University of Virginia Library

JOHN WILLIAM MALLET

Mallet Hall bears the name of John William
Mallet, who was Professor of Chemistry
(particularly in its industrial and agricultural
applications) from 1868 to 1883
and from 1885 to 1908, when he was given
the title of Emeritus Professor. He was
born near Dublin, Ireland, 10 October
1832, the son of Robert Mallet, a civil engineer
and a Fellow of the Royal Society of
London. He was a student at Trinity College
of the University of Dublin, but he
interrupted his undergraduate course by
a period of study in Germany, and actually
won the degree of Ph.D. at Göttingen the
year before he received his B.A. from Trinity
College. That was in 1853, and he went
straightway to the United States (he was
then twenty-one years old) to collect information
for his father about the Erickson
caloric engine, with no expectation of remaining
in this country. But he was persuaded
to take the post of Professor of
Analytical Chemistry at Amherst College.

He remained there, however, for only one
year, being tempted by an offer to become
Chemist of the Geological Survey of Alabama.
This brought him into the Southern
States, and he was soon holding also the
chair of Chemistry at the University of Alabama.
He was there when the Civil War
broke out, and though he never relinquished
his status as a British citizen, he
was accepted as a private in the Confederate
forces. He was soon promoted to a first
lieutenancy and to a staff position and
eventually he was, as a lieutenant-colonel,
put in charge of the ordnance laboratories
of the Confederacy.

He had married in 1857 the daughter
of Judge John Ormond of Alabama, and at
the termination of the war he had a family
of two sons and a daughter to support in
the precarious conditions portrayed by
Margaret Mitchell in "Gone with the
Wind." But he found temporary employment
by some northern capitalists, who
wished a survey made of traces of petroleum
in Louisiana and Texas. Then he became

Professor of Chemistry in the Medical
Department of the University of Louisiana.
That position he held until 1868,
when he began his long service at the University
of Virginia. This service was interrupted
for two years, 1883–1885, the first of
which was spent as Professor of Chemistry
at the University of Texas, partly to seek a
favorable climate for his elder son, smitten
fatally by tuberculosis; and the second as
Professor of Chemistry at the Jefferson
Medical College in Philadelphia, this being
in part to seek a change of scene for his
ailing wife, who died in 1886. His position
at the University of Virginia had meantime
been kept open for him, and he returned
to it and to the house which had been
erected for him in 1871. He was married
again, in 1888, to Mrs. Josephine Burthe
of Louisiana, who survived him.

As a Professor he was an impressive personage,
formal and dignified, with a carefully
trimmed beard, and wearing customarily
a cutaway coat and a silk hat. He
had a high sense of duty in his relations

with his colleagues in the Faculty and with
the students. His lectures were systematic,
concise, and clear, and his experiments
were so carefully prepared beforehand that
they are said to have never failed. He was
the first President of the University of Virginia
Philosophical Society; and when that
was reorganized after its suspension consequent
to the burning of the Rotunda, he
was again its first President. His services
were in demand throughout the region as
an expert witness in medico-legal cases. His
first scientific article had been prepared
while he was a student in Trinity College,
and the roll of his learned contributions
numbered well over a hundred. He was a
member of many scientific societies in the
United States, Europe, and South America.
He received an honorary degree of M.D.
from the University of Louisiana, and the
degree of LL.D. honoris causa was conferred
upon him by William and Mary, the
University of Mississippi, Princeton, Johns
Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Vigorous both mentally and physically,
he continued his full life as a Professor
until he was seventy-six, when in 1908 the
Board of Visitors did him the honor of
making him Emeritus Professor. He died
four years later, on 7 November 1912, and
is buried in the University Cemetery. His
home, the Mallet House, was torn down in
1929 to make way for the erection of Monroe
Hall. But his name is now fittingly
preserved in Mallet Hall.