Archibald Scott Couper was a Scottish chemist who proposed an early theory of chemical structure and bonding. He developed the concepts of tetravalent carbon atoms linking together to form large molecules, and that the bonding order of the atoms in a molecule can be determined from chemical evidence.

Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially in the field of theoretical chemistry. He was the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure and in particular the Kekulé structure of benzene.