MANS FIELD

Charles Black ford (son of John Mans field, R. of Rowner, Hampshire). b. Rowner 8 May 1819; ed. at Twyford and Winchester; began residence at Clare hall, Camb. Oct. 1839, B.A. 1846, M.A. 1849; lived at a cost of a few pence a day and gave his savings to the poor; studied at royal college of chemistry 1846–8; discovered and patented the extraction of benzol from coal-tar 1848, which laid foundation of the aniline industry; went to Paraguay 1852; lectured on the chemistry of the metals at royal institution 1851–2; author of Benzol, its nature and utility 1849; Paraguay, Brazil and the Plate 1856; the naptha on which he was experimenting boiled over and so scalded him that he d. Middle sex hospital, London 26 Feb. 1855. Mans field’s Paraguay (1856), memoir pp. xi–xvi , portrait .