SIR JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT 



i 8 i 7 i 90 i 



BY W. B. BOTTOMLEY 



Early training in Chemistry his meeting with Lawes official distinctions 

 the Lawes-Gilbert combination the Rothamsted Reports Liebig's 

 'mineral theory' the relation to nitrogen Leguminous plants 

 Hellriegel and others confirmation of their results nitrification- 

 feeding of stock. 



JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT was born at Hull on August i, 

 1817. He was a son of the manse being the second son of the 

 Rev. Joseph Gilbert, a Congregational Minister. His mother was 

 one of the gifted daughters of the Rev. Isaac Taylor of Ongar, 

 and a well-known writer of hymns and songs for children. 

 Whilst at school young Gilbert had the misfortune to meet 

 with a gunshot accident which deprived him of the use of one 

 eye, a mishap which for a time threatened to mar his future 

 career, but his own inherent determination and the home-train- 

 ing of the manse enabled him to overcome the disadvantage of 

 defective eye-sight, and triumph over physical disability. 



From school he went to Glasgow University and studied 

 chemistry under Professor Thomas Thomson, then to Univer- 

 sity College, London, where he attended the classes of Professor 

 Graham and others, and worked in the laboratory of Professor 

 Todd Thomson. Here it was, in Dr Thomson's laboratory, 

 that he first met Mr J. B. Lawes, with whom he was afterwards 

 so intimately associated. He then proceeded to Giessen for a 

 short time, studying under Liebig and taking his degree of 

 Doctor of Philosophy in 1840. Returning to London, he worked 

 at University College, acting as laboratory assistant to Professor 



