Frederick Kipping

Who was Frederick Kipping?

Professor Frederic Stanley Kipping FRS was an English chemist.

He was born in Manchester, England, the son of James Kipping, a Bank of England official, and educated at Manchester Grammar School before enrolling in 1879 at Owens College for an external degree from the University of London. After working for the local gas company for a short time he went in 1886 to Germany to work under William Henry Perkin, Jr. in the laboratories of Adolf von Baeyer at Munich University.

Back in England, he took a position as demonstrator for Perkin, who had been appointed professor at Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh. In 1890, Kipping was appointed chief demonstrator in chemistry for the City and Guilds of London Institute, where he worked for the chemist Henry Edward Armstrong. In 1897 he moved to University College, Nottingham as professor of the chemistry department, and became the first newly endowed Sir Jesse Boot professor of chemistry at the university in 1928. He remained there until his retirement in 1936.

Kipping undertook much of the pioneering work into the development of silicon polymers at Nottingham.