Born in 1834 in Darmstadt, German. Came to England in 1859 when he became the private assistant of Henry Enfield Roscoe, professor of chemistry at Owens College, Manchester. In March 1861 he was appointed as assistant in the college laboratory and in 1873 he was made lecturer. In 1874 he became the first professor of organic chemistry in England. He was naturalized on 20 May 1879.

In the course of his work, Schorlemmer isolated hydrocarbons from the paraffin, olefin and acetylene series for the first time and simplified the chemistry of the whole paraffin group. He also carried out some analysis of dyes with RS Dale.

Schorlemmer died on 27 June 1892 in Manchester.