William Barlow FRS[1] (8 August 1845 – 28 February 1934) was an English amateur geologist specialising in crystallography.
His father became wealthy as a speculative builder as well as a building surveyor, allowing William to have a private education.
After his father died in 1875, William and his brother inherited this fortune, allowing him to pursue his interest in crystallography without the need to labour for a living.
His results were published in 1894,[4] after they had been independently announced by Evgraf Fedorov and Arthur Schönflies, although his approach did display some novelty.
His structural models of simple compounds such as NaCl and CsCl were later confirmed using X-ray crystallography.