The first human-made ( synthetic ) organic dye, mauveine, was discovered serendipitously by William Henry Perkin in 1856.

A more serious menace was Perkin Warbeck, a Flemish youth who posed as Edward IV's son Richard.

The first synthetic organic dye, mauveine, was discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856 while he was attempting to synthesize quinine.

Perkin Warbeck ( circa 1474 – 23 November 1499 ) was a pretender to the English throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England.

Once again Perkin attempted to lay siege to Waterford, but this time his effort lasted only eleven days before he was forced to flee Ireland, chased by four English ships.

Mauveine was discovered by an 18-year-old chemist named William Henry Perkin, who went on to exploit his discovery in industry and become wealthy.

Later in Henry's reign emerged another pretender to the throne, Perkin Warbeck, however this was resolved without resorting to arms.

Coal tar was subsequently used to produce the first synthetic dye, mauve, by William Henry Perkin in 1856 and in 1853 was found, by Charles Gerhardt to contain the chemical acetylsalicylic acid, now known as aspirin.

The best-known Pretender was Perkin Warbeck.

Margaret consequently was a staunch supporter of anyone willing to challenge Tudor, and backed both Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, even going so far as to acknowledge Warbeck as her nephew, the younger son of Edward IV, the Duke of York.

When Perkin Warbeck impersonated her cousin Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, in 1499, her brother Edward was attainted and executed for involvement in the plot.

Less successfully, Stanley ’ s brother William unwisely supported the later pretender Perkin Warbeck, and was, at last, executed for treason in 1495.

Sir William Henry Perkin, FRS ( 12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907 ) was an English chemist best known for his discovery, at the age of 18, of the first aniline dye, mauveine.

William Perkin was born in the East End of London, the youngest of the seven children of George Perkin, a successful carpenter.

At the age of 14, Perkin attended the City of London School, where he was taught by Thomas Hall, who fostered his scientific talent and encouraged him to pursue a career in chemistry.

During the Easter vacation in 1856, while Hofmann was visiting his native Germany, Perkin performed some further experiments in the crude laboratory in his apartment on the top floor of his home in Cable Street in east London.

Perkin filed for a patent in August 1856, when he was still only 18.

Its extraction was variable and complicated, and so Perkin and his brother realised that they had discovered a possible substitute whose production could be commercially successful.

Perkin could not have chosen a better time or place for his discovery: England was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, largely driven by advances in the production of textiles ; the science of chemistry had advanced to the point where it could have a major impact on industrial processes ; and coal tar, the major source of his raw material, was an abundant by-product of the process for making coal gas and coke.

Having invented the dye, Perkin was still faced with the problems of raising the capital for producing it, manufacturing it cheaply, adapting it for use in dyeing cotton, gaining acceptance for it among commercial dyers, and creating public demand for it.

To do this a " cow " or " pig " adaptor can be added to the end of the condenser, or for better results or for very air sensitive compounds a Perkin triangle apparatus can be used.

* 1499 – Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.

He only went to war twice, once in 1489 during the Breton crisis and the invasion of Brittany, and in 1496 – 1497 in revenge for Scottish support of Perkin Warbeck and for their invasion of Northern England.

* November 3 – Peace of Etaples signed between England and France, ending French support for the pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck.

* England imposes sanctions on Burgundy for supporting Perkin Warbeck.

* November 23 – Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England, is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.

Miners set to work to demolish the tower of Hetoune ( Castle Heaton ) on 24 September, but the army quickly retreated when resources were expended, and hoped-for support for Perkin Warbeck in Northumberland failed to materialise.

In 1491 Cork played a part in the English Wars of the Roses when Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne, landed in the city and tried to recruit support for a plot to overthrow Henry VII of England.

Channel 4 and RDF Media produced a drama about Perkin Warbeck for British television in 2005, Princes in the Tower.

Even before Margaret's sixth birthday, Henry VII thought about a marriage between Margaret and James IV as a way of ending the Scottish king's support for Perkin Warbeck, Yorkist pretender to the throne of England.

Clothes were also made for her companion, Lady Catherine Gordon, the widow of Perkin Warbeck.

William Perkin continued active research in organic chemistry for the rest of his life: he discovered and marketed other synthetic dyes, including Britannia Violet and Perkin's Green ; he discovered ways to make coumarin, one of the first synthetic perfume raw materials, and cinnamic acid.

In 1869, Perkin found a method for the commercial production from anthracene of the brilliant red dye alizarin, which had been isolated and identified from madder root some forty years earlier in 1826 by the French chemist Pierre Robiquet, simultaneously with purpurin, another red dye of lesser industrial interest, but the German chemical company BASF patented the same process one day before he did.

Over the next few years, Perkin found his research and development efforts increasingly eclipsed by the German chemical industry, and so in 1874 he sold his factory and retired from business, a very wealthy man.

Twenty-six years later Perkin Warbeck fled to Beaulieu from the pursuing armies of Henry VII.

In 1487 the city refused to obey the direction of the Earl of Kildare to recognise Lambert Simnel as king and ten years later repulsed a second pretender, Perkin Warbeck.

While in hiding, the Duke takes on the assumed name Perkin, returning as an eleven year old later in the novel, ready to reclaim his birthright.

He was knighted in 1906, and in the same year was awarded the first Perkin Medal, established to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his discovery of mauveine.

Suitable as a dye of silk and other textiles, it was patented by Perkin, who the next year opened a dyeworks mass producing it at Greenford on the banks of the Grand Union Canal in London.

After gaining his master's degree under William Henry Perkin, Jr., he subsequently studied at the University of Göttingen earning his PhD degree in Otto Wallach's laboratory after only one year of study.

His first season was in director Buzz Goodbody's noted opening year at The Other Place, playing the Ghost to Ben Kingsley's Hamlet and Sir William Stanley in Perkin Warbeck.