Herbert Brereton Baker, 1862-1935

The death of Herbert Brereton Baker severs one more link connecting the chemical investigators of the later Victorian age with those of to-day, for, although he worked for fully thirty years after the Victorian age had passed, he must, nevertheless, be included in that age mainly because his methods were characteristic of the period and quite foreign to more modern methods with which, indeed, he had little sympathy. Thoroughness was his watchword and he never published his work until he had assured himself that the details of the phenomenon he described was correct in every particular. He adhered to the Newtonian principles and applied them with meticulous care. He was born on June 25, 1862, and was the second son of the Rev. John Baker, who was then Curate in Charge of Livesey, near Blackburn. In early life he suffered from ill-health and it was probably this weakness which made the child a student because he could read before he was four years of age, and at the age of ten had read most of the books in his father’s library. His elder brother Charles, afterwards for forty years science master at Shrewsbury, was of a more vigorous constitution and the two boys, then attending the Blackburn Grammar School, were partners in many adventures. It was their parent’s wish that they should go to Oxford and as there seemed no prospect of a classical scholarship, they were transferred to the science side of the Manchester Grammar School where they came into contact with that best of all teachers, Francis Jones. Neither thereafter ever looked back ; Charles obtained a post-mastership at Merton and Herbert a scholarship at Balliol. Each had a Bracken - bury Scholarship in addition. At Oxford Baker’s tutor was H. B. Dixon, and the enthusiasm for investigation which Dixon possessed in an eminent degree was communicated to his pupil. After taking his first class in Natural Science, Baker was appointed demonstrator at Balliol and private assistant to Dixon.