Robert John Kane died just over 100 years ago and although his name is largely unknown today, he was in his time well-known as a chemist. In 1844 Kane published a book, "The Industrial Resources of Ireland" which made a scientific and an economic case for the utilisation of Ireland's natural resources. Robert Kane's name is remembered in Ireland mainly for this book, though he was also an able university administrator and an important public figure in the last century. (A series of meetings on The Natural Resources of Ireland were held in Dublin in 1944 to mark the centenary of Kane's influential book.) In addition he also had an international reputation as a chemist in the early 1800's.

Robert Kane's father was originally called John Kean and was one of the people involved in planning the 1798 rebellion. Its failure meant that John Kean had to flee to France where he studied chemistry in Paris. When things were quieter, he returned to Dublin in 1804 and began to make chemicals, including saltcake (sodium sulphate), sulphuric acid and bleaching powder. The Kane Company (he had changed his name) became an important manufacturer of sulphuric acid, and were important in establishing the use of the Gay-Lussac towers in Ireland and England. Robert John Kane was John Kane's second son and he was born in Dublin on September 24th. 1809. He was brought up at 48, Henry Street, Dublin near his father's factory and thus developed an early interest in chemistry.

Very little is known about his early schooling , though some of it may have been in Germany as he was proficient in German. As a school boy in Dublin he attended lectures in chemistry and other sciences at the Royal Dublin Society. These talks stimulated him to carry out chemical researches at his father's factory and his first chemical paper, "Observations on the existence of chlorine in the native peroxide of manganese", was published in 1828 and sorted out a disputed point in the manufacture of chlorine. His first papers were published as a teenager! He had enrolled at Trinity College in 1826 and he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Science Society in 1829 for his achievement in publishing a paper while still an undergraduate. He elected to study medicine at Trinity College, but his real interests were in chemistry and published a second paper in 1829 on a manganese arsenide mineral which came to be known as "Kaneite". He also did research on the compounds of ammonia and chlorine with copper, mercury and zinc.

In 1830 he studied pharmacy in Paris and on his return in 1831 he wrote a 350 page book on "Elements of Practical Pharmacy" . No doubt it was this that resulted in him being offered a professorship of chemistry at the Apothecaries' Hall in Dublin, who were involved on the training of pharmacists. This appointment won Kane the title of "The Boy Professor". Also in 1831 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and he founded the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, which later became the Irish Journal of Medical Science. These are impressive achievements indeed for someone who was still only 22. Not surprisingly these other interests delayed his undergraduate studies and he did not graduate from Trinity until 1835. In 1834 he had been awarded a licentiateship of the Apothecaries' Hall, which entitled him to practice in medicine (though he never used it).

In 1832 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and in June read a paper to the Academy (later published in the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences) "On the iodide of platinum and its saline compounds". In an earlier paper in the same journal ("Remarks on the properties of the hydracids") he had sorted out some of the ideas about the nature of acids, and demonstrated the electropositive nature of hydrogen.

Robert Kane was the first to propose the existence of the ethyl radical, which he published on January 1st. 1833 in the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences. Kane's idea was "a subject of amusement and ridicule among the chemical circles" of Dublin. However, a year later the great German chemist Justus Liebig proposed similar ideas and with his authority the idea was accepted, although Kane eventually received the credit for it. Certainly no-one could describe Kane as a narrow-minded chemist, as he worked in the areas of inorganic, organic, physical, biological and applied chemistry with equal facility.

While at the Apothecaries' Hall Robert Kane had given public lectures in science. In 1834 he resigned his position to become lecturer (and later professor) of Natural Philosophy (as natural science was then known) at the Royal Dublin Society. Edmund Davy, cousin of Humphry Davy, who discovered acetylene (ethyne) was professor of Chemistry at the R.D.S. at that time. Kane's duties involved giving public lectures in science, mainly in physics. He also did research on the products of wood distillation and invented the calcium chloride process for separating methanol from wood spirit. This may have sparked his interest in natural resources. Realising his inadequacy in organic analysis he went in the summer of 1836 to Germany to work in Liebig's laboratory in Giessen. There he continued to work on chemicals from wood spirit and showed that propanone (acetone or as Kane called it, mesitic alcohol) produced a hydrocarbon when treated with sulphuric acid, that Kane called mesitylene. This reaction involved conversion of a chain compound into a ring compound and was later used to establish the symmetry of the benzene ring.

Kane was also working on the compounds of ammonia with various metals. Berzelius referred to this work in his annual reports on chemistry for 1837, where he wrote that he considered Kane's researches in this field to be among the most important work recorded that year. This shows how quickly Kane had won an international reputation for his chemical research. In 1844 the Royal Irish Academy awarded Kane its Cunningham Gold Medal for this work. The work showed the careful and detailed experimental skills that Robert Kane had developed from his first researches in his father's factory.

In 1840 Kane became the editor of the Philosophical Magazine, the influential science journal published in London. In the same year he published a paper in the journal "On the chemical history of archil and litmus", two indicators obtained from lichens. The use of vegetable dyes as acid-base indicators was introduced by Robert Boyle, but no-one understood much about them. For this work the Royal Society of London awarded him its Royal Medal, and in in 1849 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

1841 saw the publication of the first two parts of his Elements of Chemistry, with the third part following in 1843. The book comprised 1204 pages and was illustrated by 236 woodcuts. It achieved great success on both sides of the Atlantic. Michael Faraday used it in his courses at Woolwich and John W. Draper introduced a "pirate" edition into the U.S.A. in 1843, referring to it "as a textbook, undoubtedly the best extant in the English language".

Amongst all this frenetic scientific activity Robert Kane found time to court and marry Katherine Baily, whose father was a distiller in Dublin. She was a botanist and at the age of 22 published anonymously the Irish Flora. One day a printer sent Kane a bundle of her proofs by mistake instead of his own, and when he returned them in person he met his future wife for the first time.

Robert Kane was now at the peak of his scientific career. He was well-known as a lecturer, as an author and as a chemical researcher in the British Isles, Europe and America. He had been giving a series of lectures at the Royal Dublin Society on the industrial resources of Ireland and in 1844 he published an expanded version under the title Industrial Resources of Ireland. This book contained a mass of factual detail on energy, mineral, agricultural, capital and labour resources and it brought Kane to the attention of the politicians. When Sir Robert Peel set up the Museum of Economic Geology in Dublin in 1845, he appointed Kane as Director of the Museum. Shortly thereafter he appointed Kane as President of Queen's College, Cork one of the three constituent colleges of the Queen's University (the others were in Galway and Belfast).

1845 saw the start of the Irish Potato Famine and Kane was heavily involved as one of the eight Irish Relief Commissioners, as a member of the Board of Health set up to deal with an outbreak of typhus, and as a member of the Playfair Blight Commission set up to look into the causes of the blight. Sean O'Donnell commented that this Commission "must surely rank as one of the most monumentally ineffective and misdirected that this country has ever seen." (It would appear that Kane was the token Catholic member of these bodies, and one critic of the Health Board remarked that Kane could be safely "absolved of all blame through uniform non-attendance at meetings.") As well as having no time for directing the affairs of the Museum or Queen's College, Cork it also meant that he ceased doing any fundamental research. He became a distinguished public figure, but his scientific career lay behind him, although he remained editor of Philosophical Magazine until his death. A few months later in 1846 Peel made him Sir Robert Kane in recognition of his services.

Until he retired in 1873 Sir Robert Kane was involved in the development of scientific and technical education in Ireland. He was President of Queen's College, Cork until he retired but after three years of enthusiasm, his interest seems to have waned and in 1853 an official enquiry was set up into his prolonged absences from the college. (His family were living in Dublin and he also seems to have spent most of his time there.) Following the enquiry Kane agreed to live in Cork, at least during term-time and after that there were no more problems.

The Museum of Economic Geology became the Museum of Irish Industry under Kane's leadership,started providing lectures in science and in 1867 it became the Royal College of Science for Ireland. The Department of Science and Art intended to pass over Kane as Head of this new institution, believing it should be given to "some layman of administrative capacity, and of sufficient distinction to carry weight, but unbiased by any special scientific predilections..". However, their views were over-ruled and Kane was appointed first Dean of the College.

Even after his retirement in 1873 Kane was called on for various honorary offices: Commissioner of National Education, Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University etc. From 1877 until his death he was President of the Royal Irish Academy and this was his main interest during his retirement. He died in Dublin on February 16th. 1890. He is probably best remembered now for his work on natural resources and the Industrial Resources of Ireland was issued as a reprint in 1971. In this book Kane pointed out

".. the absence of successful enterprise is owing to the fact that we do not know how to succeed; we do not want activity, we are not deficient in mental power, but we want special industrial knowledge."

"Should an ambitious parent desire to give his son a good education, although he is to be in trade, he puts him through College. He devotes the best years of his youth to reading Grecian poetry, and Latin plays, to learning by rote the dialectics of the middle ages and principles of abstract metaphysics, and awakens, after the solemnity of getting his degree, to find that he is to obtain his living by principles and pursuits to which his education has had no reference whatsoever."

If your browser supports tables, click here for a chronology of Robert Kane's life.

Dr. Peter Childs is a lecturer in Chemistry. He is interested in Chemical Education and is the Director of the Schools Information Centre on the Irish Chemical Industry at UL.

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