Robert Robinson
Robinson, Robert (1886-1975) was a British chemist. He won the 1947 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on biologically significant plant substances. He studied many important natural plant substances and developed methods for making many of these substances artificially.
Robinson was born on Sept. 13, 1886, on a farm near Chesterfield. England. He earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1905 and a doctor of science degree in 1910, both from the University of Manchester.
In 1912, Robinson married Gertrude Maud Walsh, who also had attended the University of Manchester. Together they studied flower pigments (colored substances). These pigments included anthocyanin (blue and red) and anthoxanthin (yellow and brown). The couple had two children.
Robinson held the position of chair of organic chemistry at a series of universities: the University of Sydney in Australia (1912–1915), the University of Liverpool in England (1915–1920), St. Andrews University in Scotland (1921–1922), Manchester University (1922–1928), University College in London (1928–1930), and Oxford University (1930–1955).
Much of Robinson's most important research was done at Oxford. In 1925, he worked out the chemical structure of morphine, a drug made from the poppy plant that is used to relieve severe pain. In 1942, he studied the behavior of penicillin, a powerful drug used to treat infections caused by bacteria, and determined its chemical structure. Penicillin comes from molds.
Robinson received many honors. In 1920, he was elected a fellow (member) of the Royal Society, the leading scientific organization in the United Kingdom, and he served as its president from 1945 to 1950. He was knighted in 1939.
Robinson's wife died in 1954. Robinson married Steam Sylvia Hershey Hillstrom in 1957. That year, he also founded Tetrahedron, an international journal of organic chemistry. Robinson died on Feb. 8, 1975, in Great Missenden, England.