Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/452

  appeared as a ‘Manual of Organic Chemistry.’ In 1874 he published a short work on the ‘Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry,’ in which the chief events of the history are attractively sketched; of this a French translation was published in 1885; and a second edition appeared in Germany in 1889, of which the English form was revised and published by Schorlemmer's pupil, Professor Arthur Smithells, in 1894. In 1877 appeared the first volume of a great ‘Systematic Treatise on Chemistry,’ written jointly by Roscoe and Schorlemmer. This work, of which the successive volumes were published in English and German, is still incomplete, but forms the most extensive, and at the same time readable, textbook on the subject. Schorlemmer was elected F.R.S. on 16 Nov. 1871, was made honorary LL.D. of Glasgow in 1888.

After a lingering illness, Schorlemmer died, unmarried, on 27 June 1892 at his house in Manchester.

At the time of his death Schorlemmer had carried the German manuscript of a new history of chemistry down to the end of the seventeenth century. This manuscript, left in the hands of his executor, Dr. Louis Siebold, is still unpublished. It contains a confirmation of the suggestion of H. Kopp, that the famous works attributed to ‘Basil Valentine,’ a supposed alchemist of the fifteenth century, were really written in the seventeenth by Johann Thölde, who actually published his ‘Halographia’ first in 1612 under his own name, and then in 1644 under that of Basil Valentine. Schorlemmer published in all forty-six papers independently, two with Harry Grimshaw, eleven with R. S. Dale, and one with Thomas Edward Thorpe, F.R.S. (cf. Transactions of the Chemical Society, 1893, p. 761).

Schorlemmer was a man of keen insight, and possessed remarkable erudition, patience, and enthusiasm for science. These qualities made him, in spite of imperfect English (and a dislike of administrative detail), an exceptionally good teacher, and his influence, united to that of Roscoe, of whom he was a close friend, raised the Owens College school of chemistry to the first rank. Though genial and humorous, Schorlemmer was retiring by nature. Through Friedrich Engels he became acquainted with the socialist, Karl Marx, whose views he partially shared (cf. Vorwärts Tageblatt, 3 July 1892, by F. Engels).

A photograph of Schorlemmer hangs in the common room at the Owens College. The memorial ‘Schorlemmer laboratory’ at the Owens College, for research in organic chemistry, was founded by public subscription and was opened in May 1895.



SCHREIBER, CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH (1812–1895), Welsh scholar and collector of china, playing-cards, and fans, second daughter of Albemarle Bertie, ninth earl of Lindsey (1744–1818), was born at Uffington House, Lincolnshire, on 19 May 1812. She married first, on 29 July 1833, Sir [q. v.], and took up her residence on his estate in Wales. By him she was the mother of five sons and five daughters. He died on 26 Nov. 1852. Lady Charlotte, a woman of energy and capacity, subsequently managed with success his ironworks at Dowlais near Merthyr-Tydvil. She married, secondly, on 10 April 1855, Charles Schreiber, M.P. for Cheltenham and Poole, who died at Lisbon on 29 March 1884 (Times, 1 April 1884).

While resident in Wales Lady Charlotte patronised and largely contributed to the eisteddfods. After acquiring a perfect knowledge of Welsh she published ‘The Mabinogion, from the “Llyfr Coch o Hergest,” and other ancient Welsh Manuscripts, with an English Translation and Notes,’ 7 parts forming 3 volumes, 1838–49, a work of much labour and learning. A second edition, abridged, with the Welsh text omitted, appeared in 1877, and ‘The Boy's Mabinogion; being the earliest Welsh Tales of King Arthur in the famous Red Book of Hergest,’ in 1881.

Between 1877 and 1880, while her son-in-law, Sir Austen Henry Layard, was ambassador at Constantinople, she actively aided the Turkish compassionate fund for the alleviation of distress among Turkish women and children.

She was an enthusiastic collector of old china, and, after the death of her second husband in 1884, presented a large quantity of valuable English porcelain and earthenware