Science's powerful companion: A. W. Hofmann's investigation of aniline red and its derivatives

Abstract

Since the eighteenth century chemistry has been deemed to be useful, yet how it might find widespread application, particularly in the case of its most advanced developments, was generally unclear. The discovery of synthetic dyestuffs has often been considered as the turning point towards much closer linkage between chemistry and the manufacture of useful products. How this occurred can best be seen in the case of August Wilhelm Hofmann, who for two decades after 1845 was director of the Royal College of Chemistry in London. As the teacher of many pioneers of the dye industry, Hofmann can be considered its first scientific leader. Indeed, the compounds he studied from 1860 were products made in the factories of his former students and assistants. They in turn were the first to recognize Hofmann's role in stimulating the practical application of science. Henry Armstrong, the chemist and educator, went so far as to imply that this was germane to Hofmann's pedagogic and research strategies: ‘it is clear that the influence he exercised in introducing scientific method into industry was in no sense accidental, but the considered expression of innate convictions’. These convictions were also encouraged by the need to attract funds from industrial sponsors for the Royal College of Chemistry, and they charged the rhetoric that served to enhance Hofmann's ambition and the discipline of chemistry before international audiences.