August Dupré, FRS

In early childhood, after his mother died when he was 17 days old, August was cared for by his cousin Henriette (nee von Cammuzzi) von Brühl.

From his Royal Society obituary: http://www.jstor.org/stable/92921

Dupre married, in 1876, Miss Florence Marie Robberds, of Manchester, and leaves a family of one daughter and four sons, two of whom, Frederick and Percy, are now carrying on his work for the Home Office. He was of a striking personality, of medium height, but very powerfully built, with a massive head and brow, and must have possessed an iron constitution. As a young man he was a skilled fencer and swimmer. He was of somewhat excitable temperament, but had a most kindly disposition. Although not a fluent speaker, he was impressive from his obvious sincerity, and the thorough knowledge he displayed. He therefore made an excellent expert witness, and was more than once complimented in Court on his straightforward evidence. In controversy he was unsparing where facts were concerned, and at times intensely sarcastic. Although almost wholly devoted to chemistry, his mind found many other outlets. He was a great student of history, and his quite remarkable memory was frequently exemplified in conversation on this subject. He was also exceptionally well read in general as well as in scientific literature, both English and German, and amassed a large collection of books. Among other hobbies he pursued astronomy and photography. His mind, indeed, seems. rarely to have been idle, he had a perfect passion for work and, except for a few weeks' holiday annually, he never relaxed. There is little doubt that. at one time, about 1891, he overstrained his brain, and was obliged for some months to take a complete rest, which, fortunately, restored him to renewed energy. Like many great men, he was of a modest and retiring nature, and probably but few of his contemporaries have realised the magnitude and variety of the work he accomplished during fifty years of almost unceasing activity.*

See Peter Dupre's memoir: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1293015&page...

From: York Herald - Thursday 21 May 1891

THE "PHILOSOPHER'S STONE". At Marl borough-street Police Court, London, on Tuesday, Edward Pinter, a merchant, of Dover- street, Piccadilly, was brought up on remand to answer the charge of having attempted to obtain £40,000 from Edwin William Streeter, a jeweller, of New Bond-street, by means of a trick. Dr August Dupre, chemical adviser to the Explosives Department of the Home Office, said that on the 9th of May he received the articles from Inspector Forest, he had analysed the powder in one of the pill boxes, and found it to be a mixture of calomel and carbon. One of the parcels from the bag contained a similar compound, and the other 904 grains of pure precipitated gold. A small glass jar contained a small quantity of grey powder somewhat lighter in colour than that in the pocket and pill box. He found 19.7 per cent of it to be gold. He also examined two bottles containing nitrate of silver, a bottle labelled " poison " and containing calomel, another containing a few crystals of sulphate of calcium, two more which had apparently contained protosulphate of iron, some crucibles which had not been used, and the large crucible containing a fused mass of gold weighing 6684 grains, and globules of gold and silver weighing 299 grains. Of pure gold there was 5890 grains, which almost exactly equalled the weight of gold in 52 sovereigns. Mr. Abrahams, solicitor for the accused : The prisoner now proposes to make some gold in court. The Magistrate: I should be very pleased, but I am told that it makes such an awful stench. (To Dr. Lupre) : Do you think that the gold was obtained from sovereigns or not? Dr. Dupre: I have no doubt that it was obtained by precipitating gold from a solution by means of protosulphate of iron. The prisoner was again remanded.

AUGUST DUPRÉ.

BORN SEPT. 6TH, 1835; DIED JULY 15TH, 1907.

AUGUST Dupré was born at Mainz on September 6th, 1835, and died at liis residence, Mount Edgcumbe, Sutton, Surrey, after some weeks’ illness, on July, 1907, in his seventy-second year. He was the second son of J. F. Dupre, a merchant and citizen of the then Freie Reichsstadt of Frankfurt-am-Main, and his birth was entered in the register of the “ Freie Franzosische Gemeinde” of that city. On his father’s side Dupre traces his descent in a direct line from Cornelius Dupre, a French Huguenot who left France in 1685, after the suspension of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in the Palatinate, and who distinguished himself later as an officer in the army of Prince Eugene. Dupre’s mother was also of Huguenot descent. His family was, therefore, originally French, but by intermarriage had become practically German in the course of a hundred and fifty years.

Dupre had a somewhat varied school education, which he completed at the Polytechnic schools of Giessen and Darmstadt, and entered as a student of the University of Giessen in 1852, at the age of seventeen. There he studied chemistry under Professor Will, also attending the lectures of Kopp and others. From Giessen he proceeded to Heidelberg in 1554, Bunsen and Kirchhoff being among his teachers, and there he finally took his degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1855, being barely twenty years old. It is interesting to note that fifty years later, in 1905, the University renewed his Diploma (Goldenes Doctor-Jubilaum) in recognition of his scientific work. Among his fellow students at Giessen and Heidelberg who became famous in later life were Harley, Matthiessen, Roscoe, and Volhard.

In the autumn of 1855 Dupre proceeded to London and became assistant to Odling, whom he accompanied to Guy’s Hospital, remaining with him until 1863. In 1864 he was appointed Lecturer on Chemistry and Toxicology at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, in succession to his elder brother, Dr. F. W. Dupre, who had given up the appointment in order to take up mining in the then recently discovered salt deposits at Stassfurt, in connexion with which he is now so well known.

August Dupre remained in London for the rest of his life, and became a naturalised English subject in 1866. He resigned his appointment at the Westminster Medical School in 1897, after thirty-three years’ tenure, but during the last ten years, owing to pressure of consulting work, he had practically handed over the lectureship to the writer, who was associated with him as Assistant-Lecturer from 1885. From 1897 until his death in 1907 he continued to practise as consulting chemist, both privately and in connexion with several Government Departments, at his private laboratory in Edinburgh Mansions, Westminster.

Soon after he left the University Dupre began to publish various scientific papers, and, owing doubtless to this fact and the reputation for ability which he enjoyed in his own immediate circle, it was not long before he obtained several other public appointments in addition to the lectureship at Westminster. Thus in 1871 he was appointed Chemical Referee to the Local Government Board, and about this time he was first consulted by Sir Vivian Majendie, then Colonel Majendie, Chief Inspector in the Explosives Department of the Home Office, to which Department he shortly after became permanently attached as Consulting Chemist. In 1873 he became Public Analyst for Westminster, which post he held until 1901. In 1874 he was appointed Lecturer on Toxicology at the London School of Medicine for Women, an appointment in which he always showed the keenest interest and which he held until 1901.

He was also consulted by the Board of Trade, the Treasury, and the late Metropolitan Board of Works. In all these appointments and consultations he may be said to have distinguished himself brilliantly by his rapid and thorough grasp of the problems in hand, his marked originality, his extreme conscientiousness, his intense enthusiasm, and his infinite capacity for taking trouble.

In 1875 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1877 he became President of the Society of Public Analysts. From 1871 to 1874 he sat on the Council of the Chemical Society. In 1885 he was made a Vice-president of the Institute of Chemistry. In 1886 he was elected Examiner in Chemistry to the Royal College of Physicians, and again in 1892. In 1888 he was appointed a Member of the War Office Committee on Explosives, in 1891 an Associate Member of the Ordnance Committee, and in 1906 a Member of the Ordnance Research Board.

His earlier work for the Local Government Board, beginning in 1871, was largely analytical, but in 1884, 1885, and 1887 he made a series of investigations in connexion with the purification of water supplies by aeration and by the agency of bacteria, which must certainly rank as original researches of high merit and which undoubtedly have assisted greatly in the evolution of the most modern methods of treating sewage. They are published in the Medical Officers' Reports of the above dates, but are probably not widely known in the present day.

In conjunction with Abel, Dibdin, Eeates, Odling, and Voelcker he advised the late Metropolitan Board of Works as to the condition of the Thames in 1878, 1882, and 1883, and in 1884 made numerous experiments in conjunction with Mr. Dibdin on the treatment of London sewage on a large scale. This work is referred to at great length in the Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Sewage Discharge in 1884. He was a Member of the Departmental Committee on White Lead in 1893, and gave evidence before numerous other Royal Commissions.

Of all this Government work, it was the Home Office appointment which mainly occupied him. When, in 1871, he was first consulted by the Explosives Department, the manufacture in England of dynamite and guncotton had but recently commenced. He rapidly rose to eminence, and these two were practically the only high explosives known at that time. Much had to be done on the part of the Government in connexion with the safe manufacture, storage, transport, and use of these explosives, and the rapid development of the industry necessitated the introduction of the Explosives Act of 1875. In 1876 the authorised list of explosives comprised twelve kinds only, but in 1907 it had risen to 182. In addition, during this period, 108 explosives had been passed by the Home Office after examination by Dupré, and over one hundred had been rejected by his advice. He thus investigated, during a period of thirty-six years, nearly four hundred entirely new explosives of the most varied composition, and further examined, at frequent intervals, all explosives imported into England as to safety. In the course of this work he had often to evolve original methods of analysis or of testing for safety, and in this latter direction especially he rendered great services to the Government and, indirectly, to the public.

It was also part of his duty to assist H.M. Inspectors in investigating the causes of various accidental explosions in factories and elsewhere, which occurred from time to time. His work, therefore, involved heavy responsibilities, and sometimes serious personal risks, notably during the Fenian outrages in 1882-83, when he had to examine several “infernal machines,” and on the occasion of the Birmingham scare in 1883, when he superintended and himself assisted in the conversion of several hundred pounds of impure nitro-glycerine (which had been secretly manufactured in the heart of Birmingham) into dynamite, and so averted what might have been a terribly disastrous explosion. He was highly commended in the House of Commons by Sir William Harcourt, then Home Secretary, in connection with this “prompt and courageous action,” and by Sir Vivian Majendie in the 8th Annual Report of the Inspectors of Explosives in 1883.

As late as 1907 he devised a new method of testing for infinitesimal traces of mercury in explosive compounds. His private consulting work was also considerable, and he was engaged in many important law cases as a scientific witness.

It might well be supposed that these responsible undertakings engrossed him entirely, but this was far from being the case. During the first twenty years of his appointment at the Westminster Hospital Medical School he gave great attention to his lectures and to the practical teaching of chemistry. His lectures were always very fully illustrated with experiments, which year after year seemed to give him renewed pleasure to perform, and although not very easy to follow, he was always extremely interesting owing to the mass of information he had ever ready to hand. In 18% he published, in conjunction with the writer, then recentlly appointed Assistant-Lecturer, "A Manual of Inorganic Chemistry,” which had some success, and which reached its third edition in 1901. This book was dedicated to Professor Will, of Giessen, whom he always spoke of with the highest admiration and reverence as a great teacher.

The subject of toxicology, on which, as already said, he also lectured both at Westminster and at the London School of Medicine for Women, had always specially interested him, and he became known and was not unfrequently consulted as a toxicologist. He was brought into particular prominence in connexion with the celebrated Lamson case in 1881.

As an instance of the thoroughness of his work, the writer well remembers Dupré tasting sixteen quinine powders which had been prepared for the unfortunate victim in this case, and his almost immediately experiencing the now familiar and somewhat alarming physiological effect of the aconitine which he found in
the last powder. He was associated in this case’with Sir Thomas Stevenson. It has already been mentioned that very soon after leaving the University Dupré began to publish scientific papers, and it seems surprising that amid such varied occupations he found time to work out so many original problems. His papers amount to
no less than thirty-four in number between 1855 and 1902. Of these, five papers are included in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society between 1866 and 1872. The first, in 1866, with Dr. Bence Jones, on “Animal Quinoidine,” may be said to have anticipated the later important researches of Selmi and others on Ptomaines. Another, in 1871, dealt ably with the Elimination of Alcohol in the human subject, a problem then arousing much interest. The remaining four papers, published between 1868 and 1872, some of the work being done in conjunction with the late Mr. F. J. M. Page, rank, perhaps, as his best efforts, treating of
the specific heat and other characters of various aqueous mixtures and solutions, notably of mixtures of ethyl alcohol and water, in the course of which he made the remarkable observation that mixtures of these last two substances up to 36 per cent. of ethyl alcohol had a specific heat sensibly higher than that of water itself.

In the Journal of the Chemical Society are found eight papers between 1867 and 1880. One on the Synthesis of Formic and Sulphurous Acids, four on the Various Constituents of Wine, including compound ethers, one on the Estimation of Urea with Hypochlorite by means of an ingenious apparatus DOW so universally employed, and two, in conjunction with the writer, on a New Method of Estimating Minute Quantities of Carbon, which was included by the late Dr. E. Frankland in his well-known work on Water Analysis.

Between 1877 and 1883 he read no less than thirteen papers before the Society of Public Analysts dealing with the analysis of foods or water, and most of the methods evolved by him in these publications are still used or have given rise to improved operations, notably those dealing with butter fat, fusel oil in whiskey and other spirits, alum in flour and bread, foreign colouring matters in wine, and methods of water analysis.

He published only two papers on Explosives, to which he had given such great attention, before the Society of Chemical Industry, and these as late as 1902. As a matter of fact, however, much original work was done by him in this branch of chemistry, some of which appears in the Annual Reports of H.M. Inspectors of Explosives, while again much could not be put forward owing to his official connexion with the Home Office.

His earliest papers, published between, 1855 and 1862, are six in number, and deal with volumetric methods and spectrum analysis (conjointly with his brother, Dr. F. W. Dupre), the iodic test for morphia, and the presence of copper in plant and animal tissues, this last in conjunction with Odling. To the chemistry of wine, as will be seen from the above summary, he devoted a good deal of attention, and was joint author with Dr. Thudichum of a work entitled "On the Origin, Nature, and Varieties of Wine,’’ published in 1872, in which a considerable amount of original analytical work is embodied.

Dupre married, in 1876, Miss Florence Marie Robberds, of Manchester, and leaves a family of one daughter and four sons, two of whom, Frederick and Percy, are now carrying on his work for the Home Office. He was of a striking personality, of medium height, but very powerfully built, with a massive head and brow, and must have possessed an iron constitution. As a young man he was a skiIled fencer and swimmer. He was of somewhat excitable temperament, but had a most kindly disposition. Although not a fluent speaker, he was impressive from his obvious sincerity, and the thorough knowledge he displayed. He therefore made an excellent expert witness, and was more than once complimented in Court on his straightforward evidence. In controversy he was unsparing where facts were concerned, and at times intensely sarcastic.

Although almost wholly devoted to chemistry, his mind found many other outlets. He was a great student of history, and his quite remarkable memory was frequently exemplified in conversation on this subject. He was also exceptionally well read in general as well as in scientific literature, both English and German, and amassed a large collection of books. Among other hobbies he pursued astronomy and photography. His mind, indeed, seems rarely to have been idle; he had a perfect passion for work, and, except for a few weeks' holiday annually, he never relaxed. There is little doubt that at one time, about 1891, he overstrained his brain, and was obliged for some months to take a complete rest, which, fortunately, restored him to renewed energy.

Like many great men, he was of a modest and retiring nature, and probably but few of his contemporaries have realised the magnitude and variety of the work he accomplished during fifty years of almost unceasing activity .

H. WILSON HARE.

DUPRÉ, A.: August Dupré, Chemiker: Geb. am 06. 09. 1835 in Mainz, gest. am 15. 07. 1907 in Edcombe, Sueton, Surrey; Studierte Chemie an den Universitäten in Gießen und Heidelberg; promovierte 1855 zum Dr. phil. in Heidelberg und wurde Assistent am Guy's Hospital; 1863 Dozent für Toxikologie und 1864 Prof. für Chemie an der Medical School des Westminster Hospital in London; 1871 Chemical Referee to the Medical Department of Her Majestie's Privy Council. Arbeiten über Wasserverschmutzung, Kanalisation und über Explosivstoffe; wies Kupfer in pflanzlichem und tierischem Organismus nach; 1875 Mitglied der Royal Society; 1906 Mitglied des Ordnance Research Board. Autor der Arbeiten: III 000114 (mit Page), III 000337 (mit Dupre F.); Seinen Beitrag „On the Specific Heat and other Physical Charakters of Mixtures of Ethylic Alcohol and Water” (London 1869) hat Dupré mit einer Widmung versehen. Lit.: CDN II 129; IPB I 319; POG III 391; POG V 314.

DUPRÉ, F.: F. Dupré: Zusammen mit August Dupré führte F. Dupré um 1859 nach der Methode von Kirchhoff und Bunsen eine spektralanalytische Untersuchung des Londoner Wassers durch (Fortschritte der Physik XVI, 1860, S. 231ff.): III 000337 (mit Dupré A.).