John Thomas Dunn (19 April 1858 – 3 January 1939) was an English analytical chemist. He was also a teacher and author. He became President of the Royal Society of Chemistry and received the highest honours his scientific colleagues could bestow.
He was Durham University's first Master of Science and subsequently became its first Doctor of Science. He was the founding principal of the Northern Polytechnic Institute in London. He later practised as an analytical and consulting chemist in North East England and was the public analyst for Newcastle upon Tyne, for the county of Northumberland and for several of the major industrial towns of the North East. He was a hereditary freeman of Newcastle upon Tyne. On his death he was described as "the Father of Tyneside Chemistry".
Early life and education
Dunn was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1858 to Thomas Dunn, a Newcastle ironmonger and auctioneer and his wife Ann Chicken, the daughter of a labourer at William Armstrong's Newcastle factory. He attended the Percy Street Academy in Newcastle, popularly known as Dr Bruce's School, from about the age of 8. He left school at the age of 13 to work as a clerk for his father and then as a railway booking clerk. In 1874, at the age of 16, Dunn became a student at the three-year-old College of Physical Science in Newcastle, which was then part of the University of Durham, and is now part of Newcastle University.
Specialising in chemistry, at the early age of 19 he became a Bachelor of Science, one of the university's first. In 1881 he was became Durham's first Master of Science, and in 1888 he became the university's first Doctor of Science.
Early career
In 1877 Dunn became a demonstrator in chemistry at the College of Physical Science. He was then made the college's Professor of Chemistry in 1882 at the young age of 24.
In 1884 he was appointed science teacher at the newly opened private Gateshead High School for Boys. Three years later he became the school's head teacher. While still holding that position he became Inspector of Science Schools and Classes for Durham County Council.
In 1894 Dunn was appointed head of the new Technical College in Plymouth, more properly known as the Jubilee Memorial Science, Art and Technical School, where he remained for only one year.
Northern Polytechnic Institute
Dunn was appointed the founding Principal of the Northern Polytechnic Institute in Holloway, London, and head of its Chemistry Department, in 1895. The institute was opened with aid from the City of London Parochial Foundation and substantial donations from the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers. Under the terms of its royal charter its objective was: "to promote the industrial skill, general knowledge, health, and wellbeing of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes of Islington and to provide for the inhabitants of Islington and the neighbouring parts of North London, and especially for the Industrial Classes, the means of acquiring a sound General, Scientific, Technical, and Commercial Education at small cost."
Dunn's task in his first year – as founding Principal of the institute (which has since become the main campus of the London Metropolitan University) – was to prepare for its opening and to employ staff, and to enrol as many students as possible so that it might be a success from the moment the doors were opened in October 1896.
The result was 1000 students enrolled in the first year, to be taught by 34 staff. All the students were at elementary level and most attended evening classes while working during the day. Courses ranged from English, mathematics, chemistry and physics to more vocational classes such as machine construction, plumbing, dress-making, and millinery.
The Northern Polytechnic Institute went from strength to strength. New buildings began to be erected during Dunn's time in charge there, with the Great Hall being opened in 1897, and other large additions completed in 1902. In January 1900 at the prize-giving, Dunn was able to report that the institute had grown very rapidly and was still growing, the number of students by then being two thousand. "There is no doubt", Dunn assured his audience, "that England is in no way behind any other country in the world as regards technical education".
A year later Dunn was able to record a further rise in student numbers and to report that there was a growing tendency to take advantage of the institute, especially in the trade and industrial classes.