威廉·海德·沃勒斯顿1766—1828

William Hyde Wollaston (; 6 August 1766 – 22 December 1828) was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering the chemical elements palladium and rhodium. He also developed a way to process platinum ore into malleable ingots, patented the camera lucida, and made contributions in electricity and spectroscopy.

Life

He was born in East Dereham in Norfolk, the son of Francis Wollaston (1737–1815), a noted amateur astronomer, and his wife Althea Hyde. He was one of 17 children, but the family was financially well-off and he enjoyed an intellectually stimulating environment. He was educated privately (and remotely) at Charterhouse School from 1774 to 1778 then studied Sciences at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1793 he obtained his doctorate (MD) in medicine from Cambridge University, and was a Fellow of his college from 1787 to 1828.

He worked as a physician in Huntingdon from 1789 then moved to Bury St Edmunds before moving to London in 1797. During his studies, Wollaston had become interested in chemistry, crystallography, metallurgy and physics. In 1800, after he had received a large sum of money from one of his older brothers, he left medicine. He concentrated on pursuing his interests in chemistry and other subjects outside his trained vocation.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793, where he became an influential member. He served as its president in 1820.

Work

After having established a partnership with Smithson Tennant in 1800 in order to produce and sell chemical products, Wollaston became wealthy by developing the first physico-chemical method for processing platinum ore in practical quantities. He held the details of the process secret until near his death and made huge profits for about 20 years by being the only supplier in England of the product which had many of the same qualities as gold, but was much cheaper.

Chemical analysis related to the process of purifying platinum led Wollaston to discover the elements palladium (symbol Pd) in 1802 and rhodium (symbol Rh) in 1804.

When Anders Gustav Ekeberg discovered tantalum in 1802 Wollaston declared the new element identical with niobium (then known as columbium). Niobium and tantalum bear an unusually close chemical similarity, even among vertically adjacent elements. Heinrich Rose would later prove that columbium and tantalum were indeed different elements and he would rename columbium "niobium" in 1846.

The mineral wollastonite was later named after Wollaston for his contributions to crystallography and mineral analysis.

Honours and awards

Honours and awards

Fellow of the Royal Society, 1793.

Secretary, 1804–1816.

President, briefly in 1820.

Vice-president, 1820–1828

Copley Medal, 1802

Royal Medal, 1828.

Croonian lecture, 1809

Bakerian Lecture, 1802, 1805, 1812, 1828

Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1813.

Legacy

• The following have been named in his honour:
• Wollaston Medal
• List of Wollaston Medal recipients
• Wollaston, a lunar impact crater

Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada a 2,681 square kilometre (1,035 sq mi) freshwater lake

Wollaston Islands, Chile are named for him

Wollaston Foreland, NE Greenland.

Wollaston Peninsula, Canada.

Wollastonite, a chain silicate mineral

Wollaston wire, extremely fine platinum wire

It has been mentioned that Wollaston has not received the renown which should complement his historical standing in world of science: his contemporaries Thomas Young, Humphry Davy and John Dalton have become far better-known.

Different reasons for this have been suggested, including that Wollaston himself was not systematic or conventional in presenting his discoveries, even publishing anonymously (initially) in the case of Palladium.

Collections

University College London holds a collection of papers (primarily 20th century) about Wollaston assembled by Lionel Felix Gilbert, who proposed a biography of Wollaston which was never fully written. The Geological Society of London holds a notebook belonging to Wollaston, and the Royal Society holds correspondence written to Wollaston during his time as President.