George Downing Liveing

Who was George Downing Liveing?

George Downing Liveing FRS was an English chemist and spectroscopist.

He was born in Nayland, Suffolk, the eldest son of Edward Liveing and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, matriculating BA in 1851. He was made a Fellow of the college and then in 1911 President of the college.

He was Professor of Chemistry, Military College, Sandhurst and then Professor of Chemistry, Cambridge University from 1861 to 1908.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1879. He won the Davy Medal in 1901 "for his contributions to spectroscopy".

He died on Boxing Day 1924, aged 97, as the result of being knocked down by a cyclist while walking to his laboratory. He was buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, next to his late wife Catharine, who had died in 1888.