 Frank Lee Pyman, Robert Robinson (who later won a Nobel Prize in chemistry), Walter Haworth and Eduard Hope graduated at Owens College while Perkin was there.The conflict with Chaim Weizmann, who held a postdoctoral position and was a friend of Perkin, over the fermentation of starch to isoamyl alcohol which was the starting material for synthetic rubber and therefore industrially relevant, led to the dismissal of Weizmann.In 1912, following a planned change in University politics involving industrial co-operations, which would have resulted in a significant loss of income for Perkin, he accepted a position in Oxford.