Newlands, John Alexander Reina, 1838-98, British chemist. He studied at the Royal College of Chemistry in London and worked as an industrial chemist. Newlands prepared the first periodic table of elements arranged in the order of atomic weights and pointed out the "Law of Octaves," i.e., that every eighth element has similar properties. His idea was ridiculed by his colleagues but was vindicated five years later when the Russian chemist D. I. Mendeleev published a more developed form of the table.