Lawrence John de Whalley (11 May 1853 – 9 January 1937) was a British chemist, noted for improvements in sugar refining, filtration and the manufacture of Golden Syrup.

[1] Lawrence John de Whalley was born on 11 May 1853 at Lower Darwen, near Blackburn in Lancashire, England.

When a school in Wimbledon was a potential source of chemicals used in a murder, de Whalley assisted the Old Bailey trial as an expert witness.

Continuous stills has previously been used for whisky production and de Whalley made an industrial innovation by cracking (sic) the challenges to apply the process to tar.

In an obituary[2] this was noted to be still (sic) in operation and was credited as a forerunner of such plant worldwide.

Although most of his work was unpublished, he inaugurated and perfected improvements in refinery processes and control, particularly filtration and the application of specific tests.

At the age of 83 he attended the opening meeting of the 1936 International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis.

[6] de Whalley translated and abstracted scientific texts between languages, being practiced in Latin, Greek, French, German, Russian and Polish.