16 Facts About Norman Haworth

Sir Walter Norman Haworth FRS was a British chemist best known for his groundbreaking work on ascorbic acid while working at the University of Birmingham.

Norman Haworth received the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C".

Norman Haworth made this pursuit in spite of active discouragement by his parents.

In 1912 Norman Haworth became a lecturer at United College of University of St Andrews in Scotland and became interested in carbohydrate chemistry, which was being investigated at St Andrews by Thomas Purdie and James Irvine.

Norman Haworth began his work on simple sugars in 1915 and developed a new method for the preparation of the methyl ethers of sugars using methyl sulfate and alkali.

Norman Haworth then began studies on the structural features of the disaccharides.

Norman Haworth was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Armstrong College of Durham University in 1920.

The next year Norman Haworth was appointed Head of the Chemistry Department at the college.

Norman Haworth published a classic text in 1929, The Constitution of Sugars.

In 1933, working with the then Assistant Director of Research Edmund Hirst and a team led by post-doctoral student Maurice Stacey, having properly deduced the correct structure and optical-isomeric nature of vitamin C, Norman Haworth reported the synthesis of the vitamin.

Norman Haworth is commemorated at the University of Birmingham in the Norman Haworth Building, which houses most of the University of Birmingham School of Chemistry.

Norman Haworth developed a simple method of representing on paper the three-dimensional structure of sugars.

The representation, using perspective, now known as a Norman Haworth projection, is still widely used in biochemistry.

Norman Haworth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1928.

Norman Haworth was knighted in the 1947 New Years Honours list.

Norman Haworth died suddenly from a heart attack on 19 March 1950, his 67th birthday.