William Higgins (chemist)

William Higgins (1763 – June 1825), an Irish chemist, was one of the early proponents of atomic theory. Known mainly for his speculative ideas on chemical combination, William Higgins is popular for the insights his life offers into the emergence of chemistry as a career during the British Industrial Revolution. Despite an evident charm, his erratic behavior and tendency to indulge personal animosities prevented him from engaging the affections of London society. Instead he found refuge in a succession of government-supported chemical positions in Dublin. Thanks to the combination of such scientific opportunities with family resources, he became a very wealthy man.

Higgins was born in Collooney, County Sligo, Ireland, and came from a well-known medical family. William was the second child and younger son of Thomas Higgins, a physician educated at the University of Edinburgh. William’s uncle Bryan Higgins was also an eminent chemist. When William was a boy he was sent to London to live with his uncle. Under his uncle’s guidance, William developed a strong liking for and expertise in experimental chemistry.

In the early 1780s William assisted in making all the experiments detailed in his uncle Bryan Higgins’ Experiments and Observations Relating to Acetous Acid. In 1785 William undertook a mineralogical tour through England, also visiting a number of chemical manufacturers. In 1788 he entered Pembroke College, Oxford but did not complete his degree. His next four years after that were spent in London, where he published two editions of his most important work, the Comparative View of Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Theories which laid out much of Dalton's atomic theory 19 years earlier.

After a disagreement with his uncle, William left London and went to Dublin to be a chemist at Apothecaries Hall in 1792. William was soon busy equipping the laboratory, attending the Royal Irish Academy, and acting as a part-time chemist to the Irish Linen Board. Unfortunately the company had financial troubles and William lost his job. At the suggestion of Richard Kirwan, William became supervisor of the important Leskean Cabinet of minerals, recently acquired by the Royal Dublin Society. Soon after William became professor of chemistry to the Society.

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