Ambrose Godfrey

In 1679, aged 19, he and his wife travelled to London where he was to work as an assistant to Robert Boyle,[5] trying to produce phosphorus.

[6] Boyle is remembered as the first chemist, but his earliest interests were in alchemy, and he wanted to learn about the then new phosphorus.

Godfrey was sent to Hamburg to see Brandt and came back with the missing key: that very high temperatures were needed.

He used so much heat that it cracked the retort, but Boyle saw the residue in the broken container glowed faintly, so they were on the right track.

His procedure was the same as Brandt's, namely to boil human urine down to a residue, then heat that strongly to give off phosphorus gas which would condense.

Godfrey was not always careful handling phosphorus; his fingers were often blistered and slow to heal from touching the solid.

In 1707, Godfrey was wealthy enough to buy the lease to a new shop in Southampton Street where the Bedford House estate had stood.

[8] Under the lease he could not carry on "obnoxious" trade there, but the narrow strip of land behind was unrestricted, so he built a workshop there, where he and his staff made phosphorus, and where he gave demonstrations of it.

But Boyle dabbled in alchemy, wasted his inheritance, and had to live on a pension provided by his brothers Ambrose and John, who took over the business in 1742.

The business passed to their nephew, Boyle's son, named Ambrose Godfrey after his grandfather.