Roscoe , Sir , Henry Enfield , 1833-1915 , Knight , chemist and university administrator

Henry Enfield Roscoe was born in London in 1833, into an nonconformist family. His paternal grandfather had been the banker and writer William Roscoe, his father was the legal writer Henry Roscoe, and the poet Mary Anne Jevons was his aunt. Henry Enfield Roscoe was brought up and educated in Liverpool before studying chemistry at University College London and at Heidelberg. Returning to Britain, he was initially a private researcher in London and subsequently (from 1857) a professor at Owens College, Manchester, where he came to be recognized as one of the world's leading teachers of chemistry. Roscoe became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863 and was knighted in 1884. He served as Liberal MP for South Manchester between 1885 and 1895, and as Vice-Chancellor of the University of London between 1896 and 1902.