April 1936 – 3 December 2013) was a British physical chemist and academic. Early life Wyndham John Albery was born on 5 April 1936. His father Michael James Albery (1910-75), a barrister, was part of a sprawling ...

FRS *

Peter Atkins Peter William Atkins (born 10 August 1940) is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including ''Physical Chemistry'', ''Ino ...

* Jack Baldwin FRS *

Ronnie Bell Ronald Percy Bell FRS FRSC FRSE (24 November 1907 – 9 January 1996) was a leading British physical chemist who worked in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford. Life Ronald Percy Bell was the eldest child of Edwin ...

FRS * Arthur Birch FRS *

Edmund Bowen Edmund ("Ted") John Bowen FRS (29 April 1898 – 19 November 1980) was a British physical chemist. Life Born in Worcester, England, E. J. Bowen attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester. He won the Brackenbury Scholarship in 1915 and 191 ...

FRS *

Charles Coulson Charles Alfred Coulson (13 December 1910 – 7 January 1974) was a British applied mathematician and theoretical chemist. Coulson's major scientific work was as a pioneer of the application of the quantum theory of valency to problems of m ...

FRS *

John Cornforth Sir John Warcup Cornforth Jr., (7 September 1917 – 8 December 2013) was an AustralianBritish chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions, becoming the only Nobel l ...

FRS *

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...

FRS * Katherine Holt, Professor at University College London *

Frederick Dainton Frederick Sydney Dainton, Baron Dainton, Kt, FRS, FRSE (11 November 1914 – 5 December 1997) was a British academic chemist and university administrator. A graduate of Oxford and Cambridge, he was successively Professor of Physical Chemistr ...

FRS * John B. Goodenough

ForMemRS 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 knowledge, including mathematic ...

* Malcolm Green FRS * Andrew Hamilton FRS *

Rita Harradence Rita Harriet Harradence, Lady Cornforth (16 September 1915 − 6 November 2012) was an Australian biochemist who pioneered the synthesis of penicillamine and steroids, and the stereochemistry of molecules involved in the biosynthesis of choles ...

Cyril Hinshelwood Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (19 June 1897 – 9 October 1967) was a British physical chemist and expert in chemical kinetics. His work in reaction mechanisms earned the 1956 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Education Born in London, his parents we ...

FRS *

Ewart Jones Sir Ewart Ray Herbert Jones FRS (16 March 1911 – 7 May 2002) was a Welsh organic chemist and academic administrator, whose fields of expertise led him to discoveries into the chemistry of natural products, mainly steroids, terpenes and vitam ...

FRS * Jeremy Knowles FRS * Jack Linnett FRS * Rex Richards FRS * Robert Robinson FRS * John Rowlinson FRS * John Sutherland FRS *

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

FRS * Robert K. Thomas FRS * Harold Thompson FRS * R. J. P. Williams FRS

References

{{authority control 1860 establishments in England Chemistry

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...