1817-1889, metallurgist; physician, British

Dr John Percy trained as a medical doctor but turned to a study of metallurgy.

1838 - M.D. Edinburgh;

1839 - elected physician to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham, England;

1842 - began to form a collection of metallurgical specimens;

1847 - F.R.S.;

1848 - invented a method of extracting silver from its ores, which has since been developed and suggested other important metallurgical processes and improvements, such as for the Bessemer process for making steel.;

1851 - F.G.S.;

1861-1880 he wrote five volumes of a massive unfinished study, ‘Metallurgy’, detailing the methods of extracting metals from their ores and describing their manufacturing uses.

For over thirty years he lectured at the Royal School of Mines at Jermyn Street, London.