Charles Harington (chemist)

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Charles Robert Harington

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|birth_date = {{birth date|1897|8|1|df=y}}

|birth_place = Llanerfyl, Wales

|death_date = {{death date and age|1972|2|4|1897|8|1|df=y}}

|death_place = Mill Hill, London, England

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|field = Chemistry

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|known_for = Synthesising thyroxine

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Sir Charles Robert Harington, KBE, FRS{{Cite journal | last1 = Himsworth | first1 = Harold | author-link1 = Harold Percival Himsworth| last2 = Pitt-Rivers | first2 = Rosalind | author-link2 = Rosalind Pitt-Rivers | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1972.0009 | title = Charles Robert Harington. 1897-1972 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 18 | pages = 266–308 | year = 1972 | jstor = 769662| pmid = 11615748 | s2cid = 31136079 }} (1 August 1897 – 4 February 1972) was a chemist, best known for synthesising thyroxine.

Life

Although he was born and raised in Llanerfyl, north Wales.[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31200 Harold Himsworth: Harington, Sir Charles Robert (1897–1972), rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 4 July 2013] he was a member of the English aristocracy from the Harington family which can be traced back to 12th century Rutland. He was the son of Rev Charles Harington of Llanerfyl and his wife Audrey Emma Bayly. He was educated at Malvern College and then Cambridge University, graduating MA in 1919.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=12 September 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}

From 1920 to 1922 he was a research assistant in the therapeutics section of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He gained a PhD in 'Aspect of the pathology of protein metabolism'{{Cite journal|last=Robert|first=Harrington, Charles|date=1922|title=Aspect of the pathology of protein metabolism|hdl=1842/22293|url=https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/22293|language=en}} from the University of Edinburgh in 1922. He then went to University College, London as a lecturer in Chemical Pathology.

He was professor of chemical pathology at University College London between 1931 and 1942, and then director of the National Institute for Medical Research between 1942 and 1962. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1931. One of his PhD pupils at UCL was Albert Neuberger, later Professor of Chemical Pathology at St Mary's Hospital, London, then part of the University of London.

He was knighted in 1948 and appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1962.

He died at home in Mill Hill in north-west London on 4 February 1972.