23 Facts About Edward Divers

Edward Divers FRS was a British experimental chemist who rose to prominence despite being visually impaired from young age.

Between 1873 and 1899, Divers lived and worked in Japan and significantly contributed to the science and education of that country.

Edward Divers was born in London and was of Kentish ancestry.

Edward Divers had one brother, who was connected with the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, and a sister.

In 1850, Edward Divers entered the City of London School where he became inspired by chemistry lectures given by Thomas Hall.

In 1854 an assistant vacancy opened with Edmund Ronalds which Edward Divers accepted and then continued in the same capacity under Thomas Henry Rowney.

Edward Divers then went to the Queen's College, Galway, Ireland, to take the university degree in medicine, one of the few scientific degrees then available, and to use the opportunities there afforded for teaching and research in chemistry.

Edward Divers remained in Galway for twelve years, defending his PhD in 1860, until 1866, when he left Ireland for London.

Edward Divers joined the Chemical Society in 1860, and in 1862 started publishing his experimental work, on magnesium ammonium carbonate, zinc ammonium chloride, and three papers in 1870 on the carbonates and carbamate of ammonium.

Edward Divers had studied in 1863 the spontaneous change which guncotton undergoes with formation of gelatinous acids, and published two papers in 1871 on nitrites where he announces his discovery of hyponitrites.

Edward Divers was president of Section B of the British Association ; vice-president of the Chemical Society ; vice-president of the Institute of Chemistry, and president of the Society of Chemical Industry.

Edward Divers was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1885, while still working in Japan.

Edward Divers was invited to teach general and applied chemistry at the Imperial College of Engineering at Toranomon, Tokyo.

Edward Divers eventually became the Principal of the College in 1882.

In 1886 the college was incorporated with the Tokyo Imperial University, where Edward Divers held the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry until his return to England in 1899.

Two years before coming to Japan, Edward Divers reported an important paper on "The existence and Formation of Salts of Nitrous Oxide", which he elaborated in Japan in 1884 to establish the composition of silver hyponitrite as x, against the formula Ag5N5O5 asserted by Berthelot and Ogier.

Edward Divers demonstrated that thionyl chloride was instead produced by a secondary reaction between sulphur dioxide and phosphorus pentachloride.

Chemistry of sulfonated nitrogen compounds was the subject of most attention for Edward Divers while staying in Japan.

Edward Divers was pre-eminently an experimental chemist and rarely occupied with the theoretical study of chemical questions.

Edward Divers greatly encouraged the spirit of experimental research among his pupils including Jokichi Takamine, who was the first to prepare pure adrenaline, and Masataka Ogawa who discovered "nipponium".

Edward Divers was much respected in Japan, particularly by Ito Hirobumi, who, in the early days of the Engineering College, was the Minister of Public Works, and thus came in frequent contact with Divers.

Edward Divers was further an Honorary Member of the Tokyo Chemical Society, the Society of Chemical Industry of Japan, and the Engineering Society, the last of which was established by students of Divers at the Engineering College.

Edward Divers was survived by his two daughters, both of whom were married in Japan.