George Fownes

From 1842 he was chemistry professor at the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and from 1846 at University College, London.

In 1844, he received the first Actonian Prize (of 100 guineas) for his essay Chemistry as Exemplifies the Wisdom and Beneficence of God.

This work was compared to the Bridgewater Treatises and Fownes was referred to as "a thorough chemist, a sound philosopher, and an enlightened Christian.

"[1] He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1845, but that same year resigned from his academic positions due to ill health.

He spent time in Barbados from 1847, in an attempt to treat the pulmonary disease afflicting him, but, on his return to England in 1848, he caught a cold and died at his father's house in Brompton at the age of 34.