James Alfred Wanklyn was a nineteenth-century English chemist who is remember today chiefly for his "ammonia method" of determining water quality and for his fierce arguments with those, such as Edward Frankland

Edward Frankland

Sir Edward Frankland, KCB, FRS was a chemist, one of the foremost of his day. He was an expert in water quality and analysis, and originated the concept of combining power, or valence, in chemistry. He was also one of the originators of organometallic chemistry.-Biography:Edward Frankland was born...

, who opposed him over matters related to water analysis. Wanklyn was born in Ashton-under-Lyne

Ashton-under-Lyne

Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines...

 and died in New Malden

New Malden

New Malden is a town and shopping centre in the south-western London suburbs, mostly within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and partly in the London Borough of Merton, and is situated from Charing Cross...

. He worked with Frankland, Robert Bunsen

Robert Bunsen

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium and rubidium with Gustav Kirchhoff. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic...

, and Lyon Playfair. He was Professor of Chemistry at the London Institution

London Institution

The London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806...

after 1864, and many of his papers were published from that institution.

Selected editions of writings

Tea, coffee and cocoa: a practical treatise on the analysis of tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, maté (Paraguay tea), etc., London: Trubner and Company, 1874

Milk-analysis. A practical treatise on the examination of milk and its derivatives, cream, butter, and cheese, London: Trubner and Company, 1874

Air-analysis: a practical treatise on the examination of air. With an appendix on illuminating gas, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1890

Arsenic, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1901

Sewage Analysis, 2nd edition, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1905

Water-analysis, a practical treatise on the examination of potable water, 11th edition, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1907

Further reading

Men of the Time, 12th edition, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1887 - contains biographical information

Cooper, W. J., "Memoir of James Alfred Wanklyn", in Water-analysis, a practical treatise on the examination of potable water, 11th edition, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1907

Brock, W. H., "James Alfred Wanklyn", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, volume 14, pages 168-70, 1976

Hamlin, Christopher, A Science of Impurity, University of California Press, 1990