Annual Report of the Council. xlv 



use Perkin's own words, " a dirty reddish-brown precipitate," 

 and, he continues, "unpromising though this result was I was 

 interested in the reaction, and thought it desirable to treat a 

 more simple base in the same manner. Aniline was selected, 

 and its sulphate was treated with potassium dichromate ; in this 

 instance a black precipitate was obtained, and on examination 

 this precipitate was found to contain the colouring matter since 

 so well known as aniline purple or mauve." 



The further story of the successful introduction of this 

 laboratory product into commerce is also told by Perkin in the 

 Hofmann Memorial Lecture, and it illustrates to a wonderful 

 degree the genius and resourceful skill of this remarkable man. 

 Even at the present day, with all our knowledge of chemical 

 reactions and with all the elaborate factory methods at our 

 disposal, it is an arduous task to adapt a laboratory experiment to 

 commercial conditions, yet this man, met at every step by 

 appalling difficulties and discouragements, was able to overcome 

 them all and to found practically by himself a new and mighty 

 industry ; well might he say " it was all pioneering work." 



It is impossible in the short space at our disposal to deal 

 with the many discoveries with which Perkin enriched the 

 Science of Organic Chemistry, but, if for no other reason, he 

 must ever rank amongst the greatest teachers of science, because 

 he was the first to show that pure science forms the most fertile 

 field for technical and commercial progress. The value of this 

 teaching cannot be overestimated, for it showed once and for all 

 that the old and harmful superstition that industry could only 

 learn from the practice and experience of daily life was hope- 

 lessly wrong. 



Although Perkin left the Royal College of Chemistry in 

 October, 1856, much against the advice of Hofmann, in order to 

 carry out the manufacture of mauve, on the commercial scale, 

 yet he never allowed his arduous technical duties to interfere 

 with his research in pure chemistry. Thus only a year after 

 starting the works at Gieenford, that is in 1858, he published 



