science · 30 September 1887 · 137 years ago
birth
Born 30 Sep 1887; buried 3 Jun 1957 at age 69.
Leslie Herbert Lampitt was an English analytical chemist and food scientist who as chief chemist of Lyons founded the largest food laboratory in Europe. After WW I service, his suggestion to Samuel Gluckstein of the food company J. Lyons & Co. that science should be applied to food production was accepted. Begining in Jul 1919, he founded a 3,000 sq. ft. Bio-Chemical Department, a laboratory analyzing food samples that was the first of its kind in Europe. As the staff and activity grew, by 1928, the lab had 35,000 sq.ft. in a new seven-story building. In Jun 1949, Oxford graduate Margaret Roberts joined as a research chemist, but later as Margaret Thatcher, she became Britain's first woman Prime Minister. Lampitt was active in several chemistry societies, both academic and industrial. He advocated standards for such products as tea, coffee, jam, cream and cheese.
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