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- Chemist William Henry, 1774
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William Henry (12 December 1774 – 2 September 1836) was an English chemist. He was the son of Thomas Henry (apothecary) and was born in Manchester England. He developed what is known today as Henry's Law.
William Henry was apprenticed to Thomas Percival and later worked with John Ferriar at the Manchesters Infirmary. He began to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1795, taking his doctor's degree in 1807, but ill health interrupted his practice as a physician, and he devoted his time mainly to chemical research, especially with regard to gases. One of his best known papers (published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1803) describes experiments on the quantity of gases absorbed by water at different temperatures and under different pressures. His results are known today as Henry's law. His other papers deal with gas analysis, fire damp, illuminating gas, the composition of hydrochloric acid and of ammonia, urinary and other morbid concretions, and the disinfecting powers of heat. His Elements of Experimental Chemistry (1799) enjoyed considerable vogue in its day, going through eleven editions in 30 years. He was one of the founders of the Mechanics' Institute that was to become the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in February 1809, having been awarded their prestigious Copley Medal in 1808.
He shot himself in his private chapel at Pendlebury, near Manchester, in 1836.