Leo Baekeland

He married his professor Theodore Swarts’ daughter Céline Swarts on August 8, 1889. The couple had three children - Nina, Jenny and George.

On February 23, 1944, he succumbed to cerebral haemorrhage at a sanatorium in Beacon, NY. He was interred in the ‘Sleepy Hollow Cemetery’ in Sleepy Hollow, a village in Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, New York.

He was born on November 14, 1863, in Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium, to Charles Baekeland and Rosalie (Merchie) Baekeland. His father was a cobbler and his mother was a housemaid.

He joined elementary school at five years of age and later joined the government high school, ‘Atheneum’. He attended evening classes at the ‘Ghent Municipal Technical School’ and studied economics, mechanics, physics and chemistry. He earned medal in all the subjects.

In 1880 after receiving a scholarship from the port city of Glent in northwest Belgium he joined the University of Ghent. In 1882 he completed his ‘Bachelor in Science’ degree. At 21 years of age he earned his PhD maxima cum laude.

In 1887 he was appointed by the ‘Government Higher Normal School of Science’ in Bruges. He served there as professor of chemistry and physics till sometime in 1889. Meanwhile, he discovered a procedure of using water as an alternative to chemicals in developing photographic plates and patented the invention in 1887 in Belgium.

In 1889 he accepted an offer from the ‘University of Ghent’ for the post of Associate Professor of chemistry. The same year he received a travel scholarship and visited many universities in the United States and England along with his wife.

While visiting NewYork he was persuaded by Professor Charles F. Chandler of Columbia University to settle there. After deciding to stay back he sent his resignation from the post of Associate Professor of the ‘University of Ghent’. While his resignation was accepted by the Minister of Education of Belgium, he was authorised to hold an honorary title as Associate Professor of the university.

In New York he met Richard Anthony, of the ‘E. and H.T. Anthony’ photographic company who offered him a job. He joined the photographic company where he served for a couple of years.

In 1891 he settled as a consulting and research chemist. After around two years of exhaustive endeavour he discovered the photographic paper Velox that consists of a gelatine silver chloride coating and can be created by artificial light.

His revolutionary invention of Bakelite marked the beginning of an era of plastics. The application of Bakelite proved to be immense and varied. Some earlier products that used Bakelite include electrical devices, radios, electron tubes, car parts, billiard balls and jewellery. Later it covered many other sections of the industry.