John William Baker (1898-1967) was one of a group of pioneering physical organic chemist in Great Britain who laid the ground work for the great strides that were in the post-World War II era in this discipline. A student of J. T. Thorpe and C. K. Ingold at Imperial College, he received his Ph.D. in 1925. When Ingold became Professor of Organic Chemistry at Leeds University, Baker was one of the first persons he added to the staff. Ingold had the intention of reforming the way in which organic chemistry was taught to undergraduates. Instead of rote memorization Ingold sought to take a mechanistic approach. Baker was an enthusiastic follower of Ingold's approach and when Ingold left Leeds to take up the professorship at University College, London Baker continued what Ingold had started and elaborated upon it. This paper will examine a course given by Baker in the 1941-42 academic year to third year chemistry students. These notes were taken by Donald Vincent a student in the course and are now in the archives of Leeds University. After reviewing the contents of the course from the notes, I will try to show how this course was an anticipation of Ingold's Structure and Mechanism in Organic Chemistry which was first published in 1951.

J.W. Baker's pioneering undergraduate course in physical organic chemistry

248th National Meeting (2014)

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