Citizenship British Nationality British | Role Chemist Name John Newlands | |
 | ||
Born 26 November 1837Lambeth, Surrey, England,United Kingdom ( 1837-11-26 ) Similar People Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner, Julius Lothar Meyer, Alexandre‑Emile Beguyer de Chancourtois, Dmitri Mendeleev, Henry Moseley | ||
John Alexander Reina Newlands (26 November 1837 – 29 July 1898) was a British chemist who worked on the development of the periodic table.
Biography
He was home-schooled by his father and went on to study at the Royal College of Chemistry. He was interested in social reform and in 1860 served as a volunteer with Giuseppe Garibaldi in his campaign to unify Italy. Returning to London, Newlands set up in practice as an analytical chemist in 1864, and in 1868 he became chief chemist in James Duncan's London sugar refinery, where he introduced a number of improvements in processing. Later he left the refinery and again set up as an analyst with his brother, Benjamin.
Newlands was the first person to devise a periodic table of chemical elements arranged in order of their relative atomic masses. Continuing Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner's work with triads and Jean-Baptiste Dumas' families of similar elements, he published in 1865 his 'Law of Octaves', which stated that 'any given element will exhibit analogous behaviour to the eighth element following it in the table.' Newlands arranged all of the known elements, starting with hydrogen and ending with thorium, into seven Groups of eight, which he likened to octaves of music. In Newlands' table, the elements were ordered by the atomic weights that were known at the time and were numbered sequentially to show their order. Periods were shown going down the table, with groups going across – the opposite from the modern form of the periodic table.
The incompleteness of the table alluded to the possible existence of additional, undiscovered elements. The Law of Octaves was ridiculed by Newlands' contemporaries, and the Society of Chemists did not accept his work for publication.
After Dmitri Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer received the Davy Medal from the Royal Society for their later 'discovery' of the periodic table, Newlands fought for recognition of his earlier work and eventually received the Davy Medal in 1887.
John Newlands died due to complications in surgery at his home in Lower Clapton, Middlesex, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. His business was continued after his death by his younger brother, Benjamin.