John Young Buchanan, Scientist, Geographer
John Young Buchanan (1844-1925) by Louis Tinayre (1861-1941), 1909
Photo credit: Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, England
John Young Buchanan, FRSE FRS FCS
1844 – 1925
John Young Buchanan was the second son of John Buchanan of Dowanhill, merchant in Glasgow.
The family are cadets of Drummikill via Finnick Drummond and Croy.
He was educated at Glasgow High School and Glasgow University. He later studied at Marburg, Leipzig, and Bonn, and at the Ecole de Médecine, Paris. He had a remarkable facility for foreign languages which he acquired during his studies.
He made his first reputation as the chemist and physicist of the Challenger expedition which between the years of 1872 and 1874 circumnavigated the globe.
On his return to Britain, Buchanan established private laboratories in both Edinburgh and London. He was for a time lecturer in Geography in the University of Cambridge. For some 20 years he resided at Christs College and was regarded by those who knew him as charming and stimulating company with a turn of humour all his own. His friendship with some eminent Royal personages gave him insight into affairs abroad and he became convinced that war was coming. When, in his 70th year ( 1914 ) war did break out he became so distraught that he retired to Cuba, and lived in the region for the greater part of his remaining life.
After he left Cambridge, Buchanan had for a time a house in Norfolk Street, Park lane, and continued his work in his London laboratory. He was gifted not only as a chemist but as a mineralogist, spending time each year in Switzerland studying ice and snow. He wrote a great deal and his most important papers were gathered together under the title of “Comptes Rendus: Observation and Reasoning”. This work was published by Cambridge University Press.
He was elected to the Royal Society in 1887, and awarded the Keith medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the gold medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He was an honorary member of the Berlin Geographical Society and of the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences. John Young Buchanan received the Order of St. Charles from the Prince of Monaco, and served as vice-president of the Oceanographic Institute which the prince established in Paris.
He was a member of the Athenaeum for 25 years.
John Young Buchanan remained a bachelor.
This information is taken from “Later Leaves of Buchanan Book” by A. W. Patrick Buchanan K.C. Published in Montreal in 1929 for private circulation.