Arthur Lapworth

Who was Arthur Lapworth?

Arthur Lapworth FRS was a Scottish chemist.

He was born in Galashiels, Scotland, the son of geologist Charles Lapworth and educated at St Andrew's and King Edward's School, Birmingham. He graduated in Chemistry from Mason College. From 1893 to 1895 he worked on a scholarship at City and Guilds of London Institute on the chemistry of camphor and the mechanism of aromatic substitution.

His first post was as a Demonstrator in the School of Pharmacy, University of London in Bloomsbury. From there he went to the Goldsmiths Institute as head of the Chemistry Department and in 1909 became Senior Lecturer in Inorganic and Physical chemistry at the University of Manchester. In 1913 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry and in 1922 the Sir Samuel Hall professor and Director of Laboratories.

He was a pioneer of the field of physical organic chemistry. The Lapworth reaction mechanism is named after him.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1910, and was awarded their Davy Medal in 1931.

He retired in 1935 and died in Manchester. He had married in 1900 Kathleen Holland, one of three sisters. Both his brothers-in-law were eminent scientists themselves