Brande, William Thomas

Autograph Letter of Charles Hatchett. William Thomas Brande (1788-1866), Davy s successor at the Royal Institution, was Charles Hatchett s son-in-law. The English edition of Brande s Manual of Chemistry was dedicated to Hatchett. 

Soon after the turn of the century, Mr. Hatchett became interested in William Thomas Brande, a young apothecaries apprentice who had recently moved to Chiswick. He encouraged the boy to collect and classify ores and rocks, and presented him with some of his duplicate specimens the boy, in turn, sometimes assisted Mr. Hatchett in analyzing minerals (I). Brande s first scientific paper was published in Nicholsons Journal when he was only sixteen years old. When he became Sir Humphry Davy s successor at the Royal Institution, Brande increased the mineral collection and used it in his lectures. He later married Charles Hatchett s daughter. 

Arfwedson was not able to produce pure lithium. About a year later, however, Swedish chemist William Thomas Brande (1788—1866) and English chemist Sir Humphry Davy (1778—1829) were both able to extract the pure metal from its compounds. 

William Thomas Brande (1788-1866) was born in London, England. Trained as an apothecary, he became a lecturer in chemistry at the University of London in 1808 and was a professor at the Royal Institution from 1813 to 1854, His scientific achievements were modest, though he was the first person to discover naphthalene, now used in mothballs. 

William Thomas Brande (London, n January 1788-Tunbridge Wells, ii February 1866), F.R.S. 1809, in 1812 superintendent of chemical operations in Apothecaries Hall, succeeded Davy as professor of chemistry in the Royal Institution (1813-54), from 1827 with Faraday as second professor he was then Master of the Mint. His father was apothecary to George III and had shops in Hanover and London (Accum was his assistant in 1793). Brande wrote several books ... 

In 1824 Faraday had already published important work in his own name, and he was proposed for election to the Royal Society by Richard Phillips, whom he had met at Tatum s lectures and with whom he was associated in technical and consultative work. Phillips (London 1778-11 May 1851), of Quaker origin, a pharmacist and lecturer in chemistry at St. Thomas s Hospital and Sandhurst Military Academy, had become F.R.S. in 1822, only two years before. He became president of the Chemical Society in 1849. He seems to have been an aggressive person. Neither Davy nor Brande could have signed Faraday s nomination, since as President and Secretary of the Royal Society they were precluded by custom from so doing. Wollaston, Children, Babington, or Sir William Herschel, who signed the certificate, would without doubt have nominated Faraday if asked. Faraday said ... 

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