William Hobson Mills

Who was William Hobson Mills?

William Hobson Mills FRS was a British organic chemist.

He studied chemistry at Cambridge University and Tubingen University and was appointed University Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, Fellow and Lecturer of Jesus College, Cambridge.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1923 and according to his membership citation was " Distinguished as an investigator and teacher in organic chemistry. Prepared, in 1910, the first, and only example of an optically active compound which contains no asymmetric atom, but owes its asymmetry to an oxime grouping. Solved in 1919-1921 the problem of the constitutions of the photographic sensitisers known as the isocyanines and carbocyanines. Since 1902 has published some 20 original papers. He has trained in chemical research a large number of collaborators whose names are associated with his own in the published papers." He won the Royal Society's Davy Medal in 1933.