John Bennet Lawes

John Bennet Lawes
Caricature from Vanity Fair, 8 July 1882
Born	1814 Harpenden near St Albans, Hertfordshire
Died	1900

Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baronet FRS (28 December 1814–31 August 1900) was an English entrepreneur and agricultural scientist. He founded an experimental farm at his home at Rothamsted Manor that eventually became the Rothamsted Experimental Station, where he developed a superphosphate that would mark the beginnings of the chemical fertilizer industry.

John Bennet Lawes was born at Rothamsted in modern-day Harpenden near St Albans, Hertfordshire, the only son of John Bennet Lawes, owner of the Rothamsted estate of somewhat more than 1000 acres (4 km²) and lord of the manor of Rothamsted. He was educated at Eton College and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Even before leaving Oxford in 1832, Lawes had begun to interest himself in growing various medicinal plants on the Rothamsted estates, which he inherited on his father's death in 1822. About 1837 he began to experiment on the effects of various manures on plants growing in pots, and a year or two later the experiments were extended to crops in the field. One immediate consequence was that in 1842 he patented a manure formed by treating phosphates with sulphuric acid, and thus initiated the artificial manure industry. In the succeeding year he enlisted the services of Joseph Henry Gilbert, with whom he carried on for more than half a century those experiments in raising crops and feeding animals which have rendered Rothamsted famous in the eyes of scientific agriculturists all over the world. In 1854 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, which in 1867 bestowed a Royal Medal on Lawes and Gilbert jointly, and in 1882 he was created a baronet.

In the year before his death Lawes took measures to ensure the continued existence of the Rothamsted experimental farm by setting aside £100,000 for that purpose and constituting the Lawes Agricultural Trust.

In Harpenden, Sir John Lawes School is named after him

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press 
• Antonio Saltini, Storia delle scienze agrarie, vol. III, L'età della macchina a vapore e dei concimi industriali, Edagricole, Bologna 1989, 67-97

External links

• LAWES, John Bennett Sir - DNB entry
• Archive material held by Rothamsted Library
• Correspondence of John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert 1846 to 1900
• 'EC/1854/08'&dsqDb=Catalog Royal Society citation
• History of Rothamsted Research
• Lawes Agricultural Trust