Richard Kirwan
Richard Kirwan ( born August 1, 1733 in Cloughballymore, † June 22, 1812 in Dublin) Esquire Cregg. was an Irish lawyer and chemist. He was a supporter of the phlogiston theory.
Life and work
Richard Kirwan was born in Cloughballymore, County Galway, County of Galway, the second son of Mary ( Marty ) French of Duras and Cloughballymore (or Clogh ) and Martin Kirwan († 1741). Both had married on October 30, 1728, and three other sons, Patrick Kirwan, Andrew Kirwan and Hyacinth Kirwan. He was thus a descendant of William Ó Ciardhubháin the founder of The Tribes of Galway, Treibheanna na Gaillimhe, a group of fourteen merchant families, the political, economic and social life of the city of Galway in western Ireland between the mid-13th and late 19th. century dominated. The family lived in Cregg Castle in Galway. He first attended along with his brother Erasmus Smith School in Galway. From 1745 to 1754 he stayed at the Université de Poitiers in Poitiers on and then in 1754 to join the Jesuit order as a novice Saint- Omer ( Saint- Omer ( Pas -de- Calais ) ). After the death of his older brother in a duel in 1755, he returned to Ireland and lived in Menlough Castle. Until 1777 Kirwan remained mainly in Ireland, but then traveled to England, Germany, and again France. He was very interested in the chemistry, but first studied law at the University of Poitiers. During his stay in London from 1777 to 1787 he continued his chemical studies. Here Kirwan learned important scientists such as Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) and other important people know about Edmund Burke ( 1729-1797 ).
Kirwan married in 1757 Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Blake of Menlo († 1642), County of Galway, but his wife died only eight years later. The couple had two daughters, Maria Theresa Kirwan and Eliza Kirwan. One day after his marriage he became a debtor - taken into custody, debtor 's prison - for the debts of his wife.
His experiments to the specific gravity and the attraction forces of various salty substances formed an important contribution to the methods of analytical chemistry, and in 1782 he won the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, in 1780 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1784 he led a controversy with Cavendish in terms of the experiments on the air. In 1787 he moved to Dublin, where he was elected President of the Royal Irish Academy four years later. Kirwan had from 1799 to 1812 held the post as President of the Royal Irish Academy.
In his geological views on the " origin of the world " and its development, he was a proponent of the theories of James Hutton. His works on this subject were Elements of Mineralogy (1784 ), one of the first systematic work on the subject in English, a reflection on the arrival Estimate of the Temperature of Different Latitudes (1787 ) and Essay of the Analysis of Mineral Waters (1799 ) and geological essays (1799 ) were further geological works.
Some of his works were translated into German by Lorenz von Crell. Marie Lavoisier translated his Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids (1787 ) from English into French and allowed by her husband, Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier to deal critically with Kirwans ideas.
Works (selection)
- Elements of Mineralogy (1784 )
- Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids (1787 )
- An Estimate of the Temperature of Different Latitudes (1787 )
- Essay of the Analysis of Mineral Waters (1799 )
- Geological Essays (1799 )
- The Manures Most Advantageously Applicable to the Various Sorts of Soils (1796, 6th edition 1806)
- Logick; Or, An Essay on the Elements, Principles and Different Modes of Reasoning ( 2 vols, 1807; digitized: Volume I, Volume II )
- Metaphysical Essays (1809 )
- An Essay on Human Happiness ( 1810)