The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Liversidge, Professor Archibald
Liversidge, Professor Archibald, M.A., F.R.S., President Royal Society of New South Wales, was educated at a private school, and by private tutors in science in London. He entered the Royal College of Chemistry and Royal School of Mines, London, in 1866, and obtained a Royal Exhibition at these places in 1867. This privilege was tenable for three years, with £50 per year and remission of all fees, equal to about £100 per annum in addition. At the same examination he obtained medals in chemistry, mineralogy, and metallurgy. During his first year as student at the Royal College of Chemistry, he was given charge of the chemical laboratory at the Royal of Naval Architecture for one term during the illness of the lecturer, and published his first paper on supersaturated solutions. He was trained in chemistry at the College of Chemistry, under Professor Frankland. He became Associate of the School of Mines in Metallurgy and Mining in 1870, after having studied and passed in physics under Professor Tyndall, geology under Sir Andrew Ramsay, mineralogy under Sir W. Warrington Smyth, mechanics under Professors Willis and Goodeve, and metallurgy under Dr. Percy. He also spent some time in Dr. Frankland's private chemical laboratory as a senior student upon research work. In 1870 he obtained an open scholarship in science at Christ's College, Cambridge. During his first year at Cambridge he held the post of Demonstrator of Chemistry in the university laboratory for two terms, in the absence of Dr. Hicks. He was one of the first two students in the new physiological laboratory at Cambridge started by Professor Michael Foster. In 1872 he was offered the appointment of Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in the University of Sydney, and went out in September of that year. He was a commissioner for New South Wales at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, and a juror in chemistry and metallurgy. He has been a trustee of the Australian Museum, Sydney, since 1874, and during visits to Europe, America, and elsewhere purchased most of the non-Australian mineral and geological collections which it possesses. Professor Liversidge has also been a member of the Sydney University Senate since 1878, and Dean of the Faculty of Science since the formation of that faculty in 1883. He made the chemical investigations upon the Sydney water supply for the Government in 1876; was one of the original members of the Board of Technical Education, and Hon. Secretary of the Royal Society of New South Wales from 1874 to 1889, exclusive of the period when he was President in 1883-4. He was the President for 1889-90. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of England in 1882. He published a work on the minerals of New South Wales in 1888, to show the progress made in the knowledge of mineralogy in New South Wales during the first hundred years of its history. He originated the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science as a centennial record of the progress of the colonies. He has visited Tasmania and New Zealand three times, Fiji, Java, China, Japan, and the United States in 1887. Professor Archibald Liversidge is an Associate of the Royal School of Mines, London; Fellow of the Chemical Society, London; Fellow Institute Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland; F.G.S.; F.L.S.; F.R.G.S.; member Physiological Society, London; member Mineralogical Society, Great Britain and Ireland; corresponding member Royal Society, Tasmania; corresponding member Leuckenberg Institute, Frankfort; corresponding member Society d'Acclimatisation, Mauritius; Hon. Fellow Royal Historical Society, London; member Mineralogical Society of France; editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales; and is the author of some twenty scientific papers and reports on chemistry, mineralogy, etc.