William Nicholson (chemist)

William Nicholson (13 December 1753 – 21 May 1815) was an English writer, translator, publisher, scientist, inventor, patent agent and civil engineer.

Translations for Joseph Johnson included Voltaire's Elements of the Philosophy of Newton as well as M. Maistre de La Tour's History of Hyder Shah in 1784.

In 1784 he was proposed by Josiah Wedgwood (the current chairman) and appointed as secretary to the General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain, and he was also connected with the Society for the Encouragement of Naval Architecture, established in 1791.

[7] in 1790, William Nicholson obtained a patent for a cylindrical printing machine[8] - a design which was copied in the US[9] and Barcelona, before Friedrich Koenig developed and commercialised the concept in 1814.

In 1799 he established a school in London's Soho Square, where he taught natural philosophy and chemistry, with the aid of a grant of £1,500 from Thomas Pitt.

During the later years of his life, Nicholson's attention was chiefly directed to water supply engineering at Portsmouth, at Gosport and in Hammersmith.

Attribution: Largely based on the public domain Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition and Mike Chrimes, article "Nicholson, William", in Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers, vol.