Newcastle Chemical Society

Mr. Jones, Jones and Walsh s patent decomposing furnace . Transactions of the Newcastle Chemical Society, 3 (1876), 238-248, on pp. 243-244. 

Of all the societies founded by the chemical industry during this period, none was more concerned to show social and environmental responsibility than the Newcastle Chemical Society, which was established in 1868. The reason for this may have been that many of the society s leading members combined their activities as captains of industry with key positions on the local town councils. In addition, membership was not limited to manufacturing chemists, but included other chemical professions, educators and medical men. From the beginning, spokesmen for the society emphasised that the duties of chemists included finding solutions to problems of waste utilisation and pollution. Isaac Lowthian Bell, the society s first president, acknowledged the special responsibilities of the chemical industry with regard to the local community s air quality ... 

Prosopographical data-base of Newcastle Chemical Society membership held by the History of Chemistry Research Group, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes. 

E.g. referring to the Jones and Walsh salt decomposing furnace in the mid-1870s, one of the originators remarked that as a result of difficulties in controlling workmen, he made up his mind that they would endeavour to [mechanize the process] even if it cost them more to do the work by mechanical means . Transactions of the Newcastle Chemical Society, 3 (1874-7), 198-199. See also Lomas op. cit. (17) and Lunge op. cit. (17). 

Page 546 (Figure 13.24) is courtesy of Simon Fraser/Science Photo Library/Photo Researchers, Inc. Newcastle upon Tyne. Page 565 (Figure 13.37) is adapted from R. Isaksson, J. Roschester, J. Sandstrom, and L. G. Wistrand, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1985, 107, 4074 075 with permission of tlie American Chemical Society. 

The tone set by the Newcastle societies contrasts markedly with the more aggressive approach to public concern adopted by the Manchester societies. Nationally, with the exception of the alkali trades, the chemical industry did not begin to create a public discourse of social or environmental responsibihty until the very end of the century. When the Society of Chemical Industry eventually addressed these issues, it presented them not as questions of the duties of chemical manufacturers to local communities, but as wider questions of responsible resource use to safeguard future economic prosperity. 

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