Percival Spencer Umfreville Pickering

Percival Spencer Umfreville (Spencer) Pickering (6 March 1858 – 5 December 1920) was a British chemist and horticulturist.

Early life and education

Born to Anne Maria Spencer-Stanhope, granddaughter of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester[1] and her husband Percival Pickering,[2] he was the second eldest of four children. His elder sister was the artist Evelyn de Morgan and he was followed by Rowland Neville Umfreville (1861–1931) and writer Wilhelmina, later known as A. M. W. Stirling (1865-1965).[2] His maternal uncle was the artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope.[2]

Pickering grew up in a wealthy family, was educated at Eton College and studied sciences at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a first class degree in 1881.[3] He was able to start a career in science by building his own laboratory in his private house.[3]

Career

In 1881, he took up a position as lecturer at Bedford College, where he stayed until 1887. After losing an eye in a serious accident in his lab, his health waned and he moved to the countryside to the village of Harpenden. Among the residents of the village were already four fellows of the Royal Society, and Pickering was to become the fifth by 1890.[3]

From 1894 on, he was director of the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm, a private establishment by Pickering and the Duke of Bedford, where he worked to improve horticultural techniques.[3]

In 1907, he discovered the phenomenon that emulsions can be stabilised by small particles instead of emulsifiers, nowadays referred to as Pickering stabilization, although the effect was already recognised by Walter Ramsden in 1903.[4][3][5]

References

  1. ^ Lawton Smith, Elise (2002). Evelyn Pickering De Morgan and the Allegorical Body. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3883-5.
  2. ^ a b c "Morgan, (Mary) Evelyn De [née Mary Evelyn Pickering] (1855–1919), painter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45491. Retrieved 3 May 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e E. John Russell (1 January 1921). "Obituary Notice: Percival Spencer Umfreville Pickering". Biochemical Journal. 15 (1): 1–3. doi:10.1042/bj0150001. ISSN 0006-2936. PMC 1258950.
  4. ^ S.U. Pickering, "Emulsions", Journal of the Chemical Society 91, 2001-2021 (1907).
  5. ^ W. Ramsden, Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) B 72, 156-164 (1903).
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