Sir Jocelyn Field Thorpe FRS[1] (1 December 1872 – 10 June 1940) was an English chemist who made major contributions to organic chemistry, including the Thorpe-Ingold effect and three named reactions.

In that year he was elected FRS and was awarded a Sorby Fellowship by the Royal Society to study in Sheffield.

In 1908 he moved to the University of Sheffield to a full-time research appointment, and in 1913 applied for and was awarded the chair of organic chemistry at Imperial College, a post he was to hold until 1939.

With William H. Perkin Jr. at Manchester he worked largely on terpenes (the primary constituents of many essential oils), in particular on camphor and its derivatives.

With the outbreak of war in 1914 he threw himself into war work[5] and proved to be a creative administrator within, amongst others, the Chemical Defence[6] and Trench Warfare[5] committees, and from 1916 to 1922 he served on the Advisory Council to the newly formed and highly influential Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

His chemistry during the war was much concerned with the development of lachrymators and of analgesic agents such as phenacetin and novocaine.

Thorpe became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1908, was awarded a CBE in 1917, and in the same year became a member of the Officier de la Légion d'honneur.