Alexander Brodie (1617-1680), the fourteenth laird, was one of the commissioners who went to the Hague to treat with Charles II., and afterwards became a Scottish lord of session and an English judge.
In 1868 he succeeded Faraday as Fullerian professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, and in 1872 he was elected, in succession to Sir Benjamin Brodie, Waynflete professor of chemistry at Oxford, a chair he occupied for 40 years.
Brodie, in ascertaining the physiological properties of nucleo-proteids, found that when they were intravascularly injected into pigmented rabbits, coagulation of the blood resulted, but of the eight albinoes which they used, none clotted.
Of parks and open spaces there are in the south, Brodie Park (22 acres), presented in 1871 by Robert Brodie; towards the north Fountain Gardens (7a acres), the gift of Thomas Coats and named from the handsome iron fountain standing in the centre; in the north-west, St James Park (40 acres), with a racecourse (racing dates from 1620, when the earl of Abercorn and the Town Council gave silver bells for the prize); Dunn Square and the old quarry grounds converted and adorned; and Moss Plantation beyond the north-western boundary.
The atomic weight of phosphorus was determined by Berzelius, Pelouze, Jacquelin, Dumas, Schrotter, Brodie and van der Plaats.
