Jean-Pierre Minckelers

Who was Jean-Pierre Minckelers?

Jean-Pierre Minckelers was an inventor of illuminating gas.

At the age of sixteen, in 1764, he went to the University of Leuven, where he studied theology and philosophy at the Collegium Falconis, in which he became professor of natural philosophy in 1772.

At this time the question of aerostats and Montgolfier balloons was occupying the mind of scientists, and Louis Engelbert, 6th Duke of Arenberg, a promoter of science and art, engaged a committee to examine into the question of the best gas for balloon purposes. Minckelers was on this committee, and in 1784, after many experiments, published a work entitled Mémoire sur l'air inflammable tiré de différentes substances, rédigé par M. Minkelers, professeur de philosophie au collège du Faucon, université de Louvain. As an appendix to this memoir there was a Table de gravités spécifiques des différentes espèces d'air, by T.F. Thysbaert, a member of the committee.

In his memoir Minckelers tells us how he made his discovery: from the very beginning of his experiments he had had the idea of enclosing oil in the barrel of a gun and heating it in a forge.