Abstract
John Plater graduated with First Class Honours from Loughborough University and then completed a PhD mentored by Charles W. Rees at Imperial College in London, working on an interface of organic and inorganic chemistry in the heterocyclic sulfur nitrogen group. After one year of postdoctoral research, mentored by W. Clark Still at Columbia University in New York, working on pre-organised polyether podands, he took up his post as a lecturer at Aberdeen University.
A failed attempt to make pseudo-mauveine from 10 g of aniline led the author into an on-going 6-year research programme. Drawing inspiration from the collective work of many others, recent results cast doubt on Perkin's stated method for making authentic mauveine. Uncovering an improved route into synthetic derivatives of mauveine, which contain a 3-[(N-alkyl)aryl] substituent, has led by chance to a removable and traceless 3-(N-alkyl) protecting group, which alters the composition of mauveine to closely match that of the museum-archived samples. The possibility that W. H. Perkin or others exploited this method to make mauveine is considered.