Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society

Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society... 

On March 16, 1920, the year that Robinson left Liverpool for what turned out to be one year with the British Dyestuffs Corporation in Manchester, the two friends both presented papers at a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. Lapworth gave "alternating" polarity and the influence of a "key-atom" primary roles in initiating and determining the course of reaction. Robinson identified the activation of molecules with the rearrangement of valences "most probably synonymous with changes in position of the electrons," so that the active molecules are polarized and contain partially dissociated valences. 96... 

In 1803 Dalton read a paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in which he mentioned his atomic theory for the first time. But his reference to it was cryptic. The paper dealt with the solubility of different gases in water. After conjecturing that the solubility might depend on the size of the particles of which the gases were composed, Dalton went on ... 

After the publication of his atomic theory, Dalton s fame increased steadily, and he began to receive numerous honors. He was elected to membership in the French Academy of Sciences in 1816, and he became president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society the following year. When George IV announced in 1825 that he would be giving two gold medals annually, the Royal Society, which administered the awards, gave one of them to Dalton. And in 1832 Oxford University awarded Dalton an honorary doctor of civil law degree. 

The site of the Dalton plaque had a rich history. Dalton s laboratory was in the premises of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, a learned society founded in 1781. He was a member of the Society from 1794 until his death in 1844, serving as President for 28 years. The building at 36 George Street was built by the Society in 1799 and was its headquarters until a bombing raid destroyed it in 1940. Many of Dalton s papers were destroyed along with the building. Some of his possessions survive at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. 

Dalton stayed in Manchester for the rest of his fife, and it was there that he did most of his important work, the results of which were published in the Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (MLPS). His first scientific paper, published by the MLPS in 1798, described his red-green color blindness. Dalton is said to have purchased for his mother a pair of what he thought were dull-colored stockings—Quakers did not wear bright colors—which she could not wear because they were scarlet. This misadventure motivated Dalton to investigate his color recognition deficiency. He was the first to describe red-green color blindness, sometimes known as Daltonism. 

On October 21, 1803, Dalton made before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was secretary, his first public announcement of the relative weights of atoms. It excited the attention of some natural philosophers He was invited by the Royal Institution of London to lecture to a large and distinguished audience. 

Another publication from Manchester on this question came from John Sharpe, a friend of John Dalton, a solicitor and member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, who read a paper to that body in 1806 titled An Account of Some Experiments to Ascertain whether the Force of Steam be in Proportion to the Generating Heat . Although the paper was not published until 1813, it is more than likely that Watt knew of it earlier than that through his Manchester connections.48... 

Ibid., p. 143, quoting from P. Ewart, On the Measure of Moving Force , Memoirs ofthe Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 2nd series, 2(1813), pp. 105—258. This is certainly an important paper so far as conceptual shifts are concerned, and there are signs that the Watts, father and son, reacted positively to it. (See D. S. L. Cardwell, Some Factors in the Early Development of the Concepts of Power, Work and Energy , The British Journal for the History of Science 3 (1967), pp. 209-224, p. 221.)... 

Dalton, J., Experimental Essays on the Constitution of Mixed Gases on the Force of Steam or Vapour from Water and other Liquids in Different Temperatures, Both in a Torricellian Vacuum and in Air on Evaporation and on the Expansion of Gases by Heat , Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 5 (1802), pp. 535-602. 

Ewart, P., On the Measure of Moving Force , Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 2nd series, 2 (1813), pp. 105-258. 

In 1995, researchers from Cambridge University asked the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for a sample of an eyeball that had been sitting in a jar on a shelf since 1844. Whose eyeball was it, and what did the researchers want to do with it ... 

When further experiment confirmed his theory that the atom had a small, massive nucleus, he was finally ready to go public. He chose as his forum an old Manchester organization, the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society— largely the general public, says James Chadwick, who attended the historic occasion as a student on March 7, 1911, ... people interested in literary and philosophical ideas, largely business people. The first item on the agenda was a Manchester fruit importer s report that he had found a rare snake in a consignment of Jamaica bananas. He exhibited the snake. Then it was Rutherford s turn. Only an abstract of the announcement survives, but Chadwick remembers how it felt to hear it it... 

Dalton J (1805) Memoirs and proceedings of the manchester literary and philosophical society, vol. 6, Manchester, p 271 (Alembic Club Reprints 1961, Edinburgh, no 2, p 15)... 

In November 1841 Joule developed this idea in a paper read to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, describing experiments on heats of oxidation of metals a second communication with the same title was read to the British Association in 1842. In a paper read in 1842, on the electrolysis of water, he says that in the resistance to electrolysis accompanied by chemical changes, the heat due to its reaction is rendered latent and is thus lost by the circuit. Hence the caloric of the whole circuit is exactly accounted for by the whole of the chemical changes an appendix read in February 1844 says the names latent heat and caloric are used only for convenience, since I was then as strongly attached to the theory which regards heat as motion among the particles of matter as I am now . 

Thomas Henry (Wrexham, 26 October (O.S.) 1734-Manchester, 18 June 1816) was descended from a family long settled in Antrim in Ireland he was apprenticed to an apothecary in Wrexham in Wales, then served in Knutsford and Oxford, starting on his own account in Knutsford in 1759 he moved to Manchester in 1764, where he met Percival. Henry became F.R.S. in 1775, and president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1807. 

Dalton s lecture and laboratory notes, bound in 12 volumes of MS., were preserved in the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. Dr. Harden informed me in 1938 that some had then disappeared, and the rest were lost when the Society s premises and its contents were destroyed as a result of a... 

Among the many papers read by Dalton to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, but not all published, are those on winds (1802), a review of his lectures to the Royal Institution (1804), on the elements of chemical philosophy (August 1804), on heat (October 1804), respiration and animal heat (March 1806), on the specific heat of bodies and of gases (1808), respiration (1808), compounds of sulphur and sulphuric acid (1809), oxymuriate of lime (1812), phosphoric acid and phosphates (1813), on many compounds of metals (1813 on), compounds of azote and oxygen (1816), alum (1820), remarks on the notation of Berzelius (1830), arseniates and phosphater... 

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