234 JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT 



Thomson, and became a Fellow of the Chemical Society on 

 May 1 8, 1841, when the Society was barely three months old. 

 He then left London to take up calico printing and dyeing in 

 the neighbourhood of Manchester, but returned south in 1843, at 

 the invitation of Mr Lawes, to assist in the agricultural investi- 

 gations at Rothamsted, Herts. 



Mr John Lawes had begun experiments in 1837 on growing 

 plants in pots with various manures. He discovered the fact 

 that mineral phosphates when treated with sulphuric acid yielded 

 a most effective manure. Taking out his patent for the pro- 

 duction of superphosphates in 1842, Lawes soon found himself 

 busy with the establishment of a successful business. Not wish- 

 ing to give up the agricultural investigations which he had 

 commenced in the fields of Rothamsted he decided to obtain 

 scientific assistance, and remembering the young chemist he had 

 met in Dr Thomson's laboratory, Gilbert was invited in June 

 1843 to superintend the Rothamsted experiments. Thus began 

 that partnership in investigation which has yielded such a rich 

 harvest of results, and an association with Rothamsted which 

 lasted for fifty-eight years. 



Gilbert was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in i860, 

 and received a Royal Medal in 1867. He was President of 

 the Chemical Section of the British Association in 1880, and 

 President of the Chemical Society, 1882-3. In 1884 he was 

 appointed Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy at Oxford, 

 and held the chair until 1890. He was a member of various 

 foreign academies and societies, and was the recipient of hono- 

 rary degrees from several home universities, becoming LL.D. of 

 Glasgow (1883), M.A. of Oxford (1884), LL.D. of Edinburgh 

 (1890), and Sc.D. of Cambridge (1894). In 1893 on the occasion 

 of the jubilee of the Rothamsted experiments he received the 

 honour of knighthood. 



The character and scope of Gilbert's life-work was well 

 described by Prof Dewar at a special meeting of the Chemical 

 Society in 1898, when he said, "The work of Gilbert, as we 

 know, was early differentiated into that most complex and 

 mysterious study, the study of organic life. For the last fifty 

 years he has devoted his attention to the physiology of plant 



