Edward R. Festing

Major-General Edward Robert Festing, CB, FRS (1839 – 16 May 1912), English army officer, chemist, and first Director of the Science Museum in London. He contributed to infrared spectroscopy research with Sir William Abney in the 1880s.

Edward R. Festing was the son of Richard Grindall Festing and Eliza Mammatt. He was educated at Carshalton and King's College School. He was transferred to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and then "gazetted" as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers at the age of only fifteen.

With Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney (also a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich), Festing studied the infrared absorption spectra of a number of organic and inorganic chemical compounds. In 1881, they established that the absorption bands were associated with groups of atoms in the molecules rather than the entire molecule. They postulated the correlation of different bands to specific groupings, for instance the nitro group in nitrobenzene. In 1885, Abney and Festing developed a colour photometer and undertook a range of colour measurements.

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