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 (

) and DuPont (

) 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