Matthew Moncrieff Pattison Muir, FRSE, FCS (1848–1931) was a British chemist and author.
[1][2] He was born on 1 April 1848 in Glasgow, the son of William Muir and his wealthy wife, Margaret Moncrieff Pattison.
[1] At Cambridge, between 1876 and 1888, Muir lead the research on bismuth compounds, resulting in 18 papers published by him alone or together with his students in the Journal of the Chemical Society.
[1] In the long running water controversy (19th century to early 20th century), Muir's books Heroes of Science: Chemists (1883) and History of Chemical Theories and Laws (1907) have been noted among the few British books to properly credit Lavoisier (as opposed to Henry Cavendish) for proposing that water was a chemical compound rather than an element.
[6] In a 1993 book, historian of science Mary Jo Nye described Muir's chapter on affinity from his History of Chemical Theories and Laws as "still valuable treatment of the topic".