Owens College staff and students

1899

Mellor Papers, Box 16

Unpublished

This 1899 photograph of the Chemistry department at Owens College was taken in the year the college received university status. Mellor (2nd from right, row 2) is pictured here in illustrious company. Third from left is William Henry Perkin Jr (1860-1929), Chair of organic chemistry at Owens and ‘leading organic chemist of his generation’; beside him sits his father and namesake, Perkin Snr (1838-1907), a chemist who discovered the first synthetic dye, mauveine (mauve); in the centre of the front row is Sir Henry Roscoe (1833-1915), who was head of chemistry at Owens for 30 years from 1857; third from the right is Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916), physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner; and finally on the far right is Harold Baily Dixon, head of chemistry at Owens from 1886 and Mellor’s supervisor and mentor.