Swedish mine owner and mineralogist · 1766–1852
Wilhelm Hisinger
Wilhelm Hisinger owned the Bastnäs mine whose heavy, reddish mineral led him and Jöns Jacob Berzelius to discover cerium in 1803.
How Cerium was found
Scheele had analysed the mineral decades earlier and found nothing new. Hisinger and Berzelius analysed it again and found the oxide of a new element. They named it after the asteroid Ceres, discovered two years before.
Martin Heinrich Klaproth found the same earth independently that year. The mineral, cerite, turned out to contain several other rare earths, later found by Mosander.
Shared the credit
The discovery is credited jointly to these scientists.
Life and career
Born 1766 · Died 1852
Hisinger came from a wealthy family that owned the Skinnskatteberg estate and its mines. He funded and collaborated on Berzelius’s early research, including experiments on electrolysis, and produced a mineral map of Sweden.
Discovered in the same era
Other elements identified within ten years of 1803.