BAKER, Herbert Brereton 1862-1935. Chemist. From 1886 to 1902 a Chemistry master and eventually Head of the Science Side at Dulwich College, ‘eminent both in scientific and scholastic work’. Elected FRS. in 1902, in which year he was appointed Headmaster of Alleyn’s School. In 1904 he went to Oxford as a lecturer and tutor. From 1912 to 1932 he was Professor of Chemistry at Imperial College. Advised the War Office on how to meet the threat of gas attacks. He was an experimentalist, rather than a theoretician. Chemists of the day described the degrees of dryness of dried objects as varying from dry, through very dry, to Baker-dry, through slowing down or stopping chemical action.
Patrick Darby