The Life and Labours of John Mercer, F.R.S.

Abstract

THE subject of this memoir was one of the most remarkable men of his time. A son of the soil, and almost wholly self-taught, he effected what was practically a revolution in one of our staple industries by his discoveries in technical chemistry and by his application of chemical principles to the dyer's art. With no laboratory training other than that which he gave himself, he by his skill and sagacity as an experimentalist added enormously to the resources of a great industry: owing nothing to academies, and uninfluenced by schools of learning, he made himself master of the chemical philosophy of his time, and by the acuteness and originality of his speculations he has permanently influenced the development of theoretical chemistry. In Lancashire, the scene of his work, the name of John Mercer is held in hardly less esteem than that of John Dalton; and probably to many people in Cottonopolis the director of the Oakenshaw Print-Works was a far more important personage than the old Quaker in George Street, who gave lessons in the New Systern of Chemical Philosophy at the rate of half-a-crown an hour. The Atomic Theory has doubtless contributed much to the intellectual greatness of Manchester, and Manchester men are not ungrateful: they have named one of their streets after its illustrious author. Still calicoes and calico-printing are what they have to live by, and although they have not yet, so far as we know named a street after John Mercer, they have shown, by the widespread adoption of his processes, a very practical appreciation of the value of his labours.

The Life and Labours of John Mercer, F.R.S.

By Edward A. Parnell. (London: Longmans and Co., 1886.)