Stills, Status, Stocks and Science: The Laboratories at Apothecaries' Hall in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This paper focuses on one site of chemistry that served multiple functions over its lifetime and played a pivotal role in the development of British pharmaceutical manufacturing. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Society of Apothecaries' premises in Blackfriars housed the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing laboratories in London and supplied drugs for use throughout the British Empire. Under the guidance of William Brande, the laboratories developed as sites of teaching, research and consultancy, activities which shaped the Society's public image and enhanced its commercial, regulatory and professional roles. However, as competition from other pharmaceutical firms increased, inherent contradictions in the Society's various remits, combined with its conservative approach to business, meant that there was no clear direction for the laboratories' development. In an era of growing specialisation, this multifunctional site became increasingly outdated by the end of the nineteenth century.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Gerrylynn Roberts, Peter Morris and the editors of the issue, Antonio García-Belmar and John Perkins, for the advice and comments they provided while I was writing this article. The valuable feedback from the anonymous referees on an earlier version is also much appreciated. I am particularly indebted to Joe Cain and the Science and Technology Studies Department at University College London for continuing to support me as an Honorary Research Associate and also to Hasok Chang for his encouragement of my research. The Society of Apothecaries has been most generous in giving permission to use and cite its archives, and their former archivist Dee Cook, together with Janet Payne from the Society's Friends of the Archives, have been extremely helpful with my research. The Royal College of Physicians Archives and the Rothamsted Archives at Rothamsted Research have also kindly allowed access to their collections.

Notes on contributor

Anna Simmons is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College, London. Her research has centred on the social history of British chemistry during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with a particular focus on the laboratories and pharmaceutical trade at the Society of Apothecaries and the development of chemical careers and professional organisations. She has also studied the Hall laboratories from their foundation in 1672 and is a member of the international research network, Situating Chemistry, 1760–1840. She is currently working on a longitudinal study of the development of sites for the wholesale production of pharmaceuticals from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Address: Epsom Lodge, La Grande Route de St. Jean, St. John, Jersey, Channel Islands, JE3 4FL. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 Cecil Wall and H. C. Cameron, A History of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London 1617–1815, ed. E. A. Underwood (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 8–22; Patrick Wallis, “Medicines for London: The Trade, Regulation and Lifecycle of London Apothecaries c. 1610–1670” (D.Phil. diss., Oxford University, 2002), 23–50.

2 C. R. B. Barrett, The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London (London: Eliot Stock, 1905), xxxiv.

3 Further work on European comparisons is required. For France, see John Perkins, “Creating Chemistry in Provincial France before the Revolution: The Examples of Nancy and Metz. Part 2 Metz,” Ambix 51 (2004): 43–75, on 43–44.

4 Anna Simmons, “Medicines, Monopolies and Mortars: The Chemical Laboratory and the Pharmaceutical Trade at the Society of Apothecaries in the Eighteenth Century,” Ambix 53 (2006): 221–36. For the wider context, see Stuart Anderson, ed., Making Medicines: A Brief History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals (London: Pharmaceutical Press, 2005).

5 Apothecaries' Hall Archive (hereafter AHA), MS 8200/1-18, 1617–1926; Court of Assistants Minute Books (hereafter CM), 12 October 1641. All dates are given according to the post-1752 calendar.

6 Penelope Hunting, A History of the Society of Apothecaries (London: Society of Apothecaries, 1998), 81. See pages 75–111 for the site's history.

7 CM, 14 January 1673.

8 Adrian Huyberts, A Cornerstone Laid Towards the Building of a New Colledge (That is to Say a New Body of Physicians) in London (London: n.p., 1675). Quoted in W. G. H. Armytage, “The Royal Society and the Apothecaries,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 11 (1954): 22–37, on 31.

9 For the wider history of the laboratory, see Maurice Crosland, “Early Laboratories c. 1600–c. 1800 and the Location of Experimental Science,” Annals of Science 62 (2005): 233–53; Pamela Smith, “Laboratories,” in Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 3: Early Modern Europe, eds. Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 290–305; Robert E. Kohler, “Lab History: Reflections,” Isis 99 (2008): 761–68, and other articles in this Focus section of Isis.

10 Naval supply began in 1703 and East India supply in 1766. For the wider context, see Patrick Wallis, “Exotic Drugs and English Medicine: England's Drug Trade, c. 1550–c.1800,” Social History of Medicine 25 (2012): 20–46, Society of Apothecaries on 37.

11 J. F. A. Göttling, “Einige Bermerkungen über Chemie und Pharmazie in England,” Almanach oder Taschenbuch für Scheidekünstler und Apotheker (1789): 128–44, on 129; I am very grateful to Ursula Klein for this reference. Ursula Klein, “Apothecary-Chemists in Eighteenth Century Germany,” in New Narratives in Eighteenth Century Chemistry, ed. Lawrence Principe (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 97–137, on 115–16.

12 CM, 26 February 1782; AHA, MS 8263, 8265, 8269 and E/7 Loose Papers, Box 6, Property Papers and Deeds; MS 8232, vol. 1, Building Committee Minutes, 1781–1785; Hunting, A History of the Society of Apothecaries, 93–99.

13 Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England. London. 1, The City of London (London: Penguin, 1997), 375–78, on 375 and 376.

14 CM, 23 October 1801, 16 September 1803.

15 MS 8269, Property Papers and Deeds.

16 AHA, T/2, Laboratory Stock Audit Book (1803–1822) including United Stock Audit Book (1823–1857).

17 A. T. Thomson, The London Dispensatory (London: Longman, 1815), plates 6 and 7 at rear; Richard Powell, The Pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1809, translated into English with notes, etc. Third ed. (London: Longman, 1815), plate at rear.

18 Peter Morris, Crucible of Science: A History of the Chemical Laboratory, 1600–2000 (London: Reaktion Books, forthcoming).

19 CM, 26 July 1822.

20 Although it housed pharmaceutical plant, the title “Great Laboratory” is always used in the Society's archives, except in the Brande description cited below, hence my usage in this article.

21 CM, Special Court of Assistants, 9 November 1822.

22 T/2, Laboratory Stock Audit Book.

23 Anon., The Origin, Progress and Present State of the Various Establishments for Conducting Chemical Processes, and Other Medicinal Preparations, at Apothecaries Hall (London: R. Gilbert, 1823). This version acknowledges Brande's authorship of the laboratory description.

24 Anon., “A Short Account of the Origin, Progress, and Present State of the Various Establishments for Conducting Chemical Processes, and Other Medicinal Preparations, at Apothecaries Hall,” Quarterly Journal of Science 16 (1824): 193–202.

25 Frank A. J. L. James, “Brande, William Thomas (1788–1866),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3258 (accessed 10 March 2014).

26 Exactly when and how the Great Laboratory and the still house were converted into one building is unclear.

27 The Origin, Progress and Present State, 16.

28 The Origin, Progress and Present State, 21.

29 A. F. P. Morson, Operative Chymist, Clio Medica no. 45 (Amsterdam: Rodophi, 1997), 44.

30 CM, 24 October 1810.

31 Klein discusses the transformation of H. E. Merck's traditional Apothecary's laboratory into a large-scale factory, but there are parallels with Apothecaries' Hall. Ursula Klein, “Apothecary's Shops, Laboratories and Chemical Manufacture in Eighteenth Century Germany,” in The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation, eds. Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer, and Peter Dear (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 247–76, Merck on 273–75, quote on 275.

32 Roy Porter and Dorothy Porter, “The Rise of the English Drugs Industry: The Role of Thomas Corbyn,” Medical History 33 (1989): 277–95, on 288.

33 A. W. Slater, “Howards, Chemical Manufacturers, 1797–1837: A Study in Business History” (M.Sc. thesis, London University, 1956), 10–14.

34 S. W. F. Holloway, “The Apothecaries' Act, 1815: A Reinterpretation,” Medical History 10 (1966): 107–29, 221–36.

35 Anon., “The Old Hags of Rhubarb Hall,” The Lancet 11 (1 November 1828), 148–49, on 148.

36 CM, 30 March 1815. In contrast, Göttling reported that it was difficult to gain admittance without a special recommendation: Göttling, “Einige Bermerkungen,” 129.

37 Such activity was not new. See Simmons, “Medicines, Monopolies and Mortars,” 226, 233–35.

38 M. Berman, Social Change and Scientific Organisation: The Royal Institution, 1799–1844 (London: Heinemann, 1978), 28–29; Frederick Kurzer, “Chemistry and Chemists at the London Institution,” Annals of Science 58 (2001):163–201; Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 246–50.

39 Robert Bud and Gerrylynn K. Roberts, Science versus Practice. Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 26.

40 Report of the Select Committee on Medical Education, Society of Apothecaries, part III (602), P.P. 1834, XIII, (hereafter SCME III), 68.

41 CM, 25 June 1813, 29 October 1813.

42 CM, 26 December 1815.

43 A proposal to commence chemistry lectures in 1753 was rejected in case the laboratory's operation was affected. CM, 14 June 1753.

44 SCME III, 68.

45 This post's title changed during the nineteenth century.

46 Göttling, “Einige Bermerkungen,” 130.

47 Anna Simmons, “The Chemical and Pharmaceutical Trading Activities of the Society of Apothecaries, 1822–1922” (Ph.D. diss., The Open University, 2004), 105–19, 300.

48 Colin A. Russell, Noel G. Coley, and Gerrylynn K. Roberts, Chemists by Profession. The Origins and Rise of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1977).

49 AHA, MS 8223, Minute Books of the Court and General Meeting of the Proprietors of the United Stock, the Special Sub-Committee of the United Stock and the Various Committees of Managers (hereafter GCM), vol. 1, 1823–1838, 6 March 1830; CM, 25 March 1813; James, “Brande, William Thomas (1788–1866),” ODNB.

50 Proceedings of the Royal Society 16 (1867–1868): ii-vi, on iv.

51 Hennell's presence is indicated by his signature on Laboratory Stock Bonds from 1814. AHA, MS 8216, Laboratory Stock Articles of Agreement, 1774–1822.

52 GCM, 4 March 1826. In the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, drug manufacturing at the Hall was split between galenical and chemical operators, a typical distinction corresponding to the respective remits of the Laboratory (chemical) and the Navy (galenical) Stocks.

53 These were all manufactured by chemical techniques such as distillation and digestion, and included substances classified as ‘herbal’ or ‘natural’ medicines today. See Klein, “Apothecary's Shops,” 258.

54 AHA, MS 8261, India Orders, 1827–1828. The indent listed every item that the East India Company could purchase, but it did not order every item mentioned.

55 Royal College of Physicians Archive, MS 2179, Records of Censors' Visitations of Apothecaries' Shops, 1815–1821, 20 May 1820.

56 AHA, E/7 Loose Papers Box 3, Letter from W. T. Brande to the Royal College of Physicians, 21 December 1820 (hereafter Brande Letter).

57 AHA, MS 8261, India Orders.

58 Powell, Pharmacopoeia, 144–45.

59 W. T. Brande, Manual of Chemistry (London: John Murray, 1819), 297.

60 Brande Letter; Powell, Pharmacopoeia, 159–60.

61 AHA, E/7 Loose Papers, Box 3, Correspondence between the Treasury and Brande, 27 December 1813 and Report of Counsel, 1814.

62 SCME III, 63 and 65.

63 SCME III, 65.

64 Samuel Gray, The Operative Chemist, Being a Practical Display of the Arts and Manufacture which Depend upon Chemical Principles (London: Hurst, Chance and Co., 1828), 77.

65 The Origin, Progress and Present State, 11.

66 Klein, “Apothecary's Shops,” 250–51; Ursula Klein, “The Laboratory Challenge: Some Revisions of the Standard View of Early Modern Experimentation,” Isis 99 (2008): 769–82, on 777.

67 Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini, “Laboratories, Workshops, and Sites: Concepts and Practices of Research in Industrial Europe, 1800–1914,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 29 (1998): 55–139; (1999): 191–294.

68 W. T. Brande, “Observations on the Ultimate Analysis of Certain Vegetable Salifiable Bases,” Quarterly Journal of Science 16 (1824): 279–86, on 286.

69 Anon., “British Opium,” Transactions of the Society of Arts 43 (1825–1826): 56–57; Anon., “The Winslow Opium,” Pharmaceutical Journal 160 (1948): 151.

70 H. Hennell, “On Elaterium; and a New Principle Obtained from it by Analysis,” Royal Institution Journal 1 (May 1831): 532–34.

71 W. S. Church, “Our Pharmacopoeia and Apothecary's Shop,” St Bartholomew's Hospital Reports 22 (1886): 1–56, on 13 and 26–30.

72 H. Hennell, “On the Mutual Action of Sulphuric Acid and Alcohol, with Observations on the Composition and Properties of the Resulting Compound,” Philosophical Transactions 116 (1826): 240–49; H. Hennell, “On the Mutual Action of Sulphuric Acid and Alcohol, and on the Nature of the Process by which Ether is Formed,” Philosophical Transactions 118 (1828): 365–71; B. Hernstein, “When and by Whom was Alcohol First Prepared from Ethylene?,” Chemistry and Industry 13 (1935): 881–84; J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, vol. 4 (London: Macmillan, 1964), 349.

73 F. Penny, “On the Application of the Conversion of Chlorates and Nitrates into Chlorides, and of Chlorides into Nitrates, to the Determination of Several Equivalent Numbers,” Philosophical Transactions 129 (1839): 13–33, on 13.

74 Partington, A History of Chemistry, vol. 4, 226–27, 877; W. H. Brock, “Penny, Frederick (1816–1869),” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 10 (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008), 510–11, Gale Virtual Reference Library, [http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2830903343&v=2.1&u=ucl_ttda&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=cc2f4aaff32d334fc0d94e01912b852e, accessed 10 March 2014].

75 AHA, E/7 Loose Papers, Box 3, letters: James Cobb to the Master, 5 October 1815; Sotherton Backler to the East India Company, 10 October 1815; letter from the Office of the Committee of the Council of Trade, 11 May 1813; and notes made by Brande on the analysis, 15 June 1813; GCM, 6 March 1830.

76 Rothamsted Library, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Robert Warington Senior Papers, Section G, especially folders 16–19.

77 Proceedings of the Royal Society 16 (1867–1868): xlix–l, on l.

78 Christopher Hamlin, “Warington, Robert (1807–1867),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28746 (accessed 10 March 2014).

79 GCM, 11 November 1823.

80 GCM, 6 March 1830.

81 GCM, 6 March 1830.

82 SCME III, 65.

83 AHA, MS 8232, vol. 2, Building Committee Minutes, 1837–1846; AHA, MS 8223, vol. 3, 1851–1866, GCM, 6 March 1852, 5 June 1852, 4 March 1854.

84 T/2 Laboratory Stock Audit Book; GCM 4 December 1852, 3 December 1853.

85 The value of shares only altered to reflect the United Stock's profitability, property sales and additions from the accumulation fund. AHA, G. H. Makins' Notebook, Table of Capital, Dividends, Trade Turnover and Trade Expenses for United Stock, 1823–1879, affixed in rear of notebook.

86 GCM, 4 March 1854, 3 June 1854.

87 AHA, MS 8224, United Stock Account Books, vols. 2 (1831–1846), 3 (1846–1859) and 4 (1860–1878).

88 A. F. P. Morson, “Pharmacy in the 1840s: The Wholesale Chemists and Druggists,” Pharmaceutical Historian 21, no. 4 (1991): 3–9, on 3.

89 In 1836 turnover was £36,558 and in 1837, £34,187. Slater, “Howards,” 320–21. This compared to £38,014 and £37,676 at the Society.

90 Gustave L. M. Strauss, Charles W. Quin, John C. Brough, Thomas Archer, William B. Tegetmeier, and William J. Prowse, England's Workshops (London: Groombridge and Sons, 1864), 142–49.

91 Michael Ball and David Sunderland, An Economic History of London, 1800–1914 (London: Routledge, 2001), 74–83, 132, 362; Hunting, A History of the Society of Apothecaries, 92–93.

92 Bud and Roberts, Science Versus Practice, 71–95.

93 Judy Slinn, “Research and Development in the UK Pharmaceutical Industry from the Nineteenth Century to the 1960s,” Drugs and Narcotics in History, eds. Mikuláš Teich and Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 168–88.

94 AHA, MS 8277, Laboratory Process Book, 1868–1872, 44, 46 and 48.

95 Select Committee to inquire into the Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs (379), P.P. 1856, VIII, 307; Many wholesalers had origins in drug growing, retailing, importing and manufacturing before specialising. Peter M. Worling, “Pharmaceutical Wholesaling: An Historical Perspective,” Pharmaceutical Historian 22, no. 4 (1992): 3–7.

96 Anon., “Apothecaries,” Household Words 14 (16 August 1856): 108–15, on 113.

97 “Apothecaries,” 114.

98 S. W. F. Holloway, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 1841–1991: A Political and Social History (London: The Pharmaceutical Press, 1991).

99 In 1858 the East India Company and Board of Control were replaced by the India Office and Council of India.

100 Simmons, “The Chemical and Pharmaceutical Trading Activities,” 125–83.

101 AHA, G. H. Makins' Autobiography, photocopy marked trade, 25.

102 AHA, T/24, Management Committee Minutes, 1881–1886, (hereafter MCM), 3 January 1881.

103 Roy Porter and Dorothy Porter, “The Rise of the English Drugs Industry,” 279; J. Burnby, “The Early Years of the Pharmaceutical Industry,” in The Pharmaceutical Industry: A Guide to Historical Records, eds. Lesley Richmond, Julie Stevenson, and Alison Turton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 1–13, on 10.

104 CM, 28 June 1881; Hunting, A History of the Society of Apothecaries, 101.

105 MCM, 15 February 1881.

106 AHA, T/8, United Stock Accounts (1858–1879) and Trade Annual Balance Sheets (1880–1911).

107 Consultancy decreased as a role nationally from the early 1900s as more in-house chemists were appointed. Anna Simmons, “Working in a Transitional Territory? Chemical Consultants in the United Kingdom, 1870–1914,” in Neighbours and Territories: The Evolving Identity of Chemistry, ed. José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez, Duncan Thorburn Burns, and Briggite Van Tiggelen (Leuven: Mémosciences, 2008), 555–64.

108 Royal Commission to inquire into the Livery Companies of the City of London, vol. III, Returns of Minor Companies (Cmd. 4073 – II), P.P. 1884, XXXIX Pt. 3, 3.