Archibald Scott Couper

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Archibald Scott Couper (March 31, 1831, Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland—March 11, 1892, Kirkintilloch) was the author of "On a New Chemical Theory", Philosophical Magazine 16, 104-116 (1858) [as excerpted in Alembic Club Reprint #21, On a New Chemical Theory and Researches on Salicylic Acid [1]]

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz claimed to have solved the structure of Benzene in a dream. While his claims were well publicized and accepted, by the early 1920s Kekulé's biographer came to the conclusion that Kekulé's understanding of the tetravalent nature of carbon bonding depended on the previous research of Archibald Scott Couper (1831-1892); further, the German chemist Josef Loschmidt (1821-1895) had earlier posited a cyclic structure for benzene as early as 1862, although he had not actually proved this structure to be correct.

Couper studied at the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Paris. Although he submitted his paper about the tetravalent nature of the carbon atom before a similar paper by Kekulé, he never received credit for the work he conducted. His health began declining after this rejection, an in 1858, he suffered froma nervous breakdown. He soon retired from further scientific work and spent the last 30 years of his life in the care of his mother (McMurry, Organic Chemistry, 6th ed., pg. 7).