Farish, William (1759-1837), chemist and President of Magdalene College, Cambridge

• The Revd Professor William Farish, BD

Matriculated in 1774; Senior Wrangler in 1778 aged 19

Made a Fellow in 1778
Appointed Tutor in 1782
Appointed Professor of Chemistry in 1794
President of the College in 1798
1813-1837 Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy

In 1800 he resigned his Tutorship (but not his University Professorship) and became Vicar of St Giles's parish in Cambridge. He had no previous experience of parochial work. By 1817 he had built two schoolrooms - one for 400 boys and one for 300 girls, and had englarged the church from his private benevolence.
In 1836 he became Rector of Little Stonham in Suffolk where he died on 12 January 1837.

A skilled engineering model-maker, he foresaw the time when steam would be the main power for travel by land and sea, and he predicted that the technology would one day be found to travel through the air. He was also an influential pioneer and agitator against the slave trade and played a leading part in the related inauguration of the Protestant missionary movement. Marsden, Brown, Robert Grant and Lord Glenelg were among his protégés.

Articles in the College Magazine:
Article: 'William Farish, 1759-1837', by Charles Smyth, College Magazine, No. 76, December 1937
Article, ''William Farish, 1759-1837', by Dr K. R. Webb, College Magazine, No. 86, Michaelmas 1955