Sir Robert Robinson: President of the Royal Society

Abstract

SIR ROBERT ROBINSON, Waynflete professor of chemistry in the University of Oxford, who has just been elected president of the Royal Society, is recognized throughout the scientific world as one of the most outstanding and versatile of organic chemists. His researches not only embrace all fields of pure organic chemistry but also include notable contributions to subjects of biological interest, such as antimalarials and phthioic acid. As a research student under the late Prof. W. H. Perkin, Robinson was early initiated into the chemistry of the alkaloids and other natural products, and he soon became an outstanding figure in the famous Manchester school. The unique collaboration between Perkin and Robinson thus established was continued until the former's death in 1929. While still less than thirty years of age, as professor in Liverpool, Robinson published his famous synthesis of tropinone, noteworthy on account of its simplicity and intuitive brilliance. This was quickly followed by a theory of biogenesis of plant products which collated for the first time the apparently dissimilar alkaloidal structures and which still stands as one of the most outstanding contributions to the chemistry of natural compounds. Among other significant investigations in this field, mention may be made of Robinson's morphine formula, now universally accepted, and also his classical work on the elucidation of the structures of brucine and strychnine.