Chairman: Prof John W Nicholson, 52 Buckingham Road, Hampton Middlesex TW12 3JG, England. E-mail: jwnicholson01@gmail.com
Secretary: Dr Mike Leggett E-mail: leggett189@btinternet.com
Treasurer: Stanley Langer, 31 Hallswelle Way, Temple Fortune, London NW11 0DH, England. E-mail; stanley1910@yahoo.co.uk
Membership: Dr Alice Halman. E-mail: alicehalman@yahoo.com
Newsletter Editor: Dr Anna Coyle. E-mail: historicalgroup.newsletter@gmail.com
The Historical Group exists to encourage an interest in the history of chemistry and chemical industry among members of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and others. Membership is open to non-members of the RSC and embraces a wide range from those whose interest in the history of chemistry is a hobby to teachers of chemistry at all levels and professional historians.
The Group holds twice yearly meetings when academic papers are read and discussed. Summaries of papers read at these meetings are included in the Historical Group Newsletter along with reviews of recent books in the subject and news of other meetings and forthcoming events. The Newsletter is published twice yearly. Contributions of around 2,500 words on topics of current interest in the history of chemistry are invited for inclusion at the discretion of the Editor. The Editor is very happy to discuss possible contributions prior to submission. The contents of the last issue, Winter 2026, are given below with a link to the PDF (0.9 MB).
The next meeting will be on Chemists as Politicians at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BA [Click here for a map of the location of Burlington House and Royal Society of Chemistry.
Please register for this free meeting by emailing the Secretary of the Historical Group, Mike Leggett, at leggett189@btinternet.com. by the 8th October
For further information please go to link
| 10.00 am | Registration, tea and coffee | |
| Session One | (chair Mary Archer) | |
| 10.30 am | Welcome from John Nicholson, Chair of the Historical Group | |
| 10.35 | Peter Reed | Lyon Playfair: Chemist, MP, Minister and Polymathic Reformer |
| 11.05 am | Peter Morris | Henry Roscoe: The Campaigning Chemist |
| 11.35 am | Richard Toye | Stafford Cripps: The Chemistry of Politics |
| 12.05 | Jon Agar | Margaret Thatcher, Scientist |
| 12.35 pm | lunch (not provided for audience) | |
| Session Two | (chair: tbc) | |
| 2.00 pm | Brian Iddon | Chemistry and Politics: An Unlikely Mixture |
| 2.30 pm | Julian Huppert | Are Politicians and Chemists Miscible? |
| 3.00 pm | tea and coffee | |
| Session Three | (chair: tbc) | |
| 3.40 pm | Tony Travis | Chaim Weizmann: From Science Fiction to Birth of a Nation |
| 4.00 pm | Viscount Stansgate | Parliament and Science |
| 4.4 pm | Peter Morris | Closing remarks |
| 4.50 pm | Meeting ends |
If you have any problems or queries, please contact the RSCHG Membership Secretary, Dr Mike Leggett leggett189@btinternet.com. All members of the Group can download the Newsletter as a PDF. See or https://rschg.qmul.ac.uk/; no password is needed.
The Group maintains contact with colleagues in the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences.
The Library & Information Centre, Historical Chemistry Information Service.
The Chemical Heritage Foundation.
The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.
Details of Nobel Prize winners; portraits; and other details.
List of Nobel Prize winners for Chemistry.
The History of Chemical Engineering.
Historic samples and specimens from the Chemistry Department, Imperial College, London.
International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry
History of chemistry in Heidelberg
Science & Civilisation in China Project (Needham Research Institute).
There is a History of Chemistry Mail List or email chem-hist-request@mailman.uni-regensburg.de
To send messages email chem-hist@mailman.uni-regensburg.de
Short articles on the history of chemistry for the Newsletter are welcome and should be sent to the editor, Dr Anna Simmons, Epsom Lodge, La Grande Route de St Jean, St John, Jersey, JE3 4FL a.simmons@ucl.ac.uk. Please consult the Instructions for Authors.
For a PDF copy of Occasional Paper No 11 (1.6 MB) click here
The Historical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry: A History from 1975 to 2024 by Dr Peter J.T. Morris.
The Historical Group exists to encourage an interest in the history of chemistry and chemical industry among members of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and others. Membership is open to non-members of the RSC and embraces a wide range from those whose interest in the history of chemistry is a hobby to teachers of chemistry at all levels and professional historians.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Historical Group (which was actually last year), the well-illustrated and informative The Historical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry: A History from 1975 to 2024 by our former Chair Peter Morris.
For a PDF copy of the Newsletter (760 KB) click here
Contents
From the Editor (Anna Simmons)
RSC HISTORICAL GROUP NEWS
From the Chair (John Nicholson)
Secretary’s Report for 2025 (Mike Leggett)
Message from the Membership Secretary (Alice Halman)
RSC Historical Group Newsletter Digital Archive
RSC HISTORICAL GROUP MEETINGS AND ONLINE LECTURES
50 Years of Chemistry – Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the RSC Historical Group
Chemists as Politicians
NEWS FROM THE RSC LIBRARY
HISTORY OF BURLINGTON HOUSE
SHORT NOTICES
Edgar Anderson (1940-2025) (Michael Jewess)
Missing Entonox Film - Appeal For Assistance (Adrian Padfield)
SHORT ESSAYS
A Brief History of the Historical Group Newsletter (Peter J.T. Morris)
Two Books that Markedly Influenced My Chemical Career (John Nicholson)
Methylene Blue and Paul Ehrlich’s Magic Bullets: More Than Even He Imagined ? (Alan Dronsfield and Pete Ellis)
Chemicals Activity at Staveley Works: From Coal and Iron, to Coal Tar Distillation and Electrochemical products, to Benzene Refinery products (Ronald V. Presswood)
The Discovery of PFAS (‘Forever Chemicals’) in Biological Materials (Anthony S. Travis)
The Old Quantum Theory to Quantum Mechanics and Chemical Bonding in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (mainly in small molecules) (Michael Jewess)
BOOK REVIEW
P.J.T. Morris, The Polymer Revolution – A Journey Through Polymer Science (John Nicholson)
RSC HISTORICAL GROUP MEETING REPORT
History of Astrochemistry Meeting (Peter Morris)
RSC HISTORICAL GROUP WEBINAR REPORTS
Michael Combrune and the Chemistry of Brewing in the Eighteenth Century (John Powers)
Colours from the Past, an Inspiration for Today (Dominique Cardon)
The Dawn Fisherman: Friedrich Miescher and the Discovery of DNA (Kersten Hall and Ralf Dahm)
Recreational Chemistry: Three Centuries of Chemical Amusement (Colin Johnson)
RSC YouTube Channel
MEMBERS’ PUBLICATIONS
PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST
SOCIETY NEWS
Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry
PDFs of Newsletters (2010-2025)
PDFs of Occasional Papers 6-10
Biographies of Chemists including Confusing Names 1-3 from Newsletters 1998-9
Return to Royal Society of Chemistry home page.