Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge The Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge is the chemistry department of the University of Cambridge. It was formed from a merger in the early 1980s of two separate departments that had moved into the Lensfield Road building decades earlier: the Department of Physical Chemistry (originally led by Professor Ronald Norrish FRS, Nobel Laureate; the department was previously located near the Old Cavendish in Free School Lane - see photo) and the Department of Chemistry (that included theoretical chemistry and which was led by Lord Alexander R. Todd FRS, Nobel Laureate) respectively.
Cavendish Professor of Physics would cost £6,300. The then chancellor of the university, William Cavendish met that cost privately 18 months later, and named the department in honor of his relative, the 18th century natural philosopher Henry Cavendish. The first Cavendish Professor was the then relatively obscure James Clerk Maxwell, who had yet to complete the work that would make him the most renowned physicist of the nineteenth century. His appointment was announced on 8 March 1871, and despite initial disappointment at his being offered the place, his inaugural lecture was looked forward to by his likely students as well as his future colleagues.