Editing Lyon Playfair, 1st Baron Playfair (section)

==Early career==
After returning to [[United Kingdom|Britain]], Playfair became manager of a calico works in Primrose, near [[Clitheroe]], and in 1843 was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the [[Royal Manchester Institution]], where he was assisted by [[Robert Angus Smith]]. Two years later, he was made chemist to the [[British Geological Survey|Geological Survey]], and subsequently became Professor in the new [[Royal School of Mines|School of Mines]]. In 1848, he was elected to the [[Royal Society of London|Royal Society]], and three years later was made Special Commissioner and a member of the executive committee of the [[Great Exhibition]].

After the Exhibition, the [[Society of Arts]] organised a series of lectures to draw attention to the lessons which should be learned from the Exhibition. Playfair's two lectures were devoted to [[technical education]], which he considered in Britain to be unfit for an increasingly competitive world.<ref>Wemyss Reid, ''Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair'' (London: Cassell, 1900), pp. 148–149.</ref> In preparation for his lectures, Playfair toured France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Scandinavia to study their education systems. His first lecture was delivered to the School of Mines, under the title "Industrial Instruction on the Continent", and was published in the ''Records of the School of Mines''. It aroused great public interest and Playfair later claimed that it gave a considerable impulse to technical education in Britain, with the government establishing the [[Science and Art Department|Department of Science and Art]] soon afterwards.<ref>Reid, pp. 149–150.</ref>

Appointed a [[Order of the Bath|Companion of the Order of the Bath]], Playfair also became [[Gentleman Usher]] to [[Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha|Prince Albert]], and in 1853 was appointed Secretary of the Department of Science, in which capacity he advocated the use of [[poison gas]] against the Russians in the [[Crimean War]]. In 1855, he was a commissioner of the [[Exposition Universelle (1855)|Exposition Universelle]], and two years later became President of the [[Chemical Society]], finally returning to Edinburgh University in 1858 as Professor of Chemistry there. In 1859 he was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]], his proposer being [[James David Forbes]]. He served as the Society's vice president from 1864 to 1870.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=2 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>