A Life of “Continuous and Honourable Usefulness:” Chemical Consulting and the Career of Robert Warington (1807-1867)

Abstract

Robert Warington (1807-1867) was a central figure in the mid-nineteenth century chemical community, notably through his role in the foundation of the Chemical Society of London in 1841. As demand for chemical services grew, Warington constructed an ultimately lucrative career in chemistry in which consulting played a major part. His formative years laid ideal foundations for establishing himself as a consultant, whilst his appointment as chemical operator to the Society of Apothecaries’ pharmaceutical trade provided the status and infrastructure to sustain this activity. Here I explore the nature of the chemical services he performed for a range of customers through a survey of his experimental notes. At a time when professional boundaries in the subject were being delineated, this case study provides an example of how chemistry could be commercialised outside the academic environment and how consulting merged into a broader scientific career.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Gerrylynn K. Roberts and William H. Brock for numerous discussions about Robert Warington over many years, whilst Janet Payne, Archive Officer at the Society of Apothecaries, has been extremely helpful with my research. This paper was completed during the covid-19 pandemic, when I was unable to visit the Rothamsted Research Library and Information Services as planned. I am most grateful to Catherine Fearnhead, its Senior Business Assistant, for the assistance provided remotely.

Notes

1 Robert Bud and Gerrylynn K. Roberts, Science versus Practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984); 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); Anna Simmons, “Working in a Transitional Territory? Chemical Consultants in the United Kingdom, 1870-1914,” in Proceedings of Sixth International Conference on the History of Chemistry, ed. Jose Ramon Bertomeu-Sanchez, Duncan Thorburn Burns, and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (Louvain-la-Neuve: Memosciences, 2008), 555-64.

2 Robert Bud, “The Discipline of Chemistry: The Origins and Early Years of the Chemical Society” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1980), 45-63.

3 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “consultant (n.),” accessed 15 January 2020, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/39956?redirectedFrom=Consultant.

4 James Donnelly, “Defining the Industrial Chemist in the United Kingdom,” Journal of Social History 29 (1996): 779-96; James Donnelly, “Structural Locations for Chemists in the British Alkali Industry, 1850-1910,” in The Chemical Industry in Europe, 1850-1914: Industrial Growth, Pollution and Professionalization, ed. Ernst Homburg, Anthony Travis, and Harm Schröter (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), 203-19; Gabriel Galvez-Bahar, Joris Mercelis, and Anna Guagnini, “Commericalizing Science: Nineteenth and Twentieth-century Academic Scientists as Consultants, Patentees and Entrepreneurs,” History and Technology 33 (2017): 4-22; David Edgerton and Sally Horrocks, “British Industrial Research and Development before 1945,” Economic History Review 47 (1994): 213-38.

5 Tal Golan, Laws of Men and Laws of Nature: The History of Scientific Expert Testimony in England and America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 54-70, 81-89; June Fullmer, “Technology, Chemistry and the Law in Early Nineteenth Century England,” Technology and Culture 21 (1980): 1-28; Christopher Hamlin, “Scientific Method and Expert Witnessing: Victorian Perspectives on a Modern Problem,” Social Studies of Science 16 (1986): 485-513.

6 See, for instance, Katherine D. Watson, “The Chemist as Expert: The Consulting Career of Sir William Ramsay,” Ambix 42 (1995): 143-59.

7 Data taken from the Open University’s “Biographical Database of the British Chemical Community, 1881-1971.” This contains details on the lives of around 9,000 chemists, with the membership records of the Chemical Society, the [Royal] Institute of Chemistry and the Society for Chemical Industry forming its foundation. See Robin L. Mackie and Gerrylynn K. Roberts’s article in this issue.

8 Eric H. Ash, “Expertise and the Early Modern State,” Osiris 25 (2010): 1-24, on 1-4; Eric H. Ash, “By Any Other Name: Early Modern Expertise and the Problem of Anachronism,” History and Technology 35 (2019): 3-30; For chemical expertise see, for instance, Peter J. Atkins, Peter Lummel, and Derek J. Oddy, Food and the City in Europe since 1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Christelle Rabier, ed., Fields of Expertise: A Comparative History of Expert Procedures in Paris and London 1600 to Present (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007); Peter Reed, Acid Rain and the Rise of the Environmental Chemist in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Life and Work of Robert Angus Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014).

9 W. V. Farrar, “Andrew Ure, FRS, and the Philosophy of Manufactures,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 27 (1973): 299-324.

10 For remuneration and the broader context of the usage of “professional chemist,” see Bud, “The Discipline of Chemistry,” 58-67.

11 Post Office London Directory (London: Kelly & Co, 1845), 1845 (Ure) and 661 (Cooper), from London, England, City Directories, 1736-1943 (database on-line) ancestry.com (accessed 26 February 2020).

12 Post Office London Directory (London: Kelly & Co, 1850) 133, 691 from London, England, City Directories, 1736-1943 (database on-line) ancestry.com (accessed 26 February 2020). Cooper uses “consulting chemist” in the briefer street directory and “analytical and consulting chemist” in the commercial directory.

13 Post Office London Directory (London: Kelly & Co, 1850), 1072; For Way, see Journal of the Chemical Society: Transactions 45 (1884): 629-30.

14 Bud and Roberts, Science versus Practice, 87, 214.

15 J. H. S. Green, “Robert Warington (1807-1867),” Proceedings of the Chemical Society (September 1957): 241-46; Christopher Hamlin, “Warington, Robert (1807-1867),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2011) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28746 (accessed 27 March 2019).

16 Robert Warington Apprenticeship Indenture, reproduced in Helen Wickham, The Warington Family (1997), 10-11, privately produced booklet deposited in Apothecaries’ Hall Archive (hereafter AHA).

17 Frank A. J. L. James, “Cooper, John Thomas (1790-1854),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2011) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/39361 (accessed 27 March 2019); Bud, “The Discipline of Chemistry,” 46-50.

18 Journal of the Chemical Society 21 (1868): xxxi-xxxiv.

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

20 London Metropolitan Archives (hereafter LMA), Truman Ltd Brewers, Clerk’s Salaries, 1819-1845, B/THB/F1, entry for Robert Warrington (sic), 66; H. M. Boot, “Real Incomes of the British Middle Class, 1760-1850: The Experience of Clerks at the East India Company,” Economic History Review 52 (1999): 638-68, on 640.

21 Robert Warington, A Series of Chemical Tables Arranged for the Use of the Chemical Student (London: John Taylor, 1833).

22 For Jackson, see Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London 9 (1861): 35-38; Medical Times and Gazette, 7 February 1861, 132.

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

24 Robert Warington, “On the Establishment of some Perfect System of Chemical Symbols,” Philosophical Magazine 1 (1832): 181-87; Robert Warington, “On the Action of Chromic Acid upon Silver,” Philosophical Magazine 11 (1837), 489-92.

25 J. W. S. Cassels, “The Spitalfields Mathematical Society,” Bulletin London Mathematical Society 11 (1979), 241-58; Rothamsted Research Library and Information Services (hereafter Rothamsted), Robert Warington Senior Papers, RWS1, Chemical Society and Mathematical Society, quotes from letter G.H. Jackson to Robert Warington Jnr., 20 July 1890.

26 Rothamsted, RWS1, Subjects of Lectures for Season 1837-1838, amended to 1838-1839.

27 LMA, Truman, Clerk’s Salaries, 66.

28 LMA, Truman, Clerk’s Salaries, 66.

29 James Sumner, Brewing, Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), 176-7.

30 LMA, Truman, Clerk’s Salaries, 66.

31 Rothamsted, RWS2, Notes on Soap, 1838-1839.

32 Bennet Woodcroft, Titles of Patents of Invention Chronologically Arranged, 15 & 16 Victoriae, Cap. 83 Sec XXXII, 1143, Patent Number 8880, Warington 16 March 1841; R. S. Thomson “Chrome Tanning in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the Society of Leather Technologists and Chemists 69 (1985): 93-8. I am grateful to Malcolm Leafe (editor) for providing a copy.

33 Robert Warington, “Some Additional Observations on the Red Oxalate of Chromium and Potash,” Memoirs of the Chemical Society 1 (1841-1842 and 1842-1843), 93-4; Robert Warington, “Note on the Means of Testing the Comparative Value of Astringent Substances for the Purposes of Tanning,” Memoirs and Proceedings of the Chemical Society 3 (1845-1846 and 1847-1848): 319.

34 Robert Warington Jnr., “The Foundation of the Chemical Society,” Jubilee of the Chemical Society of London (1896): 115-22, on 117.

35 Bud and Roberts, Science versus Practice, 48-51; C. A. Russell, “Chemical Bonds 1841-1991: 150 Years of the British Chemical Community,” Chemical Society Reviews 20 (1991): 425-40.

36 Warington Jnr., “Foundation of the Chemical Society,” 116-8.

37 Gerard L’E Turner, God Bless the Microscope! A History of the Royal Microscopical Society over 150 Years (Oxford: Royal Microscopical Society, 1989), 16.

38 G. K. Roberts, “The Establishment of the Royal College of Chemistry: An Investigation of the Social Context of Early Victorian Chemistry,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 7 (1976): 437-85, on 476-77; W. H. Brock, “The Society for a Perpetuation of Gmelin: The Cavendish Society, 1846-72,” Annals of Science 35 (1978): 599-617.

39 Rothamsted, RWS1, Justus Liebig to Warington, letter postmarked 3 February 1845.

40 Bud, “The Discipline of Chemistry,” 134-5; T. D. Whittet, Clerks, Bedels and Chemical Operators of the Society of Apothecaries (London: Berrico Publicity Co. Ltd., 1977), 73.

41 1841 England Census, UK National Archives, ancestry.com (accessed 7 November 2019).

42 London Gazette, 28 June 1842, issue 20115, 1794, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/20115/page/1794 (accessed 20 December 2019); London Gazette, 22 July 1842, issue 20122, 2042, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/20122/page/2042 (accessed 27 February 2020).

43 London Gazette, 13 April 1827, issue 18352, 859, referring to 19 May 1826, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18352/page/859 (accessed 28 February 2020); London Gazette, 8 May 1827, issue 18359, 1025, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18359/page/1025 (accessed 20 February 2019); London Gazette, 20 July 1832, Issue 18957, 1686, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18957/page/1686 (accessed 20 December 2019); London Gazette, 20 October 1832, Issue 18987, 2358, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18987/page/2358 (accessed 20 December 2019).

44 AHA, Minutes of General Committee of Managers (hereafter GCM), 23 June 1842.

45 Anna Simmons, “Wholesale Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in London, c. 1760 - c.1840: Sites, Production and Networks,” in Compound Histories: Materials, Production, and Governance, 1760-1840, ed. Lissa Roberts and Simon Werrett (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 289-310, on 296-97, 299-303.

46 AHA, Box 30/4, Property Tax and its Impact on Staff, 1842-1843, includes staff list from summer 1842; United Stock Account Books, MS 8224, vol. 2 1831-1845, vol. 3, 1846-1859, vol. 4, 1860-1878 (Boxes 113 and 112).

47 AHA, Wickham, The Warington Family, 15-17.

48 Journal of the Chemical Society 21 (1868): xxxi-xxxiv, on xxxii-xxxiii. See also Proceedings of the Royal Society 16 (1867-1868): xlix-l, on xlix, and British Medical Journal, 7 December 1867, 537.

49 Green, “Robert Warington,” 243; Anon., “St Olave’s District Board of Works, July 2,” Journal of Gas Lighting, Water Supply and Sanitary Equipment, 16 July 1861, 525; Philip Joseph Hartog, “Warington, Robert (1807-1867),” in Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 59 (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1885-1900) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Warington,_Robert_(DNB00) (accessed 3 March 2020).

50 Rothamsted, RWS3, “Reports of Analysis of Waters of the River Lee.” For the wider context, see Christopher Hamlin, The Science of Impurity: Water Analysis in Nineteenth Century Britain (Bristol: Adam Hilger, 1990).

51 British Medical Journal, 7 December 1867, 537; Hamlin, “Warington, Robert (1807-1867),” (accessed 27 March 2019).

52 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), 16.

53 Robert Warington Evidence, First Report from the Select Committee on the Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs, 1855 (432), VIII, 45.

54 Green, “Robert Warington,” 242-43; Rothamsted, RWS2, Tea and Other Adulterations.

55 Warington Evidence, First Report from the Select Committee on Adulteration, 1855 (432), VIII, 45.

56 Rothamsted, RWS2; Patent Number 11120, 5 March 1846, reported in The Chemical Gazette 4 (1846): 484; W. H. Brock, “The Warington-Gosse Aquarium Controversy: Two Unrecorded Letters,” Archives of Natural History 18 (1991): 179-83; Christopher Hamlin, “Robert Warington and the Moral Economy of the Aquarium,” Journal of the History of Biology 19 (1986): 131-53; “Robert Warington’s Aquatic Sojourn,” ParlourAquariums.org.uk, www.parlouraquariums.org.uk/Pioneers/Warington/warington.html (accessed 28 November 2019). I am grateful to William Brock for this source.

57 Anna Simmons, “Stills, Status, Stocks and Science: The Laboratories at Apothecaries’ Hall in the Nineteenth Century,” Ambix 61 (2014): 141-61, on 154.

58 GCM 2 June 1866.

59 Russell, Coley, and Roberts, Chemists by Profession, 152-6.

60 Rothamsted, RWS3, Experimental Notes, 1860-1866, labelled “Reports of Analysis of Waters of the River Lee” but the paper was re-used (hereafter Warington Notes).

61 A few qualifications on the source’s limitations are necessary. These are rough notes, sometimes overwritten, from the final decade of Warington’s life, when his workload had reduced. The purpose or client is occasionally unclear, whilst no financial information is recorded.

62 Roberts, “The Establishment of the Royal College of Chemistry,” 470.

63 Sally M. Horrocks, “Quality Control and Research: The Role of Scientists in the British Food Industry, 1870-1939,” in Origins and Development of Food Policies in Europe, ed. John Burnett and Derek J. Oddy (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994), 130-45; Ernst W. Stieb, Drug Adulteration: Detection and Control in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966); On growing numbers of analysts in the context of the Adulteration Acts, see Russell, Coley, and Roberts, Chemists by Profession, 103-6.

64 Lines and, in most cases, a date delineate separate experiments. Following Warington’s method of record-keeping, experiments on multiple samples or dates, but grouped together, are counted once. RW Experiments have been identified through Warington’s publications (he wrote forty-seven papers), biographical sources and the Rothamsted Robert Warington Senior Papers.

65 Warington Notes, May, 7 July, 18 August 1862.

66 Warington Notes, undated but 1861 or 1862 likely. For Knapp, see Thomson, “Chrome Tanning,” 95.

67 Anthony C. Cartwright, The British Pharmacopoeia, 1864-2014: Medicines, International Standards and the State (Farnham: Ashgate: 2015), 31.

68 F. J. Farre, Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1865), vii.

69 Warington Notes, June, November 1864 and January-March 1865; R. Warington, “On the Use of Alcohol as a Test for the Purity of Croton Oil,” Pharmaceutical Journal 6 (1864-1865): 382-7; R. Warington, “On the Spirit of Nitrous Ether and Nitrite of Soda,” Pharmaceutical Journal 7 (1866): 7-11.

70 Warington consistently records when an experiment is performed for someone else and this is used as the basis for allocating the consulting category. In most cases (with the exception of friends and possibly some customers of the Society’s pharmaceutical trade) it is likely that remuneration was obtained but I have been unable to locate any information on fees charged.

71 Classification has been carried out using: Peter J. T. Morris and Colin A. Russell, Archives of the British Chemical Industry, 1750-1914: A Handlist (Faringdon: British Society for the History of Science, 1988); Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History (website), Grace’s Guide, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Main_Page; The Post Office London Directory (London: Kelly & Co, 1865), from London, England, City Directories, 1736-1943 (database on-line), ancestry.com. Where identification was not possible and the experimental notes suggest so, the category private individual has been assigned.

72 P. N. Hammond and Harold Egan, Weighed in the Balance: A History of the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (London: HMSO, 1992), 103.

73 Warington Notes, 1 December 1862, 5 August, 3 November 1863, 18 December 1865, 4, 5 January 1866.

74 Anna Simmons, “Trade, Knowledge and Networks: The Activities of the Society of Apothecaries and its Members in London, c. 1670- c. 1800,” British Journal for the History of Science 52 (2019): 273-96.

75 Warington Notes, Fire Office, 24 April 1865; Gas Works, 19, 26 August, 4 September 1863.

76 Warington Notes, water examples include 6 August 1863, 7 May, 11 September 1866; Ointment, 27 May 1863; Dead Sea Samples, undated but March or April 1866 likely.

77 Hamlin, The Science of Impurity. For chemists including Brande and Cooper, see 47-72 and 116-26.

78 Christopher Hamlin, “Edward Frankland’s Early Career as London’s Official Water Analyst, 1865-1876: The Context of ‘Previous Sewage Contamination,’” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 56 (1982): 56-76

79 Goldsmid vs. the Tunbridge Wells Improvement Commissioners, 16, 17, 24 November 1865, Law Reports for the Year 1866, from Michaelmas 1865 to Trinity 1866 (London: E. B. Ince, 1866), 88-94, on 92; Warington Notes, 23 February 1865.

80 For example, Warington Notes, Mylne: 11, 16 April 1864; Easton and Amos: 22 August, 1 September 1863. For Mylne, see Proceedings of the Royal Society 48 (1890): xx-xxi.

81 For the growth in roles for analysts, see Russell, Coley, and Roberts, Chemists by Profession, 94-134, consultants on 96-97.

82 Warington Notes, 6, 13, 26 November 1860 and no date, but March 1861 likely.

83 Warington Notes, 3 July 1861, 19 March 1863, 30 January 1865.

84 Warington Notes, 20 May 1862.

85 Warington Notes, 16 May 1861.

86 Golan, Laws of Men, 1-2.

87 Anthony Travis, Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1992), 124-36.

88 Anthony S. Travis, “Science’s Powerful Companion: A. W. Hofmann’s Investigation of Aniline Red and its Derivatives,” British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1992): 27-44; Peter Morris and Anthony Travis, “The Chemical Society of London and the Dye Industry in the 1860s,” Ambix 39 (1992): 117-26.

89 Warington Notes, 20 June 1861.

90 Travis, Rainbow Makers, 124-27.

91 Warington Notes, 8, 26 January, 2 June, 5 September, 30 October, 26 November 1862.

92 Morris and Travis, “The Chemical Society of London and the Dye Industry,” 122. See also Golan, Laws of Men, 82-9.

93 Warington Notes, 23, 27 January, 16, 18 February, 3 March, 28 May 1863. Although 18 February and 3 March refer to Warburtons, there is no evidence that S. Warburton and Son of Leeds were engaged in dyestuffs production; possibly they were selling other manufacturer’s dyes. I am grateful to Tony Travis, Peter Morris, and Ernst Homburg for their assistance.

94 Warington Notes, 9 May 1863; For Dawson, see M. R. Fox, Dye-Makers of Great Britain (Kent: ICI, 1987), 140-41, 252.

95 Travis, Rainbow Makers, 131-34.

96 Warington Notes, 7 September, 6 October 1863.

97 “Renard vs Levinstein,” Chemical News 10 (24 December 1864): 309-12. See also Warington Notes, 13 February and 5 December 1864.

98 Warington Notes, 9, 20 April 1864.

99 Rothamsted, RWS2, letters grouped under “Dyeing,” 1847-1859. For the broader context, see Morris and Travis, “The Chemical Society of London and the Dye Industry,” 118-9.

100 Travis, Rainbow Makers, 127-34.

101 F. A. Abel, “The History of the Royal College of Chemistry and Reminiscences of Hofmann’s Professorship,” Journal of the Chemical Society and Transactions 69 (1896): 580-94, on 580.

102 GCM 23 June 1842; AHA, Box 98, Salaries and Rentals Ledger, 1847-1874 (formerly T/5).

103 Rothamsted, RWS2, Letter William Brande to Governors of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 16 July 1857.

104 Baptism records: Amelia Warington (21 July 1837), Robert Warington (19 September 1838), Spitalfields Christ Church with St Mary and St Stephen, Board of Guardian Records and Church of England Parish Registers, LMA, Reference Number: p93/ctc1/008, from ancestry.com (accessed 4 February 2020); Baptism Record, George Warington (24 July 1840), St Mark, Kennington, London, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, from ancestry.com (accessed 31 January 2020); Woodcroft, Titles of Patents, Patent Number 8880; 1841, 1851, 1861 England Censuses, UK National Archives, ancestry.com (accessed 7 November 2019); Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, Robert Warington, 7 December 1867.

105 Russell, Coley, and Roberts, Chemists by Profession, 135-57.

106 LMA, Truman, Clerk’s Salaries, 66; AHA: Box 92, Item 4, Salaries Receipt Book and Rents Due, 1823-1846; Box 98, Salaries and Rentals Ledger, 1847-1874.

107 Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, William Brande, 23 March 1866; Frank A. J. L. James, Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2010), 4.

108 Brande, for example, had a large family to support, whereas Warington home-schooled his children and was prudent with expenditure.

109 Bud, “The Discipline of Chemistry,” 135.

110 There is no evidence that Warington inherited funds from his mother, Esther Eaton. His father-in-law, George Jackson, died intestate leaving £3,000. For Thomas Warington Jnr., see e.g. London Gazette, 3 May 1864, Issue 22850, 2443, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/22850/page/2443/data.pdf (accessed 3 April 2020).

111 W. S. C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, MD, FRS (1778-1857),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 44 (1951): 655-62, on 661.

112 The Feast of the Blues, by the Author of ‘A Chemical Review’ [Frederick Field] (London: Privately Printed, 1865), Royal Society of Chemistry Library, B Club, A Collection of Papers and Rhymes relating to the B Club, HC 0401. I am grateful to David Allen, RSC Library, for photographing this source.

113 Proceedings of the Royal Society 16 (1867-1868): xlix-l.

114 British Medical Journal, 7 December 1867, 537.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Simmons

Anna Simmons is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at UCL. Her research and numerous publications explore various aspects of the history of British chemistry and pharmacy from ca. 1650 onwards, with a particular focus on the laboratories and pharmaceutical trade at the Society of Apothecaries and the development of chemical careers and professional organisations. Address: UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT. Email: [email protected].