Queen's first offered courses in Chemistry in 1854 as part of the curriculum in the then newly founded Faculty of Medicine. It became a separate department in the Faculty of Arts and Science in 1858 when George Lawson was appointed Queen's Professor of Natural History and Chemistry.
The department has also offered a degree program in Engineering Chemistry for students of engineering and applied science since the faculty was established in 1893. It offered a degree program in the slightly different field of Chemical Engineering from about 1900 until a separate department for the discipline was established in Applied Science in 1922.
Its tradition of serious research dates from the 1920s, when original research became a major requirement in MA and MSc theses. The modern era of research began in the 1950s, when the first group of PhD students enrolled in the department.
Since the fall of 2002, the department has been located in Chernoff Hall.
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