1. 1. Adern
Hon. Librarian to the Society Manchester, England
The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
In thc pages of w r s . ~ O U K S . ~ L in January, 1W7, t,he suggestion was made that many American chemists touring Britain "wonld be more interested in spending a short time in 36, George Street, Manchester, t,han by the convcntional visit to Stratford on Avon." KO. 36, C~orgeStreet, is thc address of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The House and its contents were destroyed in the bomhing of Manchester in 1940; most of the relics of Dalton's 50 years' mork in Manchester, some of the instrument~s.J. P. Joule used for his experiments on the conservation of energy, a 50,000-volume library, and many other items of scient,ific intcrest (including Izaak Newton's desk which had been presented to the Societ.,~ a few years before 1940) all went up in the flamcs. Of the Dalton manuscripts 700-800 pages, many with charred edges, remain; the photograph shows a t.ypical examplr. Dalton's watch and his medals, including the Royal Society Gold Medal of 1826, were in a bank and so mere preserved. Less than a dozen items of glass and pottery are all that remain of his instruments. A few gifk have heen received since 1940, and thc collect,ionis slowly growing and may somc3 day be once again the biggest collrction of naltonania in existence. The Society was founded in I'cbruary, 1781, growing out of wcckly meet,ings a t the house of Dr. Thomas Percival, F.R.S., "a leader in all t,hc important movcments of t,he town" and a physician at the Infirmary.
S o older society with similar aims and wi6h a continuous history exists in the United Kingdom outside London, and there are few in any part of the world. One of the early decisions of the Society was to make Benjamin Franklin an honorary member. The early papers read to the Societ,y showed forthrightness (one strongly criticized a paper read to the. Royal Society a short time before) and an awareness of t,he need for more science in industry. One phrase used by a founder member, Thomas Henry, has become famous: "The misfortune is that few dyers are chemists, and few chemists are dyers." He went on, "Practical knowledge should be united to theory in order to produce the most beneficial discoveries." All through its 180 years the Society has striven to carry out this principle. In 1824 its members were in a t the founding of the Manchester Mechanics' Institution, the forerunner of the Manchester College of Science and Technology. In the 1850's it investigated and made recommendations which solved the local potato famine. In the early 1920's it sent a deputation t o the Manchester City Council t o request a technical library for the City. Among its honorary members were Lavoisier, Priestley, Volta, Edison, J. J. Thomson, Oliver Lodge, and Nernst, and among ordinary members we note Weizmann, the founder of the modern state of Israel, Xiels Bohr, W. L. Bragg, Rutherford, Horace Lamb, W. Boyd Dawkins, P. M. S. Blackett, and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. John Dalton
A Dalton monureript domoged in the bombing of Monchesler, 1940.
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Journal of Chemical Education
John Dalton and J. 1'. Joule are the "greatest oruaments in the Society's distinguished history." .4n American chemist, Jacob Green, who came to Manchester in 1828, wrote that his principal object was "to see Mr. John Dalton, chemist, whose name will be as long and as extensively known as his favouritr science itself." Dalton came to Manchester in 1793 to be tutor in mathematics at the Manchester Academy, which had been founded in 1786 largely by Thomas Percival's efforts. Within a month of joining the Society he delivered a paper on "Extraordinary facts relating to the vls~onof colour." This was the first of 116 papers he gave before the Society. In 1800 he became its secretary, gave up his post with the Academy, and began private teaching (at l/6d a lesson). He had a room as a study and laboratory in the house, and it was here that he did the work which made him famous. For 44 years he served the Society: 9 as secretary, 8 as vicepresident, and 27 as president. He ruled the Society as a benevolent dictator and he asked his best friend,
Yeter Clare, a clockmaker, to make a clock which would only strike once-at 9 P.M. to declare the meetings closed. He had little use for literary papers, saying that they "contribute no positive facts to our stock of knowledge as in short proving nothing." The main Dalton manuscripts which survived the fire are notebooks and lecture notes on mathematics, meteorology, and chemistry, along with catalogues and accounts. All are charred and brown (see photograph). I t is hoped that money will be found to have each leaf laminated with stable plastic sheet so that no further deterioration will take place. Gifts received since 1940 include: The thermometer Dalton used in Manchester. It hung auL side his window at his house in Faulkner Street. A daguerreotype of Dalton taken in 1841 at Beard's studio in Manchester. Only 3 photographs were made as Dalton was not keen and had to he persuaded to sit, by Peter Clare and J. B. Dancer. This one may prove to he a portrait which has not hefore been copied by engravers. Various portrsjts of different sizes, mainly by Stephenson. Sixteen partly damaged notebooks kept by Jonathan Dalton (John's brother) of weather records of Kendal from 1793 (the year John came to Manchester) to 1810.
J. P. Joule
One of Dalton's pupils in the 1830's was J. P. Joule, son of a local brewer. His experiments were done hefore and after his 9-6 job a t the brewery, and it is remarkable that his fmt experiment was carried out when he vas only 19. It concerned improvements to the eleetro-magnetic engine of Sturgeon ( a member). Joule thought, along with other older men, "that electromagnetism will ultimately be substituted for steam in propelling machinery." Joule's first paper "on the production of heat by voltaic electricity" was so far in advance of the knowledge of the day that the Royal Society refused to publish it in full. Lyon Playfair is indirectly responsible for the eolleetion of Joule letters now in the Society's possession. Professor R. G. S. Norrish, F.R.S., discovered in 1921 a pile of manuscripts in a lumber room in the Physical Chemistry Department a t Cambridge. They were letters addressed to Playfair. Professor Norrish made a selection of those he thought to be the most interesting and the rest, unfortunately, were destroyed some time later. In 1951 he gave the letters to the Royal Society of Arts with the suggestion that the Literary and Philosophical Society should have the Joule ones and others "which they were able to join effectively with their archives." Playfair was a man of considerable parts. He had been a pupil of Liebig and accompanied the master on his triumphal tour of Britain in 1842.
In 1841 he was the chief chemist of a large calico printing works near Clitheroe and a year later was offered the post of honorary professor of chemistry a t the Royal Institution of Manehester. Here he soon had a group of enthusiastic students about him; his lectures there and those a t the Literary and Philosophical Society were a great success. With Joule, Playfair did a series of papers on atomic volumes and specific gravity which were printed in the Memoirs of the Chemical Society (Vols. 2 and 3). Joule was well aware of their difficulties. He wrote "As our paper will be well attacked after its publication we must immediately prepare to reinforce it with others." Again, "Do not be afraid of being called rash . . . remember what Sedgwiek said 'The way t,o make no errors is to write no papers."' Joule served the Society as Secretary, Librarian, and President, and he liked nothing better than to take part in scientific discussions there. He was honoured in every corner of the scientific world but he was as modest as could be, and in his old age he said to his brother "They have been telling me that Roscoe has been saying some very good things about me. I wish they would leave me alone. I believe I have done two or three little things, but nothing- to make a fuss about." The new House, to which all visiting chemists are welcome, gives pride of place to two large portraits in oils of Dalton and Joule. The John Dalton Room in which they hang is the Council Chamber and the repository for the Dalton items that were saved and the new ones coming. The Members' Common Room displays the more important of the 500 journals received on exchange and a very small refermce collection of books, including a complete set of the Memoirs. There are two lecture rooms. The main activities of the Society are the winter series of six or seven formal lectures, given by eminent men and women, and the informal meetings of the Social Philosophy and Natural Philosophy Sections where topics of a controversial nature or in rapidly developing fields are freely discussed. The formal lectures are published in the annual Memoirs; the current volume is 103. Vol. 100 was an extra and a special number: a monograph, "The Biographical Approach to John Dalton," by Frank Greenaway of the Science Museum in London. It is appropriate to finish with a quotation from this work on Dalton: His birth has no record: a whole city filed past his coffin. His story is a mere incident in the history of Manchester; it is a turning point in the world history of ideas.
Volume 39, Number 5, May 1962
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