Henry Augustus Perkins was a professor of physics at Trinity College and was acting president of the College on two occasions in the early twentieth century: from 1915 to 1916 and from 1919 to 1920.

Perkins on his bicycle ca. 1946. Photo credit: Trinity College Alumni News

Henry Augustus Perkins (1873-1959) was born in Hartford near the Mark Twain House. Perkins graduated from Yale and received his Master's Degree and his Electrical Engineering Degree from Columbia University in New York. He was hired as a faculty member at Trinity in 1902, the first professor at Trinity without a Ph.D. When he first came to Trinity, Perkins was one of the youngest professors, and because of this, grew a beard (which he kept his entire life) to distinguish himself from the students. Even though Perkins had one of the first cars on campus–a 1903 Oldsmobile–he was more often seen riding his bicycle, and several other professors believed he didn't know how to drive. Perkins played 14 instruments, including the zither, flute, clarinet, and trombone. His hobbies included tennis, golf, painting, collecting stamps, sailing, riding horses, and dancing. He served as the Chairman of the Board of the American School for the Deaf, the Avon Farm School, and the Hartford Public Library.

When President Flavel Sweeten Luther attempted to resign in 1915 after a dismal financial year, the Board of Trustees did not accept his resignation in the hope that he would return. They granted Luther a year-long leave of absence and appointed Perkins as acting president. According to his daughter, during Perkins' first term as President, he was visibly stressed and often withdrawn. During his first term, the Volstead Act was passed, prohibiting alcohol in the United States. Perkins noted that he felt the students drank more during the prohibition era than before. Perkins' first term ended when Luther returned to the College in the spring of 1916.

Perkins' second presidential term came after the retirement of President Luther in 1919. Before this term, Perkins was serving as the Jarvis Professor of Physics. His most notable act as president was to request that students not from Hartford not be allowed to reside on campus due to a lack of residential space. Another notable occurrence during his second term took place when Perkins advised Northam Professor of History, Edward Frank Humphrey to resign due to controversy around his blunt behavior and his quarrels with other faculty members. Humphrey did not resign and, after a large media debate, stayed on as a member of the Trinity faculty until 1948, when he reached the mandatory age of retirement. In 1920, Perkins returned to professorship after President Remsen Ogilby took office in July. Towards the end of his career at Trinity, he was the head of the Physics and Engineering departments. Perkins retired in 1942 but returned to the College the following year after the death of his succeeding Jarvis Professor of Physics, Arthur R.P. Wadlund, Class of 1917.

Perkins died in 1959 at the age of 85 from an illness that began after he suffered a stroke in 1955. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving member of the American Alpine Club, having been a member for 56 years. Perkins was survived by his son, Henry A. Perkins, Jr., his daughter, Evelyn Ames, and four grandchildren.

Trinity College in the Twentieth Century: A History (2000) by Peter and Anne Knapp, pp. 60-139.

History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 260-287.

The American Alpine Club Journal, 1960.

The Trinity Tripod, 10/07/1959.

Trinity College Alumni News, July 1946.