Norman Haworth

Sir Norman Haworth
University of St. Andrews Durham University University of Birmingham
Doctoral advisor	William Henry Perkin Jr., Otto Wallach

Sir Walter Norman Haworth

Haworth worked out the correct structure of a number of sugars, and is known among organic chemists for his development of the Haworth projection that translates three-dimensional sugar structures into convenient two-dimensional graphical form.

Academic career

Having worked for some time from the age of fourteen in the local Ryland's

from the University of Manchester followed in 1911, after which he served a short time at the Imperial College of Science and Technology as Senior Demonstrator in Chemistry.

In 1912 Haworth became a lecturer at United College of

(1914–1918).

He was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Armstrong College (Newcastle upon Tyne) of Durham University in 1920. The next year Haworth was appointed Head of the Chemistry Department at the college. It was during his time in the North East of England that he married Violet Chilton Dobbie.

In 1925 he was appointed Mason Professor of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham (a position he held until 1948). Among his lasting contributions to science was the confirmation of a number of structures of optically active sugars: by 1928, he had deduced and confirmed, among others, the structures of maltose, cellobiose, lactose, gentiobiose, melibiose, gentianose, raffinose, as well as the glucoside ring tautomeric structure of aldose sugars. He published a classic text in 1929, The Constitution of Sugars.^[2]

In 1933, working with the then Assistant Director of Research (later Sir)

Recognition

Haworth is commemorated at the University of Birmingham in the Haworth Building, which houses most of the University of Birmingham School of Chemistry. The School has a Haworth Chair of Chemistry, held by Professor Nigel Simpkins from 2007 until his retirement in 2017,^[7] and by Professor Neil Champness Archived 30 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine since 2021.

In 1977 the Royal Mail issued a postage stamp (one of a series of four) featuring Haworth's achievement in synthesising vitamin C and his Nobel prize.^[8]

He also developed a simple method of representing on paper the three-dimensional structure of sugars. The representation, using perspective, now known as a Haworth projection, is still widely used in biochemistry.^[9]

Personal life

In 1922 he married Violet Chilton Dobbie, daughter of Sir James Johnston Dobbie. They had two sons, James and David.^[2]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1928.^{[citation needed]}

He was knighted in the 1947 New Years Honours list.^{[citation needed]}

He died suddenly from a heart attack on 19 March 1950, his 67th birthday.^[2]

References

External links

• Norman Haworth on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1937 The Structure of Carbohydrates and of Vitamin C