James Walker (chemist)

Sir James Walker FRS[1] FRSE FCS LLD (6 April 1863 – 6 May 1935) was a Scottish chemist.

He graduated with a BSc in 1885 and studied under Thomas Carnelley and wrote a thesis on the dehydration of metallic hydroxides by heat for which gained a doctorate in 1886.

While he is personally credited with no truly major discoveries, his most important role was as a populariser of the new and controversial physical chemistry theories of Ostwald, van't Hoff and Arrhenius in the English speaking world.

In 1897 he married Annie Purcell Sedgwick (1871–1950), also a chemist, who graduated from the science tripos at Girton College, Cambridge in 1893.

[2][9] In that year, she was a research student under Norman Collie at University College, London, where she met Walker.

[10][11] From 1895 to 1897, she was assistant to Ida Freund and Resident Lecturer in Natural Science at Newnham College, Cambridge.