1-148-493 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Lyon Playfair, Scottish chemist and politician, lecturing, 1852. Playfair (1818-1898) lecturing at the Museum of Practical Geology, London, to students of the Mechanics Institution who had matriculated. Playfair studied chemistry at Glasgow under Thomas Graham, and under Liebig at Giessen. Professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University from 1858-1896, he discovered the nitroprusside class of salts. Playfair was appointed chemist to the Geological Survey in 1846 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 1848. He was engaged in the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Liberal MP for the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh from 1868-1885, Playfair served as Secretary of State for Science and Art in 1855 and was Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons from 1880-1883. He was knighted in 1883 and was created a Baron in 1892. From The Illustrated London News. (London, 21 February 1852).