The Department of Chemistry is the

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

department of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, 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

In Mansfield Road * Chemical Biology Laboratory * Chemistry Research Laboratory

South Parks Road

In South Parks Road * Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory (ICL) * Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory (PTCL) * Dyson Perrins Laboratory (DP) – research laboratory closed

History

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

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, Alchemy, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the foun ...

and his assistant

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath who was active as a physicist ("natural philosopher"), astronomer, geologist, meteorologist, and architect. He is credited as one of the first scientists to investigate living ...

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 Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

(1767),

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

(Daubeny Laboratory, 1848),

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

(1853, later joined with

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

to become the Balliol-Trinity Laboratories),

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, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

(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 ...

(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 (OUMNH) is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the univers ...

, 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 or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

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 had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than across the River ...

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 Dyson Perrins Laboratory 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 Balliol-Trinity Laboratories in 1941, and its east wing completed in 1959. The physical and theoretical chemistry departments merged in 1994 and the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory became its base in 1995. A number of professors and scientists who worked in the department had won the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

; 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 pr ...

for his work on

radioactivity Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...

with

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...

, Cyril Norman Hinshelwood 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 different from chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in which a ...

, and

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

crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

. Among the notable achievements by professors in the department are the development of the

Periodic Table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows (" periods") and columns (" groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other s ...

by William Odling, work on solid state chemistry by John Stuart Anderson and

John B. Goodenough John Bannister Goodenough ( ; July 25, 1922 – June 25, 2023) was an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. From 1986 he was a professor of Materials Science, Electrical Engineering and Mechani ...

(winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), and bioinorganic chemistry by

Robert Williams Robert, Rob, Robbie, Bob or Bobby Williams may refer to: Architecture * Train %26 Williams#Robert Edmund Williams, Robert Edmund Williams (1874–1960), Canadian-American architect * Robert Williams (architect) (1848–1918), Welsh architect a ...

Notable staff and alumni

Heads of department have included: * Mark Brouard 2015-2023 * 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 FRS * Fraser Armstrong FRS * Hagan Bayley FRS * Tom Brown

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 Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

* David Clary 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 * Iain McCulloch FRS * John McGrady * Susan Perkin * Carol Robinson FRS * Christopher Schofield FRS * Christiane Timmel * Claire Vallance * Charlotte Williams FRS Other notable staff and alumni include: * John Albery 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 FRS * Arthur Birch FRS * Edmund Bowen 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 ...

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 FRS * Katherine Holt, Professor at University College London * Frederick Dainton FRS *

ForMemRS Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

* Malcolm Green FRS * Andrew Hamilton FRS * Rita Harradence * Cyril Hinshelwood FRS * Ewart Jones 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 a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

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

References

{{authority control 1860 establishments in England

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...