The Most Famous

CHEMISTS from United Kingdom

This page contains a list of the greatest British Chemists. The pantheon dataset contains 602 Chemists, 74 of which were born in United Kingdom. This makes United Kingdom the birth place of the 3rd most number of Chemists behind United States, and Germany.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary British Chemists of all time. This list of famous British Chemists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of British Chemists.

1. John Dalton (1766 - 1844)

With an HPI of 83.53, John Dalton is the most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 103 different languages on wikipedia.

John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He introduced the atomic theory into chemistry. He also researched colour blindness; as a result, the umbrella term for red-green congenital colour blindness disorders is Daltonism in several languages.

2. William Ramsay (1852 - 1916)

With an HPI of 79.11, William Ramsay is the 2nd most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 85 different languages.

Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air" along with his collaborator, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics that same year for their discovery of argon. After the two men identified argon, Ramsay investigated other atmospheric gases. His work in isolating argon, helium, neon, krypton, and xenon led to the development of a new section of the periodic table.

3. John Macleod (1876 - 1935)

With an HPI of 78.77, John Macleod is the 3rd most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 62 different languages.

John James Rickard Macleod, (6 September 1876 – 16 March 1935), was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He is noted for his role in the discovery and isolation of insulin during his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, for which he and Frederick Banting received the 1923 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Awarding the prize to Macleod was controversial at the time, because according to Banting's version of events, Macleod's role in the discovery was negligible. It was not until decades after the events that an independent review acknowledged a far greater role than was attributed to him at first.

4. Alexander R. Todd (1907 - 1997)

With an HPI of 78.07, Alexander R. Todd is the 4th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 59 different languages.

Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd (2 October 1907 – 10 January 1997) was a British biochemist whose research on the structure and synthesis of nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1957.

5. Robert Robinson (1886 - 1975)

With an HPI of 77.85, Robert Robinson is the 5th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Sir Robert Robinson (13 September 1886 – 8 February 1975) was a British organic chemist and Nobel laureate recognised in 1947 for his research on plant dyestuffs (anthocyanins) and alkaloids. In 1947, he also received the Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm.

6. Humphry Davy (1778 - 1829)

With an HPI of 76.94, Humphry Davy is the 6th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 84 different languages.

Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited with discovering clathrate hydrates. In 1799, he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh. He nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential as an anaesthetic to relieve pain during surgery. Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), a founder member and Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity" "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."

7. Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (1897 - 1967)

With an HPI of 76.52, Cyril Norman Hinshelwood is the 7th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (19 June 1897 – 9 October 1967) was a British physical chemist and expert in chemical kinetics. His work in reaction mechanisms earned the 1956 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

8. Arthur Harden (1865 - 1940)

With an HPI of 76.39, Arthur Harden is the 8th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Sir Arthur Harden, FRS (12 October 1865 – 17 June 1940) was a British biochemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1929 with Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin for their investigations into the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes. He was a founding member of the Biochemical Society and editor of the Biochemical Journal for 25 years.

9. Archer Martin (1910 - 2002)

With an HPI of 76.38, Archer Martin is the 9th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages.

Archer John Porter Martin (1 March 1910 – 28 July 2002) was a British chemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Richard Synge.

10. Rodney Robert Porter (1917 - 1985)

With an HPI of 75.95, Rodney Robert Porter is the 10th most famous British Chemist. His biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Rodney Robert Porter (8 October 1917 – 6 September 1985) was a British biochemist and Nobel laureate.

People

Pantheon has 74 people classified as British chemists born between 1640 and 1968. Of these 74, 9 (12.16%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living British chemists include M. Stanley Whittingham, John E. Walker, and Peter J. Ratcliffe. The most famous deceased British chemists include John Dalton, William Ramsay, and John Macleod. As of April 2024, 74 new British chemists have been added to Pantheon including John Dalton, William Ramsay, and John Macleod.