FRANKLAND, SIR EDWARD English chemist, was born at Churchtown, near Lancaster, on Jan. 18, 1825. In 1845 he entered Lyon Playfair's laboratory in London, subsequently working under R. W. Bunsen at Marburg. In 1847 he was appointed science-master at Queenwood school, Hamp shire, where he met J. Tyndall, and in 1851 first professor of chemistry at Owens college, Manchester. Returning to London six years later he became lecturer in chemistry at St. Bartholo mew's hospital, and in 1863 professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution. In 1865 he succeeded A. W. von Hofmann at the School of Mines, where he remained for twenty years. In he received the Copley medal, the highest honour of the Royal Society. He was made a K.C.B. in 1897 and died while on holiday at Golaa (Norway) on Aug. 9, 1899.
Analytical problems, such as the isolation of certain organic radicles, attracted his attention to begin with, but he soon turned to synthetical studies, and he was only about twenty-five years of age when he discovered the organo-metallic compound. A consideration of these and other substances led Frankland, in 1852, to the conception that the atoms of each elementary sub stance can only combine with a certain limited number of the atoms of other elements. The theory of valency thus founded dominated the subsequent development of chemical doctrine, and formed the basis of modern structural chemistry.
In applied chemistry Frankland's great work was in connection with water-supply. He was appointed a member of the second royal commission on the pollution of rivers in 1868, and in the course of six years he brought to light an enormous amount of valuable information respecting the contamination of rivers by sewage, trade-refuse, etc., and the purification of water for domes tic use. He also showed that the luminosity of a flame was not only connected with the presence of solid particles, but also with the pressure of the burning gas or vapour; even hydrogen at a pressure of io to 20 atmospheres burns with a luminous flame. Further, he showed that the spectrum of a dense ignited gas resembles that of an incandescent liquid or solid, and he traced a gradual change in the spectrum of an incandescent gas under increasing pressure. An application of these results to solar physics in conjunction with Sir Norman Lockyer led to the view that at least the external layers of the sun cannot consist of matter in the liquid or solid forms, but must be composed of gases or vapours. Frankland and Lockyer were also the first to realise the existence of helium (q.v.).
See memorial lecture delivered by Professor H. E. Armstrong before the London Chemical Society on Oct. 31, 1901, also Journal of the Chemical Society (1905) ; Autobiographical Sketches (1902) ; W. A. Tilden, Famous Chemists (1902) . His original papers, down to 1877, were collected and published as Experimental Researches in Pure, Applied and Physical Chemistry.