Person Thorpe; Sir; Jocelyn Field (1872 - 1940); chemist Thorpe Jocelyn Field Sir chemist 1872 - 1940 British Male 20 Larkhall Rise, Clapham, London, England 01 December 1872 18721201 White House, Cooden Beach, Sussex, England 10/06/1940 19400610

chemist Organic chemistry Chemistry Education: Primary in Clapham; Worthing College; King’s College, London (1888-1890); Royal College of Science (1890-1892); PhD Heidelberg (1895) Career: Joined Owens College, Manchester [present day University of Manchester] as an assistant to William Henry Perkin the younger (1895) and subsequently became a lecturer (1896) and senior lecturer (1908); whilst at Manchester he worked largely on terpenes (the primary constituents of many essential oils), in particular on camphor and its derivatives; awarded a Royal Society Sorby fellowship and moved to Sheffield devoting himself to organic synthetic and analytical work (1908); awarded the chair of organic chemistry at Imperial College, London (1914) a position he held until 1938; at the outbreak of World War One acted as administrator within the Chemical Defence and Trench Warfare committees; served on the Advisory Council to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (1916-1922); his wartime work focused on the development of lachrymators and of analgesic agents such as phenacetin and novocaine; remained on committees and continued in his capacity of consulting government and industrial bodies post war; worked on ‘valence deflection’, known as the Thorpe-Ingold effect), in collaboration with Christopher Kelk Ingold (FRS 1924)died of myocarditis (1940). Memberships: VP of the Chemical Society (1921) President of the Chemical Society (1928-1931) Awards/Medals: Longstaff Prize (1921) Davy Medal (1922) Honours: Officier de la Légion d’honneur (1919); CBE 1917; Kt 1939 Parents: William George Thorpe (1828–1903), merchant and barrister-at-law at the Middle Temple, and Naomi, née Field (1834–1912). Spouse: Alice Lilian Briggs (1879–1967), daughter of William Briggs, merchant, of Heaton Mersey, Stockport (1902). Known for three organic reactions: 1) Thorpe Reaction (chemical reaction described as a self-condensation of aliphatic nitriles catalyzed by base to form enamines); 2) Thorpe-Ingold Effect (effect where increasing steric hindrance favours ring closure and intramolecular reactions); 3) Guareschi-Thorpe condensation (increasing the size of two of the substituents at a tetrahedrally-bound carbon atom leads to higher intramolecular reaction rates between parts of the other two substituents). Medals and prizes: Davy Medal 1922 Sorby Fellowship 1908 Fellow 07/05/1908 36 Thomas Edward Thorpe; Harold Bailey Dixon; William Henry Perkin; William Palmer Wynne; Frederick Stanley Kipping; John Millar Thomson; Raphael Meldola Sources: Bulloch's Roll; DSB Obituaries: Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1939-1941 vol 3 pp 531-544, plate, by C K Ingold International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN 0-9696035-3-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.1941.0020 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Thorpe%2C+Jocelyn+Field RCN R66225 RCN R66226 RCN 31570 1 Dec 1872 - 10 Jun 1940 The past Fellows entries are under continuous revision. If you have queries or additional information to contribute, please contact Library@royalsociety.org. Content in external sources is not controlled by the Royal Society and historical sources may include content that is now unacceptable. Reviewed on 14/02/2024 as part of the Name Authority Project update. NA6170 21/11/2001 Andyg Martind 08/09/2025 RS_NET\VirginiaM Yes http://viaf.org/viaf/39462014 7e7addc8-9840-47ea-8b6c-f0ea997330be