Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford

The Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory (ICL) building in South Parks Road at Oxford.
Three Royal Society of Chemistry plaques at the entrance of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory.

The Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, England, is a large university chemistry department.

Overview

The department has several laboratories in the Science Area at Oxford:[1]

In Mansfield Road
In South Parks Road

Origins

Chemistry has a long history at Oxford University. The early pioneer of chemistry Robert Boyle and his assistant Robert Hooke began working in Oxford in the mid-seventeenth century. A chemistry laboratory was built in the basement of the Old Ashmolean Building in 1683, which was used until 1860.[2] Chemical research was also conducted in laboratories set up in individual colleges Christ Church (1767), Magdalen (Daubeny Laboratory, 1848), Balliol (1853, later joined with Trinity to become the Balliol-Trinity Laboratories), Queen's (1900), and Jesus (1907).[3]

Chemistry was first recognized as a separate discipline at Oxford with the building of a laboratory attached to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, opening in 1860.[4] The laboratory is a small octagonal structure to the right of the museum, built in stone in the Victorian Gothic style. The design was based on the Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury and it adopted the same name despite being a laboratory. The building was one of the first ever purpose-built chemical laboratories anywhere and was extended in 1878.

See also

References

  1. "Chemistry, Dept of". Oxford University Pocket Diary. Oxford University Press. 2014–15. p. 164.
  2. "History of the Ashmolean". Ashmolean Museum.
  3. Robert Joseph Paton Williams; Allan Chapman; John Shipley Rowlinson (6 November 2008). Chemistry at Oxford: A History from 1600 to 2005. Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 275. ISBN 978-0854041398.
  4. "History of Chemistry at the University of Oxford". UK: Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford. Retrieved 25 August 2015.


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