Robert Warington

Robert Warington (1838 to 1907), often called Robert Warington Jr., was an English agricultural chemist known for his research on the chemistry of phosphates and nitrates in agricultural soils. Born in Spitalfields, London, he studied chemistry in his father's laboratory and in 1859 became an unpaid assistant to Sir John Bennet Lawes at Rothamsted. He assisted the Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester from 1862 to 1867, worked for Lawes as chemist to his manure and acid works until 1876, and was then an investigator at Rothamsted from 1876 to 1891. There he published many articles on soil nitrification and in 1879 made the first observation that nitrification is a two step process. He lectured in the United States in 1891, was Sibthorpian professor of rural economy at Oxford from 1894 to 1897, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1886.