Ramsay was born at 2 Clifton Street[3] inGlasgow on 2 October 1852, the son of civil engineer and surveyor, William C. Ramsay, and his wife, Catherine Robertson.[4] The family lived at 2 Clifton Street in the city centre, a three-storey and basement Georgian townhouse.[3] The family moved to 1 Oakvale Place in theHillhead district in his youth.[5] He was a nephew of thegeologistSir Andrew Ramsay.
Ramsay went back to Glasgow as Anderson's assistant atAnderson College. He was appointed as Professor of Chemistry at theUniversity College of Bristol in 1879 and married Margaret Buchanan in 1881. In the same year he became the Principal of University College, Bristol, and somehow managed to combine that with active research both inorganic chemistry and on gases.
William Ramsay's Nobel Prize certificateBlue plaque at 12Arundel Gardens commemorating the work of William Ramsay
William Ramsay formedpyridine in 1876 fromacetylene andhydrogen cyanide in an iron-tube furnace in what was the first synthesis of aheteroaromatic compound.[10]In 1887, he succeededAlexander Williamson as the chair of Chemistry atUniversity College London (UCL). It was here at UCL that his most celebrated discoveries were made. As early as 1885–1890, he published several notable papers on theoxides ofnitrogen, developing the skills that he needed for his subsequent work. On the evening of 19 April 1894, Ramsay attended a lecture given byLord Rayleigh. Rayleigh had noticed a discrepancy between the density of nitrogen made bychemical synthesis and nitrogen isolated from the air by removal of the other known components. After a short conversation, he and Ramsay decided to investigate this. In August Ramsay told Rayleigh he had isolated a new, heavy component of air, which did not appear to have anychemical reactivity. He named this inert gas "argon", from the Greek word meaning "lazy".[2] In the following years, working withMorris Travers, he discoveredneon,krypton, andxenon. He also isolatedhelium, which had only been observed in thespectrum of the sun, and had not previously been found on earth. In 1910 he isolated and characterisedradon.[11]
During 1893–1902, Ramsay collaborated withEmily Aston, a British chemist, in experiments on mineral analysis and atomic weight determination. Their work included publications on the molecular surface energies of mixtures of non-associating liquids.[12]
Ramsay endorsed the Industrial and Engineering Trust Ltd., a company that claimed it could extractgold fromseawater, in 1905. It bought property on the English coast to begin its secret process. The company never produced any gold.
In 1881, Ramsay was married to Margaret Johnstone Marshall (née Buchanan), daughter of George Stevenson Buchanan. They had a daughter, Catherine Elizabeth (Elska) and a son, William George, who died at 40.
In 1923,University College London named its new Chemical Engineering department and seat after Ramsay, which had been funded by the Ramsay Memorial Fund.[20] One of Ramsay's former graduates,H. E. Watson was the third Ramsay professor of chemical engineering.
^Creese, M. R. S. (1998).Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800–1900: A survey of their contributions to research. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow. p. 265.
