James Young (Scottish chemist)
| James Young | |
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| Born | 13 July 1811 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Died |
13 May 1883 (aged 71) Wemyss Bay, Scotland |
| Nationality | Scottish |
James Young (13 July 1811 – 13 May 1883) was a Scottish chemist best known for his method of distilling paraffin from coal and oil shales.
James Young was born in the Drygate area of Glasgow, the son of John Young, a cabinetmaker and joiner. He became his father's apprentice at an early age, and educated himself at , attending evening classes at the nearby Anderson's College (now Strathclyde University) from the age of 19. He met Thomas Graham at Anderson's College, who had just been appointed as a lecturer on chemistry and in 1831 was appointed as his assistant and occasionally took some of his lectures. While at Anderson's College he also met and befriended the famous explorer David Livingstone; this relationship was to continue until Livingstone's death in Africa many years later.
In Young's first scientific paper, dated 4 January 1837, he described a modification of a voltaic battery invented by Michael Faraday. Later that same year he moved with Graham to University College, London where he helped him with experimental work.
In 1839 Young was appointed manager at James Muspratt's chemical works Newton-le-Willows, near St Helens, Merseyside, and in 1844 to Tennants, Clow & Co. at Manchester, for whom he devised a method of making sodium stannate directly from cassiterite.
In 1845 he served on a committee of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for the investigation of potato blight, and suggested immersing the potatoes in dilute sulphuric acid as a means of combatting the disease; he was not elected a member of the Society until 19 October 1847. Finding the Manchester Guardian newspaper insufficiently liberal, he also began a movement for the establishment of the Manchester Examiner newspaper which was first published in 1846.
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