John Ferguson FRSE LLD was a Scottish chemist and bibliographer.
He is noted for the early alchemy and chemistry bibliography Bibliotheca Chemica. He was generally nicknamed Soda Ferguson. This was attributed to his caustic nature.
The Ferguson Collection, a collection of 7,500 books and manuscripts from his personal library is held by the University of Glasgow.
Ferguson was born on 24 January 1838 in Alloa, the son of Elizabeth Donaldson and Adam Ferguson. He moved at an early age to Glasgow and attended Glasgow High School. His first studies at University of Glasgow were in the arts faculty, where he graduated with a BA in 1861 and an MA with honours in 1862. He returned to the university in 1863 to study Chemistry within the Medical Faculty. He studied Natural Philosophy under Professor William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, and Chemistry with Professor Thomas Anderson. From finishing his studies in 1864 until 1868 when he was appointed University Assistant with charge of tutorial classes and laboratory supervision, he worked as private assistant to Professor Anderson. In 1869, Professor Anderson was taken seriously ill, and John Ferguson undertook the general running of the department until November 1870 when the Professor returned. It was during this time that the University moved from the High Street to the Gilmorehill Campus, and it was Ferguson who planned the new Chemistry Laboratories. Anderson never fully recovered from his illness and when he died in 1874, Ferguson was appointed the Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. He retained this post until 1915.
John married Helen Baird in 1882. Throughout his life, John "Soda" Ferguson had been connected with University of Glasgow, his last position being as Honorary Curator of the Hunterian Library. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1888. His proposers were Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), James Thomson Bottomley, Peter Guthrie Tait and Alexander Crum Brown. The University of St Andrews awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD).
Ferguson had an extensive library of books pertaining to alchemy, early chemistry, metallurgy, mineralogy, Paracelsus, the Romani language, the Rosicrucians, and witchcraft. In 1921 the University of Glasgow purchased about 11,000 of the books for the sum of £7,000, of which they still retain a large portion.
John Ferguson died of heart disease at his home in Claremont Terrace, Glasgow, on 3rd November 1916, aged 78. He is buried in the family burial plot in Alloa.
John Ferguson Held the following Memberships:
Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow - President (1892–1895)
Glasgow Archaeological Society - President (1891–1894)
Royal Society of Edinburgh - Fellow
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland - Fellow
Chemical Society - Fellow
Royal Institute of Chemistry - Fellow
British Archaeological Association
French Archaeological Society
Honorary Fellow of the Imperial Military Academy of Medicine in Petrograd
Royal Company of Archers
The photograph of Ferguson above shows him dressed in the uniform of the Royal Company of Archers, a ceremonial unit which served as the sovereign’s bodyguard in Scotland (UoG picture).