“ From an early age he determined to adopt chemistry as his profession, although his father, who was a builder, would have preferred him to be an architect. Attending the City of London School he devoted all his spare time to chemistry, and on leaving, In 1853, entered the Royal College of Chemistry, then under the direction of A. W. Hofmann, in whose own research laboratory he was in the course of a year or two promoted to be an assistant. ”

“ Later still he engaged in the study of the relations between chemical constitution and rotation of the plane of polarization in a magnetic field, and enunciated a law expressing the variation of such rotation in bodies belonging to homologous series. ”

“ Thus encouraged, he took out a patent for his process, and leaving the College of Chemistry, a boy of eighteen, he proceeded, with the aid of his father and brother, to erect works at Greenford Green, near Harrow, for the manufacture of the newly discovered colouring matter, and by the end of 1857 the works were in operation. ”