Eric John Holmyard

Eric John Holmyard (1891–1959) was an English science teacher at Clifton College,[1] and historian of science and technology.

Scholar

Holmyard studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society. His scholarly work included rectification of accounts of the history of alchemy, particularly in relation with Islamic science. He translated texts from Arabic and Latin, and wrote extensively on Geber. He was responsible with D. C. Mandeville for the re-attribution of the alchemical text De Mineralibus to an origin in Avicenna.[2]

Textbooks

As a textbook author, he pioneered an approach to science teaching that included historical material. "His historicized science books were an enormous and long-term commercial success, with Elementary Chemistry (1925) alone selling half-a-million copies by 1960."[3]

Teacher

He taught both Nevill Mott and Charles Coulson at Clifton, but his personal influence on them as scientists was low (in Coulson's case, even negative[4]). Holmyard also published best seller, A Higher School Inorganic Chemistry, along with W.G. Palmer.

Historical works

Notes

  1. Liukkonen, Petri. "Avicenna". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 10 February 2015.
  2. Mayer, A. K. (December 2002). "Fatal Mutilations: Educationism and the British Background to the 1931 International Congress for the History of Science and Technology" (PDF). History of Science 40: 445–472.
  3. : … Holmyard — the prolific writer of elementary textbooks — apparently met with no success in attracting him towards Chemistry; indeed, he chose quite firmly the Classics.

References

External links

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