Ewart Jones
Encyclopedia
Professor Sir Ewart Ray Herbert Jones (16 March 1911 - 7 May 2002) was a Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 organic chemist and academic administrator, whose fields of expertise led him to discoveries into the chemistry of natural products, mainly steroids, terpenes and vitamins. His work also led to the creation of the Jones oxidation
Jones oxidation
The Jones oxidation, is an organic reaction for the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to carboxylic acids and ketones, respectively. It is named after its discoverer, Sir Ewart Jones....

.

Jones was born in Wrexham
Wrexham
Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located in the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England...

 in 1911, and attended Grove Park School before gaining entry to University College of North Wales, Bangor
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...

, where he gained a first degree in chemistry in 1932.

Studies

He grew up in the small village of Rhostyllen
Rhostyllen
Rhostyllen is a village in Wrexham county borough in Wales, south-west of the town of Wrexham. At the time of the 2001 census, area Wrexham 014A, which includes Rhostyllen itself, had a population of 1,383 in 599 households...

, Whales with his evangelical family. Between July of 1924 and March of 1927, his sister died of tuberculosis, his grandmother died and his father drowned himself. After such a tragic period of time, he was schooled in Wrexham, Whales. He entered the University College of North Whales in 1929, hoping to concentrate in physics. However, he left the University with an honors degree in Chemistry. He was invited to stay at the University by the head of the department, J.L. Simonsen, and stayed there for two years.

Contributions to Chemistry

At the age of 36
36
Year 36 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Allenius and Plautius...

, Jones accepted the Sir Samuel Hall Professorship of Organic Chemistry at Oxford University. After joining the Heilbron group in Manchester, Jones was introduced to acetylene chemistry which eventually led to his work with vitamin A
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...

. Later in life, he worked with the Halsall group, specifically with the hydroxyhopanone molecule. After experimenting with different reagents, he discovered the Jones oxidation
Jones oxidation
The Jones oxidation, is an organic reaction for the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to carboxylic acids and ketones, respectively. It is named after its discoverer, Sir Ewart Jones....

.
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