G. W. Septimus (George William Septimus) Piesse

Born in 1820, George William Septimus Piesse became known in 19th-century Britain as a perfumer, chemist, and author. He is best remembered for The Art of Perfumery and the Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants, a work that linked scientific explanation with hands-on instruction and helped make the world of fragrance more accessible to general readers.

His writing reflects a period when perfume was closely tied to botany, household manufacture, and applied chemistry. Rather than treating scent as a mystery, he wrote about ingredients, extraction methods, and the wider trade in fragrant materials, which gives his books lasting interest for readers curious about both Victorian science and everyday luxury.

Piesse died in 1882. Reliable portrait images were not clearly available from the sources reviewed here, so no profile image is included.