Kekulé

Abstract

Friedrich August Kekulé (Darmstadt, 7 September 1829-Bonn, 13 July 1896; he used only the second Christian name) in 1847 studied architecture at the University of Giessen, since he was talented in drawing and mathematics. The influence of Liebig in Giessen (1848–51) attracted him to chemistry and he later studied in Paris (1851–2) and was friendly with Cahours, Wurtz, and particularly Gerhardt. Whilst in London (1854–5) as Stenhouse’s research assistant he thought out his structure theory (molecular architecture), and in this period he was a friend of Williamson and Odling. As he said later: ‘Originally a pupil of Liebig, I became a pupil of Dumas, Gerhardt and Williamson: now I no longer belong to any school.’ He left London to work in Heidelberg in a private laboratory but became professor at Ghent in 1858 (on Stas’s recommendation), and whilst there developed his benzene theory; from 1867 he was professor at Bonn, where he died in 1896. He was ennobled by the German Emperor Wilhelm II (who had heard his lectures whilst a student at Bonn) as Kekule von Stradonitz (dropping the accent on the final e of his name). As Japp said: ‘he remained an architect to the last’, but of molecules rather than of buildings.¹