William Arthur Bone, 1871 - 1938

William Arthur Bone, the distinguished fuel technologist and chemist, was essentially a product of heredity and environment. His character, work, politics, friendships and religion were all in the nature of loyalties to his ancestry an up bringing and indissolubly intertwined, so that his evolution as a man and as a scientist bears the aspect of inevitability. By birth and upbringing, Bone was a north countryman and inherited the pride of his race. He was born at Stockton-on-Tees in 1871, the eldest child of Christopher and Mary Elizabeth Bone, both of whom appear to have handed on to their son a goodly heritage. Christopher Bone was a tea merchant and a prominent citizen of the town, taking an active part in its social and political welfare, and being generally respected for his forcefulness, sincerity, fearlessness and independence of thought, speech, and action.