Robert Warington and Heinrich Will: Friendship and Co-operation in Chemistry in Nineteenth Century Britain and Germany.

This paper discusses fourteen letters that Heinrich Will (1812-1890), Justus Liebig's (1803-1873) successor at the University of Giessen, sent to Robert Warington (1807-1867), the chemical operator at Apothecaries' Hall in London, between 1842 and 1854. The correspondence illuminates a range of topics related to the development of the British chemical community in mid-Victorian Britain - its organisations, networks, and commercial opportunities, as well as offering insights into the importance of family, friendship, and collegiality in sustaining scientific careers. Studying such an exchange of material and textual knowledge helps to further understand how science was organised and ideas disseminated in a key period for institutional development in chemistry.

Unwise Relationships and an Unsound Valence Theory: The Chemical Career of Robert Fergus Hunter (1904-1963).

The life of the Imperial College-trained Robert Fergus Hunter (1904-1963) was a of a gifted chemist who appeared destined for a prominent academic career in organic chemistry. Two circumstances spoiled his chances. In the first place, he became associated with the declining fortunes of the weekly More seriously, as a professor at the Aligarh Muslim University in British India (1930-1936), he published papers on valence theory with the German-Jewish physicist Rudolf Samuel that fatally destroyed his chance of further academic preferment.

A different kind of Nierenstein reaction. The Chemical Society's mistreatment of Maximilian Nierenstein.

Between 1920 and 1922, the University of Bristol biochemist, Maximilian Nierenstein, published four papers in a series exploring the structure of catechin in the The Society then abruptly refused to accept any more of his papers on catechin, or any other subject. It provided him with no reasons for the embargo until 1925. It then transpired that Nierenstein was boycotted because it was deemed that he had not responded adequately to criticisms of his work made by his rival in catechin research, the German natural products chemist, Karl Freudenberg.

The Curious Story of the Chemical Society's Missing Obituary of John Lloyd Bullock.

The pharmaceutical and manufacturing chemist John Lloyd Bullock, who had joined the Chemical Society in 1842 and who played a fundamental role in the creation of the Royal College of Chemistry in 1845, did not receive an obituary when he died in 1905. Yet, nine years later on the eve of WW1, the Council of the Chemical Society suddenly commissioned an obituary from two German chemists. Although the curious circumstances of this omission and commission cannot be fully explained, their investigation provides an opportunity for an appraisal of Bullock's role in the history of chemistry and pharmacy.

David Marcus Knight (1936-2018): An Appreciation.

The article is a biography of the historian of science, David M. Knight. It contains reminiscences of the author's relations with Knight while he was a postgraduate at Oxford and thereby conveys an impression of the state of history of science in Britain in the 1960s.

Breeding chemists in Giessen.

The factors that contributed to Liebig's success in founding a research school at Giessen have been well known since the publication of Jack Morrell's seminal paper in 1972. Here the familiar Liebig-Giessen story is re-centred in a local geographical and historical context. Historical and political factors played a role in calling Liebig to Giessen and in ousting the existing chair holder, Zimmerman.

Crookes, carbolic and cattle plague.

Forging a scientific career in 19th-century Britain was difficult for most middle-class scientists. Despite his discovery of thallium in 1861 and later distinction as an experimental physicist that led him to the Presidency of the Royal Society (1913-1915), William Crookes (1832-1919) never obtained one of the limited number of academic or official positions. Scientific journalism and commercial activities were eventually to bring him financial security, but before that he was an opportunist willing to try his hand at anything that would win him national publicity.