Roscoe’s mother encouraged his inclination towards chemical pursuits by providing him with a room at home in which he could make his experiments, and such spare cash as he had was devoted to the purchase of chemicals and apparatus. In this manner he early obtained familiarity with the simpler operations of practical chemistry and laid the foundations of that dexterity in manipulation which contributed so greatly to his success as a lecturer.
Roscoe’s forbears on both sides were of Presbyterian or Unitarian stock, and the household naturally moved mainly in Nonconformist circles. These comprised some of the most respected and cultured families in the district—the Booths, Yateses, Martineaus, Taylors, Sandbachs: all well-known names in Lancashire—with some of whom his people were connected by marriage.
In 1848 he was entered at University College, London, at that time the only seat of higher learning and research in England open to men who were refused admittance to the older Universities on denominational grounds. Among the teachers in Gower Street at this period were De Morgan, Francis Newman, Malden, Sharpey, Graham, Lindley, Williamson, Jenner, and Liston. No more remarkable group was to be found in any institution for higher education in England. Among Roscoe’s contemporaries as students were Lister, Langton-Sandford, Farrer-Herschell, Bageot, Jessel, Richard Hutton (who married as first and second wives two of his cousins), Osler, Henry Thompson, and Edward Fry—all names afterwards distinguished in law, literature, and medicine.
Of his teachers at this time, the one who had most influence in shaping his career was undoubtedly Thomas Graham, the chemist. Graham had been elected in 1837, largely through the action of Lord Brougham, as successor to Edward Turner in what was then known as the University of London, founded some nine years previously. Although nervous and hesitating in manner, and with little fluency of speech, Graham was a sound and suggestive teacher, whose lectures were characterized by a philosophic method of exposition, and by accuracy and breadth of knowledge. These were always carefully prepared and well illustrated by experiments. The greater number in the class were, of course, medical students, for in those days there were few followers of pure science, and science faculties and degrees in science were unknown.
Roscoe, in entering Graham’s class-room, found himself, as he says, in a new world. One indication of the eagerness with which he exploited it may be gleaned from the circumstance that the enthusiastic young tyro at the end of the session came out the head of the class and gained the silver medal. His mother and sister soon followed him to town, and the family lived first in Torrington Square and next in Camden Town, where his cousin, Stanley Jevons, the economist, and afterwards one of his colleagues at Owens College, came to reside with them. One of his uncles was Mr. Justice Crompton, who had married into the Fletcher family, and was a great friend of his father. The judge always took a strong paternal interest in his nephew, and would have sent him to Cambridge had he been disposed to go there. The Crompton cousins were, he says, like brothers and sisters to him. It was in their drawing-room in Hyde Park Square that he first met Miss Lucy Potter, his future wife, then a girl of seventeen.
Roscoe now elected to follow chemistry as a career, somewhat to the dismay of his relatives, who, he tells us, imagined he intended “to open a shop with red and blue glass bottles in the window,” such being the external indications of the calling of a chemist in this country. And no wonder they were perturbed, for any one not being registered as a “pharmaceutical chemist,” or as a “chemist and druggist,” who should presume to style himself a chemist was punishable with a fine. Liebig was not altogether well informed of the facts when he wrote to Berzelius that the English chemists were ashamed to call themselves such because the apothecaries had appropriated the name. It was not so much that they were ashamed as they were actually prohibited by law. Although nearly two generations have passed since those days, it may be doubted whether even now the public mind has quite grasped the distinction between a chemist properly so-called and an apothecary.
Having settled upon his life’s work, Roscoe entered the Birkbeck Laboratory at University College, then under the direction of Williamson, whom Graham had just brought over from Paris, where he had been working with Laurent and Gerhardt. Roscoe had the highest appreciation of the genius and power of Williamson, and pays grateful homage to his memory in the following extract from his Autobiography:
At the time I entered the laboratory Williamson was engaged in the researches which have made his name a household word to chemists all the world over. His was a mind of great originality, and his personality was a most attractive one. And, despite his physical disabilities—for he lost an eye and the proper use of his left arm in early childhood—he was a diligent and accurate worker. Ardently devoted to his science, he infected all who worked under him with the same feeling. And his pupils willingly own that much of the success that they may have met with in after years was due to his teaching and example. I well remember the feelings of interest he aroused as he each day came down to the laboratory brimful of new ideas. First it was his explanation of the theory of etherification, of which he proved the truth by preparing the mixed ethers, thereby ascertaining the general constitution of alcohols and ethers, and laying one of the foundation-stones of modern chemistry. Next it was his well-known paper on the constitution of salts, in which he enunciated principles which have since been generally adopted. Then came his views on atomic motion and interchange, the first definite statement of a series of chemical phenomena which in the hands of Van ’t Hoff and others have become of the highest import.… He clearly foresaw the principles upon which the modern development of the steam-engine depends, and though he failed for want of constructive skill, he pointed the way which engineers have since followed with conspicuous success.
In his second year in the Birkbeck Laboratory Roscoe became Williamson’s private assistant, and took part in his researches, and when Graham accepted the Mastership of the Mint, and Williamson succeeded to the chair at University College, Roscoe was made lecture assistant. Williamson had the idea at that time of publishing an abridged translation of Gerhardt’s Chimie Organique, for the benefit of English students, which Roscoe was to prepare, but nothing came of the project.