WILLIAM H. WOLLASTON, M.D., P.R.S. &c.
Born August 6, 1766. Died December 22, 1828.
William Hyde Wollaston was born at East Dereham, a village sixteen miles from Norwich. His father was an astronomer of some eminence, who in the year 1800 published an extensive catalogue of the northern circumpolar stars. After a preparatory education, Wollaston entered at Caius College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.B. in 1787, and that of M.D. in 1793; soon afterwards he became a Tancred Fellow. During his residence at Cambridge, he devoted himself more to the study of astronomy than any other science.
On leaving Cambridge in 1789, he settled at Bury St. Edmunds, and began to practise as a physician, but met with so little success, that he soon removed to London. Shortly after his arrival, he became a candidate for the office of Physician to St. George's Hospital, but was defeated by the election of his principal opponent, Dr. Pemberton. It is stated that this circumstance had such an effect on Wollaston, that he declared, in a moment of pique, he would abandon the profession, and never more write a prescription, were it for his own father. This statement is, however, contradicted in a biographical notice of him, contained in the reports of the Astronomical Society, where it is affirmed that he continued to practise physic in London to the end of the year 1800, when an accession of fortune determined him to relinquish a profession he never liked, and to devote himself entirely to science.
On the 9th of May, 1793, Wollaston was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in June, 1797, appeared his first contribution to the 'Philosophical Transactions,' being a paper 'On Gouty and Urinary Concretions.' From this period until his decease, Wollaston was a constant contributor to the 'Transactions,' as well as to various scientific journals. His papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions' amount to thirty-nine, and, in addition to strictly chemical subjects, include memoirs in astronomy, optics, mechanics, acoustics, mineralogy, crystallography, physiology, and botany.
On the 30th of November, 1804, he was elected Junior Secretary to the Royal Society; and on the death of Sir Joseph Banks, in June, 1820, succeeded him in the President's chair, until the anniversary, November 30th of the same year, when he retired in favour of Sir Humphry Davy, to whom, at the election, he gave the whole weight of his influence.
In the years 1804-5 Wollaston first made known to the world the existence of the two metals, palladium and rhodium, which he found were contained in the ore of platinum, associated with osmium and iridium, two metals discovered about the same time by Mr. Tennant. In 1809 he showed that the supposed new metal, tantalum, was identical with columhium, previously discovered by Mr. Hatchett; and shortly before his death, he transmitted to the Royal Society a communication, constituting the Bakerian lecture of 1828, in which he fully describes his ingenius method of rendering platinum malleable. From this invention he is stated to have acquired more than 30,000l.
Dr. Wollaston's knowledge was more varied, and his tastes less exclusive, than any other philosopher of his time, except Cavendish; but optics and chemistry are the two sciences in which he made the greatest discoveries. To him we owe the first demonstration of the identity of galvanism and common electricity, and the first explanation of the cause of the different phenomena exhibited by them. Dr. Wollaston was accustomed to carry on his experiments in the greatest seclusion, and with very few instruments; he was also endowed with an extreme neatness of hand, and invented the most ingenious methods of determining the properties and constituents of very minute quantities of matter. It is related by Dr. Paris (in his Life of Davy), that a foreign philosopher once calling on Wollaston with letters of introduction, expressed a great desire to see his laboratory. "Certainly," replied Wollaston, and immediately produced a small tray, containing some glass tubes, a blowpipe, two or three watch-glasses, a slip of platinum, and a few test-tubes.
Another anecdote is told of him, that, having been engaged one day in inspecting a monster galvanic battery constructed by Mr. Children, he accidentally met, on his way home, a brother chemist, who knew of Mr. Children's grand machine, and uttered something about the inconvenience of it being of such an enormous size; on this Wollaston seized his friend by the button, led him into a bye corner, where, taking from his waistcoat pocket a tailor's thimble which contained a galvanic arrangement, and pouring into it the contents of a small phial, he astonished his friend by immediately heating a platinum wire to a white heat. He also produced platinum wire so extremely fine as to be nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.