The Chemical Society Memorial
In 1918, shortly after the death of Lieutenant Colonel Edward
Harrison, the Chemical Warfare Committee where Harrison
had acted as controller formed the Harrison Memorial
Committee with the aim of creating a memorial to his life
and work. As Harrison had worked primarily as a chemist, the
committee approached the Chemical Society to become the
home of the completed memorial.
The Chemical Society gratefully accepted the memorial and
expressed the desire for all the Society’s Fellows who had
died in service of their country to also be honoured. To
this end, the committee employed the services of sculptor
Ernest Gillick to create a fitting tribute; Ernest Gillick was an
eminent sculptor of the time and had worked on the façade
of the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the Cenotaph in
Glasgow’s George Square.
Sir James Walker, President of the Chemical Society, presided
over the ceremony to unveil the memorial on 16 November
1922. The Right Honourable, The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres
attended the ceremony as a guest to perform the unveiling;
during the war, the Earl had served as a private in the Royal Army
Medical Corps, a unit closely associated with Harrison.
In his speech, the president told of the nature of the memorial
and went on to outline plans for an additional future memorial
to Harrison. With the remaining money, the Harrison Memorial
Committee were to implement a new award for chemists ‘who
shall have made the most meritorious original contributions to
chemical science during the previous five years’. From 1926 to
2008, the Chemical Society awarded the Harrison Memorial
Prize to such deserving chemists; afterwards, the Society
merged it with the Meldola Medal & Prize to become the
Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize.
The original location for the memorial was on the main
staircase at the front south east corner of Burlington House;
in 1967, when the Chemical Society moved in to the east wing,
they relocated the memorial to the staircase where it now sits
between the Lawrence Lee stained glass windows.
Source:
1. Moore, TS & Philip, JC 1947, The Chemical Society (1841-1941):
A Historical Review, The Chemical Society, London.
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