Abstract
BY the death of MR. HENRY BASSETT, F.I.C., at the age of eighty-three, on August 30, we have lost one of the few remaining survivors of that ardent band of young chemists who studied under Dr. A. W. Hofmarin at the Royal College of Chemistry. Handicapped at the start by the death of his father when he was only nine years old, Mr. Bassett had an uphill fight all his life; but he was animated by the same spirit which often enables the poet and the artist to produce good work under most unfavourable conditions. For a time he acted as assistant to Brodie at Oxford, but most of the best years of his life were taken up in testing anthracene as assistant to Mr. F. A. Manning. In 1894, at an age when men mofe fortunately situated are thinking of retiring, he started a consulting practice of his own, first at St. Andrew's Hill and then at 104 Queen Victoria Street, specialising in non-ferrous alloy and anthracene work. Never lacking in ideas, Mr. Bassett always had some research work in hand, and at intervals, from 1863, he published some seventeen papers and short notes, mainly in the Journal of the Chemical Society or the Chemical News. Several of these had reference to anthracene testing, into which he introduced some improvements, and on which he was a recognised authority. His most important research was certainly that on ethyl orthocarbonate, which he prepared by the action of sodium on a mixture, of chloropicrin and absolute alcohol. This was published in thes Journal of the Chemical Society for 1864, and may give him a permanent place in chemical literature. Several short papers on chlorides of carbon and one on eulyte and dyslyte may also be mentioned. During the cpurse of his consulting practice Mr. Bassett carried out a considerable amount of research work, notably on the corrosion of manganese and other bronzes by sea water, which was never intended for publication. Of recent years he had been doing some very interesting work on graphite, and until within a fort-night of his death had been trying to get his results into a form suitable for publication.
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[Obituaries]. Nature 106, 86 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106086a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106086a0