William Barlow

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This article is about the geologist. For the Anglican bishops, see William Barlow (bishop).

William Barlow (August 8, 1845 – February 28, 1934) was an English amateur geologist specializing in crystallography.

He was born in Islington, in London, England. His father became wealthy as a speculative builder as well as a building surveyor, allowing William to have a private education. After his father died in 1875, William and his brother inherited this fortune, allowing him to pursue his interest in crystallography without a need to labor for a living.

William examined the forms of crystalline structures, and deduced that there were only 230 forms of symmetrical crystal arrangements, known as space groups. Unfortunately his results were published in 1894, only after they had been independently announced by Evgraf Stepanovich Federov and Arthur Schönflies, although his approach did display some novelty. His structural models of simple compounds such as NaCl and CsCl were later confirmed using X-ray crystallography.

He served as the president of the English Mineralogical Society from 1915 until 1918.

He died in Great Stanmore, Middlesex, England.