Early Life
James Young was born in the Drygate area of Glasgow, the son of John Young, a cabinetmaker and joiner. He became his father's apprentice at an early age, and educated himself at night school, attending evening classes at the nearby Anderson's College (now Strathclyde University) from the age of 19. He met Thomas Graham at Anderson's College, who had just been appointed as a lecturer on chemistry and in 1831 was appointed as his assistant and occasionally took some of his lectures. While at Anderson's College he also met and befriended the famous explorer David Livingstone; this relationship was to continue until Livingstone’s death in Africa many years later.
In Young's first scientific paper, dated 4 January 1837, he described a modification of a voltaic battery invented by Michael Faraday. Later that same year he moved with Graham to University College, London where he helped him with experimental work.
Read more about this topic: James Young (Scottish Chemist)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself—civilization, in a word—are the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which charactizes the animal world from which he made his escape.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)