| Administrative History | Lyon Playfair, the first Baron Playfair, was born in Bengal to a civil servant and educated in Scotland. After work as a laboratory assistant he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Manchester Institution. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1848 and three years later became Special Commissioner of the Great Exhibition and Gentleman Usher to Prince Albert. While continuing his research interests as Secretary of the Department of Science, and later as a chemistry professor at Edinburgh University, he also became involved in parliamentary politics. After serving as a Liberal M.P. he became Postmaster-General in Gladstone's government in 1873, and by the end of the decade he was Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. In 1892 Playfair left the Commons and assumed his baronetcy. He died in 1898 in London and was buried in St Andrews. |