E. J. Holmyard

Eric John Holmyard (1891–1959) was an English science teacher at Clifton College, and historian of science and technology.

Holmyard studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society. His scholarly work included rectification of accounts of the history of alchemy, particularly in relation with Islamic science. He translated texts from Arabic and Latin, and wrote extensively on Geber. He was responsible with D. C. Mandeville for the re-attribution of the alchemical text De Mineralibus to an origin in Avicenna. Holmyard served as the founding editor of the scientific review and history of science journal Endeavour.

As a textbook author, he pioneered an approach to science teaching that included historical material. "His historicized science books were an enormous and long-term commercial success, with Elementary Chemistry (1925) alone selling half-a-million copies by 1960."

He taught both Nevill Mott and Charles Coulson at Clifton, but his personal influence on them as scientists was low (in Coulson's case, even negative). Holmyard also published best seller, A Higher School Inorganic Chemistry, along with W.G. Palmer.

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