HISTORICAL GROUP

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 Simmons, Epsom Lodge, La Grande Route de St Jean, St John, Jersey, JE3 4FL a.simmons@ucl.ac.uk

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, Summer 2023, are given below with a link to the PDF (0.9 MB).

The next meeting will be on Fifty Years of Chemistry – Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the RSC Historical Group at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BA [Click here for a map of the location of Burlington House and Royal Society of Chemistry.

Details are available in the Winter 2026 Newsletter

Please register for this free meeting by emailing the Secretary of the Historical Group, Mike Leggett, at leggett189@btinternet.com.

For further information please go to

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.

ACS Historical Division.

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.

Chemical Heritage Foundation.

History of Pharmacy Forum.

The History of Chemical Engineering.

The Classic Chemistry Page.

Alchemy Home Page.

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 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.