Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Warington, Robert
WARINGTON, ROBERT (1838–1907), agricultural chemist, eldest son and second child of Robert Warington [q. v.], one of the founders of the Chemical Society, was born at 22 Princes Street, Spitalfields, on 22 Aug. 1838. In 1842 his father was appointed chemical operator and resident director to the Society of Apothecaries, and the family took up their residence on 29 Sept. 1842 at Apothecaries'; Hall. The son's constitution was naturally feeble, and life in the heart of the city did not strengthen it. Whilst still quite young, he studied chemistry in his father's laboratory and attended lectures by Faraday, Brande, and Hofmann. His father, being desirous of securing the youth employment in the country, obtained in Jan. 1859, from Sir John Bennet Lawes [q. v. Suppl. I], an engagement for his son at the Rothamsted Laboratory as unpaid assistant. He remained there for a year, devoting all his time to ash analyses, and then returned to London as research assistant to (Sir) Edward Frankland [q. v. Suppl. I]. In Oct. 1862 a further break-down in health forced him again to seek a country life, and he went as assistant to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, where he remained till June 1867. During his stay at Cirencester his earliest papers on scientific subjects under his own name were pubHshed in the 'Journal of the Chemical Society.' His first original work of importance was an investigation into the part played by ferric oxide and alumina in decomposing soluble phosphates and other salts, and retaining them in the soil. The results of this investigation (embodied in a series of four papers read before the Chemical Society) show careful work and close reasoning. In 1864 he commenced lecturing at Cirencester on the Rothamsted experiments, and it was proposed that Warington should publish a book on the subject. But Dr. Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert [q. V. Suppl. II], Lawes's collaborator, objected; the book remained in manuscript, and Gilbert and Warington were estranged for life.
Leaving Cirencester in June 1867, Warington was given by Lawes the post of chemist to his manure and tartaric and citric acid works at Barking and Millwall. His engagement terminated in 1874, but he remained in the Millwall laboratory for two years longer, working on citric and tartaric acids, and ultimately publishing his results in a paper of 70 pages in the 'Journal of the Chemical Society' (1875). In 1876 he returned to Rothamsted, under an agreement for one year only, to work simply as Lawes's private assistant. Before settling at Harpenden, he made in the autumn of 1876 a short tour of the German experimental stations. He was still associated with the Rothamsted investigations in 1889 when Sir John Lawes resigned to the present committee of management his active control over the experiments. It was then evident that the work of the station could no longer be carried on in its painful state of tension between Gilbert and Warington, and, all attempts at accommodation having failed, the committee reluctantly decided in June 1890 to terminate Warington's work at the end of that year. Warington had then reached a very interesting stage in an important research he had long been pursuing (since early in 1877) on the nitrification of the soil, and he was allowed to remain on his own petition without remuneration till June 1891. Before that date he had brought the work he had on hand to a successful termination. He was, however, denied the reward of seeing his work carried to its fullest natural conclusion, for though he obtained cultures which converted ammonia into nitrites, and others which produced the further conversion of nitrites into nitrates, and thus showed that nitrification was the work of two different organisms, it was left to Winogradski to isolate the organisms themselves.
Although Warington's original work in agricultural chemistry ended with his severance from Rothamsted, he was appointed by the committee lecturer in America under the Lawes trust. He gave six lectures, delivered 12–18 Aug. 1891, whilst in the United States, dealing chiefly with the subject of nitrification as illustrated by his own work at Rothamsted. These lectures were published by the U.S. department of agriculture in ‘Expt. Station Bulletin,’ No. 8, 1892. On his return to England Lawes entrusted him with an investigation at his Millwall factory into the contamination of tartaric acid and citric acid by the vessels used in their preparation; and he found a method for overcoming the evil. In 1894 he was appointed one of the examiners in agriculture for the science and art department, and (for three years) Sibthorpian professor of agriculture at the University of Oxford. Thereafter he retired into private life at Harpenden, busying himself with writings and in charitable and religious work.
His published writings mostly appeared in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’ and other scientific publications. They are clear in expression and precise in argument. Amongst other literary work, he contributed the article ‘Manure’ to Mackenzie's ‘Chemistry as applied to the Arts and Manufactures,’ various articles to Watts' ‘Dictionary of Chemistry,’ and the four articles on ‘Cereals,’ ‘Citric Acid,’ ‘Artificial Manure,’ and ‘Nitrification’ to Thorpe's ‘Dictionary of Applied Chemistry’ (1895). Warington wrote the greater part of the four articles on ‘Rain and Drainage Waters at Rothamsted’ which appeared in the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society’ under the joint names of Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington in 1881–83.
His greatest success was with a practical handbook entitled ‘Chemistry of the Farm,’ which he contributed to the Farm Series of Vinton & Co. This was first published in 1881, and was translated into several foreign languages; it reached its 19th English edition during his lifetime. Dr. J. A. Voelcker says of it that ‘it is a model of what such a book should be. Whilst retaining its small compass, it is literally packed with sound information set out in concentrated form and with scientific method.’ He was elected a fellow of the Chemical Society in 1863, subsequently becoming a vice-president, and he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society in 1886.
He died at Harpenden on 20 March 1907, and was buried there.
He was twice married: (1) in 1884 to Helen Louisa (d. 1898), daughter of G. H. Makins, M.R.C.S., formerly chief assayer to the Bank of England, by whom he had five daughters; (2) in 1902 to Rosa Jane, daughter of F. R. Spackman, M.D., of Harpenden.
[Obituary by Spencer U. Pickering, F.R.S., in Journal of Chemical Society, No. dliv., Dec. 1908, pp. 2258–69 (also printed with some omissions in Proc. Royal Society, 80B, xv.–xxiv.); Cyclopædia of Modern Agriculture, 1911, xii. 79–80 (by Dr. J. A. Voelcker); personal knowledge and private information.]