Francis Samuel Preston VENABLE

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  General Notes:

Francis Preston Venable, who was born in Prince Edward Co., Va., on Nov. 17,
1856, the only surviving son of Col. Charles Scott and Margaret Cantey (McDowell) Venable. Prepared for college at Major Jones' School, Charlottesville, he entered the University of Virginia and graduated with the Class of 1879. He then studied at Bonn and Gottingen, gaining the degree of Ph.D. at the latter university in 1881. In 1889 he was a student in Berlin.

On Nov. 3, 1884, Dr. Venable was married to Miss Sally Charlton Manning of Chapel Hill, daughter of Hon. John Manning, founder of the University Law School and until his death, its dean.

From 1880 to 1900 Dr. Venable was Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina. In the latter year he relinquished his teaching duties to become president of the institution. For fourteen years, or until ill health compelled his resignation, Dr. Venable's executive leadership was noteworthy in constructive accomplishments and was characterized by saneness, vision and ableness. Upon his retirement from the presidency in 1914 the trustees, in appreciation of his faithful services and in recognition of his outstanding abilities, created a special chair in chemistry bearing his name and elected him as holder thereof. When the Kenan professorships were established in 1918 through the generosity of Mrs. Mary Lilly Bingham, Dr. Venable was the first of the five teachers singled out for this distinction. As Kenan Professor of Chemistry he is still in service at the University.

Among the honors which have come to Dr. Venable may be mentioned the following: the honorary degree of Doctor of Science conferred upon him by Lafayette College in 1904; the degree of Doctor of Learned Laws conferred upon him by the Universities of Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Carolina, and by the Jefferson Medical College; president of the Southern Educational Association, 1903; president American Chemical Society, 1905 (the first of two southern men ever to hold this office); president of Southern Association of Schools and Colleges, 1909; member of advisory boards of the Bureau of Mines (1917) and of the Chemical Warfare Service (1918). He is a Fellow of the London Chemical Society and a member of the A. A. A. S., and the American Philosophical Society.

Dr. Venable is the author of numerous books and articles, among which may be mentioned: Manual of Qualitative Chemistry, 1883; Short History of Chemistry, 1894; Development of Periodic Law, 1896; Inorganic Chemistry According to the Periodic Law, 1898; Study of the Atom, 1904; Radioactivity, 1917; Zirconium and its Compounds, 1921; together with some seventy articles which have been published in the scientific journals of this and other countries.-J. G. B