Henry Richardson Procter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Richardson Procter (1848–1927) was an English chemist, known as an authority on the chemistry of leather, with a family background of several generations of Quaker tanners in northern England. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1923.[1]
He was born at Low Lights, North Shields on 8 May 1848, the son of John Richardson Procter (1812–1888) and his wife Lydia Richardson.[2] Both his parents came from Quaker families in the leather industry, and they were second cousins: Lydia's paternal grandfather was Isaac Richardson (1738–1791) who owned the Cherryhill tanyard at York and was the younger brother of John Richardson Procter's maternal grandfather John Richardson (1733–1800), who owned a tanyard at Low Lights.[3][4]
Procter was educated at Bootham School.[1] He was then apprenticed to his father.[5] He studied at the Royal College of Chemistry for a period to 1871.[6] During this period in London he had experience, as a volunteer intern, of working with Edward Frankland and Norman Lockyer.[5]
Records are extant of experimental work on tanning Procter carried out at the family tannery, Low Lights, North Shields, from 1877 to 1887.[7] Procter and Wilhelm Eitner in Vienna are considered pioneers in the chemistry of the tanning of leather. Eitner set up an institute in 1874.[8] On his father's death in 1888, Procter closed down the Low Lights tannery.[9]
Procter then worked for three years for Edward & James Richardson, a leather products firm at Elswick, Newcastle run by cousins, brought in by its manager David Richardson (1835–1913).[10][8] In 1891 he joined the Yorkshire College of Science at Leeds and founded its leather science teaching as a lecturer.[11][12] There he became Professor of Applied Chemistry, later Emeritus.[1][13] His retirement in 1913 was marked by the establishment of the Procter International Research Laboratory.[14] The Leeds College and University had a Procter Professor for Leather Science over a long period, until in 1961 under Alan Gordon Ward the scope of the department was broadened to Food and Leather Science.[15]
