The Alembic Club

As we have seen in earlier chapters, most universities had a chemistry club or society. Near one end of the scale was the Manchester University Chemical Society, which fought the admission of women until 1909 at the other end, the Chemical Club of Cambridge University, which seems to have accepted women members without comment. In fact, two of the early members, Ida Freund and M. Beatrice Thomas, presented research papers to a meeting of the Club in 1904.36 

The attitude at the Oxford chemical society, known as the Alembic Club, could not have been more different from that at 

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Fieser, L. F., Fieser, M. Introduction to Organic Chemistry, p. 202, Heath, D. C. Co. (1957). See also numerous papers published by L. Pasteur in the Comptes Rendues, Vols. 26-42 (1848-1856), and his Lemons de Chimie professles en 1860 published by Soci6t6 Chimique de Paris (1861) which is reprinted in English in the Alembic Club Reprint booklet No. 14... 

Despite the misogyny of the Alembic Club, a significant number of women chemists worked in the Dyson-Perrins Laboratory (DP) in the 1930s. Oxford had hoped that the arrival of Frederick Soddy75 from Aberdeen (subsequently to be rejoined by his research assistant, Ada Hitchins see Chap. 7) would usher in a school of radiochemistry, but Soddy s attentions were more on economics. It was to be organic chemistry that mainly provided Oxford with its chemical claim to fame. The impetus was the construction of the DP, for long the envy of all other university chemistry departments. 76 And it was the DP which... 

As a woman, Walsh was excluded from the meetings of the Alembic Club — the chemistry society at Oxford (see Chap. 6). So, it was not surprising that she exhibited a determination for sexual equality, as illustrated by the following account from Louis Hunter of the University of Leicester ... 

Quoted in Prout s Hypothesis, Alembic Club Reprints, no. 20 (Edinburgh The Alembic Club, 1932), 17. 

From On a New Chemical Theory and Researches on Salicylic Acid. Papers by Archibald Scott Couper, Edinburgh, The Alembic Club, 1953,9-13 translation of Sur une Nouvelle Theorie Chimique, Comptes rendus de VAcadimie des Sciences, 46, 1157-1160 (1858).]... 

Unfortunately, Pasteur s dissymmetry became confused with asymmetry, as can be seen in the Alembic Club s translation of his lecture Recherches sur la Dissymetrie Moldculaire des Produits Organiques Naturels (2), delivered before the Chemical Society of Paris four years later (1860). The title of the English version (3, 4) is Researches on the Molecular Asymmetry of Natural Organic Products. This confusion seems to have arisen partly because of the organic chemist s indifference to symmetry concepts, apparently accelerated by the overwhelming success of van t Hoffs asymmetric carbon atom theory (5) (my italics). 

L. Pasteur, Lectures to the French Chemical Society (Paris, 1861) English translation made by the Alembic Club, Reprint No. 14, Edinburgh, 1897 via Tetrahedron, 1974, 30, 1477. 

H. Brereton Baker, Soddy, and Sidgwick were prominent members in their time as undergraduates. But there was also felt to be a need for a more specialised forum. There had, for some years, been an informal chemical club based on the Balliol laboratory, but by 1901 a determined effort had been made to encourage chemical discussion on a wider basis with two more formal clubs, the Chemical Club of 1899 and the Alembic Club of December 1900, which absorbed the Chemical during the first World War. The leader here was W.M. Hooton, a Christ Church undergraduate, and the first President G.W.F. Holroyd," also... 

E. J. B[owen], The Alembic Club, The first fifty years, 1967, Manuscript 167, History of Science Museum, Oxford George William Fraser Hol-royd (1871-1934), R. H. Pickard, J. Chem. Soc., 1935, 407. 

Laboratory, and inorganic chemistry was housed in the Old Chemistry Department. If there was a unifying force it was provided by Sidgwick. His synoptic vision, which embraced the main three branches of chemistry, was revealed in his publications, his contributions to colloquia and seminars, and his dominance of both the Alembic Club and the Dyson Perrins tea club. It was rightly said after his death that he was a strict but not severe father of the whole Oxford school of chemistry. 

Mayow, J. 1907. On muscular motion and animal spirits, fourth treatise. In Medical-Physical Works, Alembic Club Reprint no. 17, published by the Alembic Club. 

Pasteur, ReseaKhes, 24 (with my slight revisions to the Alembic Club translation). 

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