Davis, George Edward 1850 - 1907

(1850-1907), chemical engineer

Davis was born at Eton on the 27th July 1850; at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a local bookbinder however after two years he left to pursue his interest in Chemistry. He went to work at the local gasworks and studied part time—initially at the Slough Mechanics' Institute and later (for one year) at the Royal School of Mines. At the age of nineteen he went to Manchester where he worked as a chemist at Brearley & Sons for three years. In early 1872 he was engaged as manager at the Lichfield Chemical Company in Staffordshire where he planned and built a number of new chemical plants, designing both the equipment and the buildings in which it was installed. His works included the (then) tallest chimney in the UK at 200ft.

In 1875 he left Lichfield and returned to the north-west to work at the St Helens factory of J. G. Gamble, pioneers in the Weldon chlorine process. In 1878 he had been recruited into the new chemical inspectorate by its first director, Angus Smith. In 1884 Davis returned to private practice, this time in partnership with his brother Alfred. Although their business as bleach manufacturers was not successful, the consulting business flourished.

In 1887 he founded the Chemical Trade Journal which, in addition to encouraging and spreading commercial and technical information, also served to publicize Davis's own ideas on chemical engineering. He developed these ideas sufficiently to present a series of lectures at Manchester Technical College. Davis was for some years the leader of a group of chemists and engineers who met together under the title of the Faraday Club. From this little group sprang the Society of Chemical Industry in 1881; Davis was a founder member and its first honorary secretary (1881–3). He subsequently set up a Manchester section of the society and was its chairman from 1895 to 1898.

He had sixty-seven patents granted, and in addition to his books published numerous scientific papers and prosecuted a successful consultancy business. He was widely considered the father of chemical engineering.

He died at his home, 151 Croxted Road, West Dulwich, on 20 April 1907.