Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/116

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Perkin
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Perkins

the society in 1898, and at his death was president of the Society of Dyers and Colourists. The Society of Arts conferred on him the Albert medal in 1890, and the Institution of Gas Engineers the Birmingham medal in 1892. He also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Würzburg (1882), St. Andrews (1891), and Manchester (1904).

In July 1906 the jubilee was celebrated universally of Perkin's discovery of 'mauve,' the first aniline dye, which had created the important coal-tar dyeing industry and had revolutionised industrial processes in varied directions. Perkin was knighted and received honorary degrees of doctor from the universities of Oxford, Leeds, Heidelberg, Columbia (New York), Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), and Munich Technical High School. He was presented with the Hofmann medal by the German Chemical Society and the Lavoisier medal by the French Chemical Society. A sum of 2700l., subscribed by chemists from all countries, was handed to the Chemical Society as the 'Perkin Memorial Fund,' to be applied to the encouragement of research in subjects relating to the coal-tar and allied industries. The 'Perkin medal' for distinguished services to chemical industry was instituted by the Society of Dyers and Colourists, and the American memorial committee founded a Perkin medal for American chemists.

Perkin died at Sudbury on 14 July 1907, and was buried at Christ Church graveyard, Harrow. He was twice married: (1) on 13 Sept. 1859 to Jemima Harriett, daughter of John Lisset; she died on 27 Nov. 1862; (2) on 8 Feb. 1866 to Alexandrine Caroline, daughter of Ivan Herman Mollwo; she survived him. He had three sons and four daughters. His eldest son, William Henry Perkin, Ph.D. (Würzburg), Hon. ScD. (Cantab.), Hon. LL.D. (Edin.), F.R.S., professor of organic chemistry at Manchester University; the second son, Arthur George Perkin, F.R.S.; and the youngest son, Frederick Mollwo Perkin, Ph.D., have all distinguished themselves in the same department of science as their father.

Perkin's portrait in his robe as LL.D. of the university of St. Andrews, painted by Henry Grant in 1898, is on the wall at the Leathersellers' Hall in St. Helen's Place, of which company he was master in 1896; another portrait by Arthur Stockdale Cope, R.A., presented to him on the jubilee celebration of 1906, is destined for the National Portrait Gallery. There is also an engraved portrait by Arthur J. Williams in the British Museum of Portraits, South Kensington collection, and a marble bust by F. W. Pomeroy, A.R.A., is in the rooms of the Chemical Society at Burlington House.

[Trans. Chemical Society, 1908, 93, 2214-2257, and Roy. Soc. Proc. 80a, 1908 (memoirs by R. Meldola); Jubilee of the Discovery of Mauve and of the Foundation of the Coal-tar Colour Industry by Sir W. H. Perkin, ed. by R. Meldola, A. G. Green and J. C. Cain, 1906.]

J. C. C.


PERKINS, Sir ÆNEAS (1834–1901), general, colonel commandant royal engineers (late Bengal), born at Lewisham, Kent, on 19 May 1834, was sixth son in a family of thirteen children of Charles Perkins, merchant, of London, by his wife Jane Homby, daughter of Charles William Barkley (b. 1759), after whom Barkley Sound and Island in the Pacific are named. His grandfather was John Perkins of Camberwell, a partner in Barclay & Perkins's Brewery. A brother George, in the Bengal artillery, was killed at the battle of the Hindun before Delhi in 1857.

Educated at Dr. Prendergast's school at Lewisham and at Stoton and Mayor's school at Wimbledon, where Frederick (afterwards Earl) Roberts, his lifelong friend, was his schoolfellow, Æneas entered the military seminary of the East India Company at Addiscombe on 1 Feb. 1850, in the same batch as Roberts. At Addiscombe he showed ability in mathematics, and was a leader in all sports. Obtaining a commission as second lieutenant in the Bengal engineers on 12 Dec. 1851, he, after professional instruction at Chatham, arrived at Fort William, Calcutta, on 16 Jan. 1854.

As assistant engineer in the public works department Perkins was soon employed on irrigation work on the Bari Doab Canal in the Punjab. Promoted first lieutenant on 17 Aug. 1856, he was transferred in November to the Arabala division, and in the following May, when the Mutiny began, joined the force under General George Anson [q. v.], commander-in-chief in India, which marched to the relief of Delhi. Perkins was present at the battle of Badli-ki-serai on 8 June, and at the subsequent seizure of the Delhi Ridge. He did much good work during the early part of the siege. On 11-12 June he was employed in the construction of a mortar battery, known as 'Perkins's Battery'; on the 17th he took part in the destruction of a rebel battery and the capture of its guns; and on 14 July in the repulse of the sortie; but, wounded a