Ted Benfey, an internationally renowned chemist and historian of science who helped revitalize Guilford’s Chemistry Department in the 1970s and shaped the lives of thousands of students in the process, died Jan. 24. He was 98.

Ted, a short, lean man with a wry sense of humor, used his renown at Guilford to educate a new generation of scientists. He also helped non-Chemistry majors find ways to connect organic molecules and triple-bonded carbons with the world beyond the College’s labs.

Renee Goddard ’86 remembers a paper she wrote for an Organic Chemistry class taught by Ted that explored the parallels between the three-dimensional shape of chemical molecules and ourselves as three-dimensional beings.

“I didn’t think a chemistry class would ask me or push me to think about connecting the dimensions of personality to an organic molecule, but that was the gift of Ted,” says Renee, a Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at Hollins College in Virginia. “Such a marvelous fellow.”

Ted was familiar with Guilford long before he taught at the College. His wife, the late Rachel Benfey, was a 1948 graduate. But the couple kept their distance from the College for years, vowing not to support it financially until it became integrated.

In 1962 Guilford did just that, enrolling two Kenyan students. Three years later Grimsley Hobbs ’47 was named President. In 1973, Grimsley persuaded Ted to lead the College’s Chemistry Department. His impact was immediate. Along with Dave MacInnes, Ted reinvented the program, modifying the curriculum, emphasizing career counseling for Chemistry majors and recruiting adults from local chemical companies and the Greensboro water department to attend night classes he started at Guilford.

The year before Ted arrived at Guilford, the College had 15 students enrolled in an introductory Chemistry class. Within a year, more than 100 students were studying general Chemistry with up to 25 graduating in Chemistry. Dave says many Guilford Chemistry majors went on to work in the community with the City of Greensboro or as industrial chemists in the area or went on to teach or lead Chemistry departments at other colleges or universities.

Ted retired from Guilford College in 1988, as the Dana Professor of Chemistry and History of Science, Emeritus.

“He really was a renaissance man,” says Dave. “He wrote 13 books in two different languages (English and German) and was considered an expert in the history of Japanese science, but our students just thought of him as this incredibly warm and wonderful human being who took the time to get to know them.”

Ted, whose family was Jewish, was born in Germany in 1925. His family sent him to school in England when he was 11 to escape Nazi persecution. Three years later, in 1936, his parents, brother and sister, joined him in England.

While in England, Ted became a Quaker. Ted moved to the United States in 1946 and taught at three colleges, all with Quaker roots. Before teaching at Guilford, he taught at Haverford (1948-55) and Earlham (1956-73).

Ted and Rachel, who died in 2013, were vibrant members of the Guilford community for many years, shaping the lives of countless generations of Guilfordians.

When Ted and Rachel moved from Earlham to Guilford, their youngest son Christopher ’77 transferred. He went on to Harvard and, later, taught English at Mt. Holyoke College. The Benfeys had two other sons, Stephen and Philip (who died in 2023) and a daughter, Karen.

Over his long career as an educator and scholar Ted received many personal and professional honors. In March 2018, Guilford’s Alumni Association bestowed on him its highest honor, the Charles C. Hendricks ’40 Distinguished Service Award.