Morley, Edward Williams 1838-1923
US chemist and physicist

Born in Newark, New Jersey, he was educated at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and from 1860 to 1864 at Andover Theological Seminary. He also continued scientific studies and when he became pastor of the Congregational Church at Twinsburg, Ohio (1868), he was invited to teach at the nearby Western Reserve College in Hudson. In 1882 this college transferred to Cleveland and became Adalbert College of Western Reserve University. He became Professor of Chemistry and Natural History, an appointment he held until his retirement in 1906. He was awarded the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1907. Morley had a passionate concern for precise measurement. In Hudson he analysed the oxygen content of the atmosphere with a precision of 0.0025 per cent, and endeavoured to correlate the results for samples taken at different times and places with meteorological records. In Cleveland, he measured the atomic weight of oxygen relative to hydrogen as 15.879, with an uncertainty of only one part in 10,000. His later research interests involved collaborative studies with physicists, notably with Albert Abraham Michelson on the velocity of light and the 'ether drift' problem.