Wikipedia's own chemical engineering article records three competing accounts in one paragraph: "A 1996 article cites James F. Donnelly for mentioning an 1839 reference to chemical engineering...George E. Davis...was credited with having coined the term...The History of Science in United States: An Encyclopedia puts the use of the term around 1890." The sources disagree with each other and the article does not adjudicate between them.
What would resolve this A dedicated etymological study tracing first use of the exact phrase "chemical engineering" in primary 19th-century sources, rather than secondary encyclopedic accounts that already disagree.
OpenWikipedia contributors, Chemical Engineering (Wikipedia)