Richard Chenevix

Richard Chenevix (ca. 1774 – 5 April 1830) was an Irish chemist, mineralogist and playwright who also wrote on a range of other topics. He was known for his sharp cynicism and for engaging in combative criticism. Chenevix received the Copley Medal in 1803, "for his various Chemical Papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions."

Early life and family He was born in Ballycommon, County Offaly, to Elizabeth Arabin and lieutenant-colonel Daniel Chenevix of the Royal Irish Artillery. His 3x great grandfather, Reverend Philip Chevenix, was a Huguenot settler who left France after Louis XIV's Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the earlier Edict of Nantes which had given additional rights to Protestants. His great uncle Richard, and namesake, was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.

His sister, Sarah Elizabeth, married Captain Hugh Tuite of Sonna, Co. Westmeath, twice Member of Parliament for that county.

On 4 June 1812 he married "an aging French beauty of dubious reputation", Countess Jeanne Françoise de Rouault (?-1836), the widow of Comte Charles de Rouault, whom he had met at the home of Sir John Sebright. Later that year, Wollaston publicly revealed his authorship (although he had communicated as much to the Royal Society before Chenevix's second paper) In 1808 came his criticism of Abraham Werner's classification of minerals. In 1809, he produced his final scientific paper, a method to produce acetone by distilling acetates.

Chenevix was a member of a number of European societies. The Royal Society has (a minimum of) twenty-six papers by Chenevix.

Works In 1828 he wrote an anonymous review on Gall and Spurzheim's work on phrenology, which was reprinted two years later, with comments by Spurzheim, in London. The Edinburgh Review and Foreign Quarterly Review printed his various economic and cultural articles on France and England.