He was born in 1869 in
Włocławek,
Congress Poland to father Józef Marchlewski, a merchant, and mother Emilia (
née Rückersfeldt), a governess. His older brother was the communist activist
Julian Marchlewski. In 1888, he went to
Zürich and studied chemistry at the
ETH Zurich. In 1890, he became an assistant to Professor
Georg Lunge. After two years, he earned his doctoral degree. He subsequently went to Kersel near
Manchester where he became an assistant of
Edward Schunck. In this period he collaborated with
Marceli Nencki and conducted research on the chemical affinity of dyes of the animal and plant world. Between 1896 and 1897, he was on a scientific scholarship granted for his research in the field of
organic chemistry from the
Kraków-based
Academy of Learning (Polish:
Akademia Umiejętności, AU). He also taught organic chemistry at the Institute of Science and Technology of the
University of Manchester. In 1900, he returned to Poland and obtained his
habilitation on the basis of his thesis
Die Chemie des Chlorophylls and lecture titled
Dzisiejszy stan teoryi tautomeryi. In the years 1900–1906, he worked as a senior inspector at the General Department of Food Research in Kraków headed by
Odo Bujwid. He also became a professor at the
Jagiellonian University and served as the university's rector between 1926–1927 and 1927–1928. From 1906 to 1939 he was Head of the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry. In 1917–1919, he established the National Scientific Institute of Agricultural Economy in
Puławy. He was the first director of the
Polish Chemical Society and served as the first director of
YMCA in Poland. His scientific work mostly focused on the areas of
organic,
inorganic and
analytic chemistry as well as
biochemistry. His scientific achievements include research on
chlorophyll and the blood pigment hemoglobin, which demonstrated the similarity of chemical structures in plants and animals, indicating a common origin. He was
nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1913 and 1914. The illustration on the right is of his diplomatic passport he used in 1927 to attend an international conference on chemistry in Paris. Marchlewski was also a long-time political activist in the Polish peasant movement. In December 1945, he became a member of the
National Council, representing the
Polish People's Party. He died several days later and was buried at the
Rakowicki Cemetery. ==Honours==