Henry Richardson Procter
File:Henry Richardson Procter by E Procter.jpg]]
Henry Richardson Procter (1848–1927) was an English chemist, known as an authority on the chemistry of leather, with a family background of several generations of Quaker tanners in northern England. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1923.{{Who's Who|title=Procter, Henry Richardson|id=U201850}}
Life
File:John Richardson Procter.jpg
He was born at Low Lights, North Shields on 8 May 1848, the son of John Richardson Procter (1812–1888) and his wife Lydia Richardson.{{cite book |last1=Boyce |first1=Anne Ogden |title=Records of a Quaker family: the Richardsons of Cleveland |date=1889 |publisher=S. Harris & Co. |location=London |page=xiii |url=https://archive.org/details/recordsofquakerf00boyc/page/n340/mode/1up}} Both his parents came from Quaker families in the leather industry, and they were second cousins: Lydia's paternal grandfather was Isaac Richardson (1738–1791) who owned the Cherryhill tanyard at York and was the younger brother of John Richardson Procter's maternal grandfather John Richardson (1733–1800), who owned a tanyard at Low Lights.{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=George |title=The Annals of the Cleveland Richardsons and Their Descendants, Compiled from Family Manuscripts, Etc |date=1850 |publisher=Privately printed |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AN9rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA41 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=George |title=The Annals of the Cleveland Richardsons and Their Descendants, Compiled from Family Manuscripts, Etc |date=1850 |publisher=Privately printed |pages=45–57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AN9rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA45 |language=en}}
Procter was educated at Bootham School. He was then apprenticed to his father.{{cite journal |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=Obituary notices |url=https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.1929.0026 |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character |pages=i–xviii |doi=10.1098/rspa.1929.0026 |date=January 1997|volume=122 |issue=790 |doi-access=free }} He studied at the Royal College of Chemistry for a period to 1871.{{cite book |last1=Gooday |first1=Graeme |title=The Morals of Measurement: Accuracy, Irony, and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice |date=April 2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43098-2 |page=75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d6jn62r5r2AC&pg=PA75 |language=en}} During this period in London he had experience, as a volunteer intern, of working with Edward Frankland and Norman Lockyer.
Records are extant of experimental work on tanning Procter carried out at the family tannery, Low Lights, North Shields, from 1877 to 1887.{{cite web |title=Experiments in tanning conducted June 1877-October 1887 at Lowlights Tannery, North Shields, by Henry Richardson Procter - Archives Hub |url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/5a3fd76d-c8f4-326f-9ee3-0d7bb8fa728a |website=archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk}} Procter and {{ill|Wilhelm Eitner|de}} in Vienna are considered pioneers in the chemistry of the tanning of leather. Eitner set up an institute in 1874.{{cite book |title=Ciba Review |date=1955 |publisher=Ciba Ltd. |page=12|issue=109 |language=en}} On his father's death in 1888, Procter closed down the Low Lights tannery.{{cite book |last1=International Society of Leather Trades' Chemists |title=Journal |date=1928 |page=97|volume=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a5ZDAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}
Procter then worked for three years for Edward & James Richardson, a leather products firm at Elswick, Newcastle run by cousins, brought in by its manager David Richardson (1835–1913).{{cite book |last1=Sansbury |first1=Ruth |title=Beyond the Blew Stone: 300 Years of Quakers in Newcastle |date=1998 |publisher=Newcastle upon Tyne Preparative Meeting |isbn=978-0-9534308-0-2 |page=183 |language=en}} In 1891 he joined the Yorkshire College of Science at Leeds and founded its leather science teaching as a lecturer.{{cite book |title=The University of Leeds Review |date=1991 |publisher=University of Leeds |page=215 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ge_kAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}{{cite news |title=The Yorkshire College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003092/18901225/028/0002 |work=Ripon Observer |date=25 December 1890|page=2}} There he became Professor of Applied Chemistry, later Emeritus.{{cite ODNB|id=40917|first=Judith|last=Collins|title=Procter [née Shaw], Doris Margaret [Dod] (1890–1972)}} His retirement in 1913 was marked by the establishment of the Procter International Research Laboratory.{{cite news |title=Loss to Leather Trade |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002130/19270826/056/0002 |work=Northampton Chronicle and Echo |date=26 August 1927|page=2}} The Leeds College and University had a Procter Professor for Leather Science over a long period, until in 1961 under Alan Gordon Ward the scope of the department was broadened to Food and Leather Science.{{Who's Who|title=Ward, Prof. Alan Gordon|id=U38827}}
Works
File:Removing the Hair Procter Tanning.jpg
Much of Procter's research was on tannin analysis and gelatin swelling, diverse chemical topics.{{cite book |last1=International Society of Leather Trades' Chemists |title=Journal of the International Society of Leather Trades' Chemists |date=1928 |publisher=The Society |page=100 |language=en}} He gave a series of Cantor Lectures on "Leather Manufacture" in 1899 for the Society of Arts of London, and a series of Cobb Lectures in 1918 on "Recent Developments in Leather Chemistry" for the Royal Society of Arts, as it was later known.{{cite book |title=Journal of the Society of Arts |date=1899 |publisher=The Society |page=518 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EVMmAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA518 |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Procter |first1=Henry R. |title=Recent Developments in Leather Chemistry. Lecture I |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts |date=1918 |volume=66 |issue=3440 |pages=747–753 |jstor=41347796 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41347796 |issn=0035-9114}} His books included:
- A Text-book of Tanning: A Treatise on the Conversion of Skins Into Leather, Both Practical and Theoretical (1885). This work concentrated on vegetable tannins, with only a cursory discussion of mineral tanning.{{cite book |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=A Text-book of Tanning: A Treatise on the Conversion of Skins Into Leather, Both Practical and Theoretical |date=1885 |publisher=E. & F. N. Spon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4TVEAQAAMAAJ |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Haslam |first1=Edwin |title=Plant Polyphenols: Vegetable Tannins Revisited |date=29 June 1989 |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=978-0-521-32189-1 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zyc9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3 |language=en}}
- The Principles of Leather Manufacture (1903){{cite book |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=The Principles of Leather Manufacture |date=1903 |publisher=E. & F. N. Spon, limited |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2hlKAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}
- Leather Industries Laboratory Book of Analytical and Experimental Methods (1908){{cite book |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=Leather Industries Laboratory Book of Analytical and Experimental Methods |date=1908 |publisher=E. & F. N. Spon, Limited |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O6uEAAAAIAAJ |language=en}}
- Leather Chemists' Pocket-book: A Short Compendium of Analytical Methods (1912){{cite book |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=Leather Chemists' Pocket-book: A Short Compendium of Analytical Methods |date=1912 |publisher=E. & F.N. Spon, Limited |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BrtJAAAAIAAJ |language=en}}
- The Making of Leather (1914){{cite book |last1=Procter |first1=Henry Richardson |title=The Making of Leather |date=1914 |publisher=University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a3I1AAAAMAAJ |language=en}}
Procter translated with Thomas Hutchinson Waller, An Introduction to Physical Measurements (1873) by Friedrich Kohlrausch.{{cite book |last1=Kohlrausch |first1=Friedrich Wilhelm G. |title=An introduction to physical measurements, tr. by T.H. Waller and H.R. Procter |date=1873 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pEgDAAAAQAAJ |language=en}} He wrote a 1916 research paper with John Arthur Wilson, later chief chemist with A. F. Gallun & Sons;{{cite book |last1=Fangerau |first1=Heiner |title=Spinning the scientific web: Jacques Loeb (1859-1924) und sein Programm einer internationalen biomedizinischen Grundlagenforschung |date=2 June 2014 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-05-008805-1 |page=135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j6vpBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA135 |language=de}}{{cite book |last1=Bruce |first1=William George |title=History of Milwaukee, City and County |date=1922 |publisher=S. J. Clarke Publishing Company |page=699 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0EEVAAAAYAAJ |language=en}} Wilson was at the Procter Research Laboratory in 1915–6;{{cite web |title=Accounts by John Arthur Wilson of experiments conducted by him in the Procter International Research Laboratory of the University of Leeds, 1915-1916 - Archives Hub |url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f407d424-3749-3d08-a9b4-059682a73158 |website=archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk}} he referred to Procter in 1923 as "the father of leather chemistry".
In 1918 Procter was a member of the "Colloid Chemistry and its Industrial Applications" of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, chaired by Frederick Donnan.{{cite book |title=Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science |date=1919 |publisher=John Murray |location=London |page=15 |url=https://archive.org/details/reportofbritisha19adva/page/n15/mode/1up}} Using Donnan's early ideas on membranes for a "theory of vegetable tannins", Procter innovated in organic applications, and laid the ground for the work of Jacques Loeb on colloids.{{cite web |last1=Stadler |first1=Max |title=Assembling Life: Models, the cell, and the reformations of biological science, 1920-1960 |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16454481.pdf |website=core.ac.uk |publisher=Imperial College London|date=2009|pages=40–41}}
Family
Procter married in 1874 Emma Lindsay Watson. The couple had two sons and a daughter, the second son being the painter Ernest Procter. Emma was the seventh daughter of James Watson (1810–1861) and Mary Spence, eldest daughter of Robert Spence;{{cite book |title=Pedigree of the Forsters: Part 1 |date=1871 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-382-13634-5 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GuuzEAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA44 |language=en}} they were married in 1835 at North Shields Meeting House in a double wedding, at which Mary's sister Sarah, the second daughter, married the solicitor Joseph Watson of Newcastle upon Tyne.{{cite news |title=Marriages |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000243/18350314/045/0003 |work=Newcastle Journal |date=14 March 1835|page=3}} Robert Spence Watson was the eldest son of Joseph and Sarah Watson.{{cite ODNB|id=36777|first=H. C. G.|last=Matthew|title=Watson, Robert Spence (1837–1911)}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Procter, Henry Richardson}}
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:People from North Shields