Henry Bence Jones

Henry Bence Jones FRS (31 December 1813 – 20 April 1873) was an English physician and chemist.

Bence Jones was born at Thorington Hall, Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, the son of Lieutenant Colonel William Jones, an officer in the 5th Dragoon Guards, and Matilda Bence, brother to William Bence Jones. He attended school in Hingham, Norfolk, as well as a private school in Putney.

He entered Harrow in 1827 and then went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1832, obtaining his degree in 1836. He initially worked for an apothecary but subsequently (1838) enrolled to study medicine at St George's Hospital, and in 1839 chemistry at University College, London. In 1841 he went to Giessen in Germany to work at chemistry with Liebig.

On his return he took a post at St George's hospital and after being promoted to assistant physician was elected in 1846 to full physician, resigning on health grounds in 1862.

In 1847, he described the Bence Jones protein, a globulin protein found in blood and urine, suggestive of multiple myeloma or Waldenström's macroglobulinemia.

Besides becoming a fellow, and afterwards senior censor, of the Royal College of Physicians, and a fellow of the Royal Society, he held the post of secretary to the Royal Institution for many years. He delivered the Croonian Lecture to the Royal College of Physicians on Matter and Force in 1868.

He wrote, in addition to several scientific books and a number of papers in scientific periodicals, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870).

He died in London on 20 April 1873 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. He had married his second cousin, Lady Millicent Acheson, daughter of the Earl of Gosford, in May 1842. They had seven children.