Ludwig Mond

See this book about the Mond family: Thomas Adam, Transnational Philanthropy: The Mond Family’s Support for Public Institutions in Western Europe from 1890 to 1938. Springer, Jul 26, 2016.

"This book provides a collective biography of the Mond family and explores the philanthropic activities of Ludwig Mond and of his two sons Alfred and Robert in the field of art collecting, the fight against early childhood mortality, the advancement of research and of higher education, archaeological excavations in Egypt and Palestine, and for the founding of the State of Israel from the 1890s to the late 1930s. These activities resulted in the creation of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, the donation of Ludwig Mond’s art collection to the National Gallery in London, the funding of the excavation of the sacred Buchis Bulls at Armant in Egypt, the establishment of the Children’s Hospital in London, and the support of many natural science institutes and associations in England, France, Germany, and Italy."

Ludwig Mond

From Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mond

Ludwig Mond

Born March 7, 1839 Kassel, Hesse-Kassel, Germany Died December 11, 1909 Regent's Park, London, England Residence Germany, Netherlands, England Citizenship British Nationality German Fields Chemist Institutions Brunner Mond & Company Mond Nickel Company Alma mater University of Marburg University of Heidelberg Doctoral advisor Hermann Kolbe Robert Bunsen Known for Commercial use of the Solvay process Discovery of nickel carbonyl Notable awards Grand cordon of the Order of the Crown of Italy Dr Ludwig Mond (March 7, 1839 – December 11, 1909), was a German-born chemist and industrialist who took British nationality.

Education and career

Ludwig Mond was born into a Jewish family in Kassel, Germany. His parents were Meyer Bär (Moritz) Mond and Henrietta Levinsohn. After attending schools in his home town, he studied chemistry at the University of Marburg under Hermann Kolbe and at the University of Heidelberg under Robert Bunsen but he never gained a degree.[1] He then worked in factories in Germany and the Netherlands before coming to England to work at the factory of John Hutchinson & Co in Widnes in 1862. He worked in Utrecht for the firm of P. Smits & de Wolf from 1864 to 1867 and then returned to Widnes. Here he formed a partnership with John Hutchinson and developed a method to recover sulphur from the by-products of the Leblanc process, which was used to manufacture soda.[2]

In 1872 Mond got in touch with the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay who was developing a better process to manufacture soda, the ammonia-soda or Solvay process. The following year he went into partnership with the industrialist John Brunner to work on bringing the process to commercial viability. They established the business of Brunner Mond & Company, building a factory at Winnington, Northwich. Mond solved some of the problems in the process that had made mass production difficult, and by 1880 he had turned it into a commercially sound process.[1] Within 20 years the business had become the largest producer of soda in the world.[2]

Mond continued to research new chemical processes. He discovered nickel carbonyl, a previously unknown compound, which could be easily decomposed to produce pure nickel from its ores through the Mond process.[3] He founded the Mond Nickel Company to exploit this. Ores from nickel mines in Canada were given preliminary enrichment there and then shipped to Mond's works at Clydach, near Swansea, Wales for final purification.[2]

Honours and benefactions

Mond supported scientific societies and, with Henry Roscoe, helped to expand the small Lancashire Chemical Society into the nationwide Society of Chemical Industry of which he was elected president in 1888. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1891. Abroad, he was elected to membership of the German Chemical Society, the Società Reale of Naples, and the Prussian Akademie der Wissenschaften. He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Padua, Heidelberg, Manchester and Oxford and was awarded the grand cordon of the Order of the Crown of Italy.[2]

He was a benefactor to a number of scientific organisations including the Royal Society, the Italian Accademia dei Lincei and the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In his will he left bequests to the town of Kassel and to a number of Jewish charities. In his later years he had built up a collection of old master paintings and he left the greater proportion of these to the National Gallery, London.[2] His wife left a large collection of materials relating to German literature to King's College, London.[4]

Family and personal

Ludwig Mond (right) as a member of the Corps Rhenania Heidelberg, ca. 1856In October 1866 Mond married his cousin Frida Löwenthal (1847-1923) in her native town of Cologne. They soon moved to England and had two sons, Robert and Alfred. In 1880 he took British nationality. While he was establishing his business the family lived at Winnington and in 1884 they moved to London. From the early 1890s on, he spent most of his winters in Rome at his home there. This home, the Palazzo Zuccari, was first leased and then (1904) bought in the name of his wife's friend Henriette Hertz, who developed it into a study centre for the history of art now called Bibliotheca Hertziana. He died in his London home, 'The Poplars', Avenue Road, near Regent's Park. Although he had never practiced any religion he was buried with Jewish rites at St Pancras cemetery where his sons erected a mausoleum. His estate was valued at £1 million.[2]

References ^ a b Weintraub, Bob (2003). "Ludwig Mond: Great Chemist-Industrialist; Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett): Great Zionist Leader", Bulletin of the Israel Chemical Society, Vol. 14, December, 2003, pp. 26–31. Online version retrieved December 13, 2006. ^ a b c d e f Greenaway, Frank, (2004) 'Mond family (per. 1867–1973)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press; [1] Retrieved on March 9, 2007. ^ Ludwig Mond, Carl Langer, Friedrich Quincke (1890), "Action of carbon monoxide on nickel", Journal of the Chemical Society 57: 749–753, doi:10.1039/CT8905700749. ^ The Mond Bequest at King's College London: A Celebration, King's College London, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/history/archives/mond/, retrieved 21 April 2009

Further reading

Cohen, J. M. (1956), The Life of Ludwig Mond, London: Methuen

• Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees via father Meyer Moritz Bar Mond Weinberg by SmartCopy: Nov 22 2014, 3:13:19 UTC

See also:

http://www.thepeerage.com/p51158.htm#i511574

https://kingscollections.org/exhibitions/archives/the-mond-bequest/...