Henry Drysdale Dakin 1880-1952

Abstract

Henry Drysdale Dakin was born at 60 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, London, on 12 March 1880. He was the youngest of a family of eight, there being five brothers and three sisters of whom one brother and two sisters now survive. His father, Thomas Burns Dakin, had previously owned a sugar refinery in London, and when this came to an end he acquired an iron and steel business in Leeds, and the whole family removed to Yorkshire. After a brief spell at Merchant Taylors’ School, H. D. Dakin entered Leeds Modern School in 1893 and remained there for the rest of his school life. Five of the old boys of this school became University professors, and of these may be mentioned H. H. Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and H. M. Dawson, who was the first Professor of Physical Chemistry at Leeds, both of whom were elected to the Fellowship of this Society, and the latter, who was a few years senior to Dakin at school, became his personal friend at the University. Some years ago this school, which was formerly in the centre of Leeds, moved to the north of the city and was organized as four Houses, one of which is known as ‘Dakin House’; and thus Dakin’s memory is kept green in the school, and his story and prestige have become a part of the school’s history. Assistant to analyst After leaving school Dakin was apprenticed to the Leeds City Analyst, Mr T. Fairley. He remained in Fairley’s laboratory for four years and in later life he ascribed a great importance to the experience which he gained there. An analyst in this position held many public appointments which brought a great variety of work to the laboratory. Among other offices Fairley held that of official gas referee, and this involved a good deal of analytical work—such as tests for sulphur content—involving attendance at gas works, and this work usually fell to the lot of the senior apprentice of the time. Accordingly, much of Dakin’s early life was spent in the precincts of gas works. In spite of long working hours, however, he found time to become an angler. One of his holidays in later years was spent fishing in Ireland with his friend, Harold Dudley. Dakin was inclined to trace a connexion between this period in Fairley’s laboratory and his later interest in biochemistry, because of the experience he gained from the many analyses of water, foods and fertilizers which came his way, as well as from the examinations made for a number of poisons. He admitted, indeed, that he had revelled in books on medical jurisprudence; but he claimed that all this had helped him to realize that chemistry had a biological side.