Martin Lowry

Thomas Martin Lowry
Born	26 October 1874(1874-10-26) Low Moor, Bradford, UK
Died	2 November 1936(1936-11-02) (aged 62) Cambridge, UK
Nationality	British
Fields	Physical chemistry
Known for	Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society[1]

Martin Lowry.

Thomas Martin Lowry CBE FRS^[1] (26 October 1874 – 2 November 1936) was an English physical chemist. Independently from Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted he has developed the Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory and was as a founder-member and president (1928–1930) of the Faraday Society.^[2]

Biography

Lowry was born in Low Moor, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in a Cornish family. He was the second son of the Reverend E. P. Lowry. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, Somerset, and then at the Central Technical College in South Kensington. During those years he realized that he wanted to be a chemist. He studied chemistry under Henry Edward Armstrong, an English chemist whose interests were primarily in organic chemistry but also included the nature of ions in aqueous solutions. From 1896 to 1913 Lowry was assistant to Armstrong, and between 1904 and 1913 worked as Lecturer in Chemistry at the Westminster Training College. In 1913, he was appointed head of the chemical department in Guy’s Hospital Medical and became the first teacher of chemistry in a Medical School to be made a University Professor, at the University of London. From 1920 till his death, Lowry served as the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He married a daughter of the Rev. C. Wood in 1904 and was survived by his widow, two sons and a daughter.^[2]

Since the establishment of the Faraday Society in 1903, Lowry had been its active member and served as its President between 1928 and 1930. In 1914 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society^[1]. During and after the World War I, Lowry acted as Director of Shell-filling (1917–1919) and worked for the Trench Warfare Committee, Chemical Warfare Committee and Ordnance Committee. For this service, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.^[2]

Research

In 1898, Lowry noted the change in optical rotation on nitro-d-camphor with time and invented the term mutarotational to describe this phenomenon. He studied changes in optical rotation caused by acid- and base-catalyzed reactions of camphor derivatives. This led in 1923 to his formulation of the protonic definition of acids and bases, now known as Brønsted–Lowry acid-base theory, independently of the work by Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted. Lowry published a few hundred papers and several books. His 1935 monograph on "Optical Rotatory Power" (1935) has long been regarded as a standard work on the subject.^[2]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Pope, W. J. (1938). "Thomas Martin Lowry. 1874-1936". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 2 (6): 287–226. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1938.0009.  edit
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Wilsmore, N. T. M.; Pope, W. J.; Calcott, W. S.; Edwards, F. W.; More, A. (1937). "Obituary notices: John Kenneth Harold Inglis, 1877–1935; Thomas Martin Lowry, 1874–1936; Camille Matignon, 1867–1934; Julius Arthur Nieuwland, 1878–1936; P. A. Ellis Richards, 1868–1936; Percy Richard Sanders, 1875–1937". Journal of the Chemical Society (Resumed): 700. doi:10.1039/JR9370000700. 

Persondata
Name	Lowry, Thomas Martin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	26 October 1874
Place of birth	Low Moor, Bradford, UK
Date of death	2 November 1936
Place of death	Cambridge, UK