Copenhagen Polytechnical College

Table 2,2, Main occupations of four batches each of 20 graduates from Copenhagen Polytechnical College, graduated in the years 1834-37, 1860-63, 1885-90 and 1910-11.

In 1880, Denmark had but one geographical centre of university-level learning, namely the capital Copenhagen. It comprised two centres of chemical education Kobenhavns Universitet (the University of Copenhagen) and Polyteknisk Laereanstalt (the Polytechnic College). 

A summary of the professions of those active in the emerging chemical industry is informative. The founder of the fertilizer industry was a businessman, who he had one son (and a grandson) educated at the Polytechnical College. Clement, from the same school, modernized the industry. Moreover, the production of soda ash from cryolite was started by another student of the applied science course in Copenhagen, Julius Thomsen. The story is complicated, however, and the banker and industrialist Tietgen played an important role in setting up production. 

The first chemists were pharmacists and a few science graduates, but in 1829 the Polytechnical College was founded. Throughout the period, professors of chemistry at the Copenhagen University were also teachers at the Polytechnical College. The biorelated chemical industries employed more pharmacists than technical chemists, who were based mainly in the inorganic chemical industry. Only one or two important entrepreneurial chemists-businessmen were involved in the Danish chemical industry. 

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