Kenyon, Joseph (1885–1961)

English organic chemist who studied optical activity, particularly of secondary alcohols.

Kenyon was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. Working as a laboratory assistant at Blackburn Technical College, he won a scholarship and went on to become a lecturer there. He worked on photographic developers and dyes at the British Dyestuffs Corporation, Oxford, 1916–20, and was head of the Chemistry Department at Battersea Polytechnic, London, 1920–50.

Kenyon published his research on secondary alcohols in 1911. He resolved the optically active stereoisomers of secondary octyl alcohol (octan-2-ol), and went on to obtain an optically pure series of secondary alcohols.

Kenyon put forward the ‘obstacle’ theory for the cause of optical activity in certain substituted diphenic acids. He synthesized and attempted to resolve some selenoxides, confirming differences between these and sulphoxides, and investigated the geometric and optical isomerism of the methylcyclohexanols.