Portrait of Frederic Stanley Kipping (1863-1949), English chemist. Kipping graduated in 1882, moving to Germany to study for his doctorate under Baeyer. In 1899 he started to search for stereoisomeric elements, soon coming across silicon. In the following 40 years, he used the new techniques available to synthesise a variety of organic compounds containing silicon. These new substances, called silicones, were used extensively as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, synthetic rubber and water repellants, particularly during WW2. By his death in 1949, he had published 51 papers on the subject.