William Harcourt (politician) William Harcourt (politician) Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, KC (14 October 1827 – 1 October 1904) was a British lawyer, journalist and Liberal statesman. He served as Member of Parliament for various constituencies and held the offices of Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under William Ewart Gladstone before becoming Leader of the Opposition. A talented speaker in parliament, he was sometimes regarded as aloof and possessing only an intellectual involvement in his causes. He failed to engender much emotional response in the public and became only a reluctant and disillusioned leader of his party. Harcourt was
Augustus George Vernon Harcourt reaction (iodide and hydrogen peroxide). Their work showed that the reaction's changing rate was proportional to the concentration of reactants present. This result was later formalised by Guldberg and Waage as the law of mass action. Harcourt and Esson also studied the reaction between oxalic acid and potassium permanganate. Harcourt's other activities included inventing a device to safely administer chloroform as an anesthesic, and the analysis and purification of coal gas, used for illumination. Harcourt also invented pentane-burning lamps that served as photometric standards. Augustus George Vernon Harcourt Augustus George Vernon Harcourt FRS (24 December 1834 – 23 August 1919)