Subfonds - Department of Chemistry

The teaching of chemistry at Dalhousie College was introduced in 1842 by Professor James MacIntosh, although the chemistry department dates from 1863 with the appointment of the first chair, Professor George Lawson, who taught chemistry and botany at Dalhousie for 32 years. Ebenezer MacKay, who graduated in 1886 with first-class honours in experimental physics and chemistry, returned to Dalhousie in 1896 with a PhD from Johns Hopkins University to become the second professor of chemistry following Lawson's death.

The first postgraduate chemistry degree was conferred on James Forrest in 1871, and 11 more Dalhousie BA graduates received MA degrees between 1871 and 1934. In 1904, the first Master of Science degree was awarded to W.H. Ross, but research in chemistry did not flourish at Dalhousie until the arrival of Carl C. Coffin in 1930. When the Department of Chemistry received approval for a PhD program in 1960, the number of accepted MSc theses numbered only 62 after more than a half century. Dalhousie's first PhD in chemistry was granted to St. John H. Blakeley in 1964. Since then, some 500 alumni have received MSc and PhD degrees from the Chemistry Department, a number that increases by about 15 each year. Today the department's graduate program is the largest east of Montreal and the only PhD chemistry graduate program in Nova Scotia.