Person

Wilkinson, William Percy (1868 - 1947)

Born: 13 May 1868
Cathkin, Victoria, Australia
Died: 14 March 1947
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation: Analytical chemist

Summary

Percy Wilkinson trained as a pharmacist but made his career as analyst first for the Victorian and then for the Australian Governments. While Assistant Government Analyst for Victoria he worked on the chemical constituents of Eucalyptus species, his report predating similar research by H. G. Smith in New South Wales. In 1908 he was appointed as the first Commonwealth Analyst in the Department of Trade and Customs. He established the Commonwealth Laboratory and founded chemical metrology in the Laboratory. Wilkinson's enthusiasm for wines and wine-making resulted in a number of publications on ampelography including Studies on wine sterilizing machines (1901) and Nomenclature of Australian wines (1919) in which he predicted future controversy around the use of European wine names.

Details

Chronology

1886: Education - Preliminary examination, Pharmacy Board of Victoria
1888: Education - Intermediate examination, Pharmacy Board of Victoria
1890 - 1902: Career position - Assistant Victorian Government Analyst
1902 - 1908: Career position - Victorian Government Analyst
1908 - 1933: Career position - Commonwealth Government Analyst, Department of Trade and Customs
1912: Career position - Representative for Australia, 8th Triennial International Congress of Applied Chemistry, USA
1913: Career position - Elected Fellow, Institute of Chemistry, London
1933: Life event - Retired

Related Corporate Bodies

Department of Trade and Customs, Commonwealth of Australia (1901 - 1956)
Government Analyst 1908 - 1933

Related Events

Conference convened by the Prime Minister, W.M Hughes, to consider the question of the establishment of a National Laboratory, 5 January 1916

Published resources

Books

Currie, George; Graham, John, The Origins of CSIRO: Science and the Commonwealth Government, 1901-1926 (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1966), 203 pp, https://ebooks.publish.csiro.au/content/origins-csiro. pages 38, 49-50, 52, 80-81. Details

Journal Articles

Spurling, T. H.; and Webb, J. M., 'William Percy Wilkinson: analytical chemist, ampelographer and provocateur', Chemistry in Australia, 2017 (March) (2017), 33. Details

Helen Cohn

Created: 28 November 2017, Last modified: 3 July 2018

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