Re-Examining the Research School: August Wilhelm Hofmann and the Re-Creation of a Liebigian Research School in London

Morrell Jack B. , “The chemist breeders: The research schools of Liebig and Thomas Thomson”, Ambix, xix (1972), 1–46.

The professionalization of chemistry has been widely discussed. Homburg Ernst , “Two factions, one profession: The chemical profession in German society”, in Knight David Kragh Helge (eds), The making of the chemist: The social history of chemistry in Europe (Cambridge, 1998), 39–76, and Homburg Ernst , “The rise of analytical chemistry and its consequences for the German chemical profession (1780–1860)”, Ambix, xlvi (1999), 1–32, are especially relevant for the German case. For Britain, see Bud Robert Roberts Gerrylynn K. , Science versus practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1984).

These figures are taken from Rocke Alan J. , The quiet revolution: Hermann Kolbe and the science of organic chemistry (Los Angeles, 1993), 2. Friedrich Wöhler's famous likening of organic chemistry to “a tropical jungle” testifies to contemporary awareness of the problem: “Die organische Chemie kann einen jetzt ganz toll machen. Sie kommt mir wie ein Urwald der Tropenländer vor, voll der merkwürdigsten Dinge, ein ungeheures Dickicht, ohne Ausgang und Ende, in das man sich nicht hinein wagen mag.” Wöhler to Berzelius, 28 January 1835, Wallach Otto (ed.), Briefwechsel zwischen J. Berzelius und F. Woehler (Leipzig, 1901), 604.

Brock William H. , Justus von Liebig: The chemical gatekeeper (Cambridge, 1997), 48.

Klein Ursula , “Shifting ontologies, changing classifications: Plant materials from 1700 to 1830”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxxvi (2005), 261–329, pp. 321–2.

Hofmann August W. , Introduction to modern chemistry, experimental and theoretic (London, 1865), Preface. And see also Keas Michael N. , “The structure and philosophy of group research: August Wilhelm Hofmann's research program in London (1845–1865)”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1992, 47–53, on Hofmann's natural historical approach and the extensive use of analogy in his research program.

The concept of Berzelian formulae as paper tools was introduced by Klein Ursula , “Techniques of modelling and paper-tools in classical chemistry”, in Morgan Mary S. Morrison Margaret (eds), Models as mediators: Perspectives on natural and social science (Cambridge, 1999), 146–67, and expanded in Klein Ursula , Experiments, models and paper tools: Cultures of organic chemistry in the nineteenth century (Stanford, 2003). The role of formulae and especially models in the chemistry of Hofmann and others has recently been examined by Meinel Christoph , “Molecules and croquet balls”, in de Chadarevian Soraya Hopwood Nicholas (eds), Models: The third dimension of science (Stanford, 2005).

Nye Mary Jo , From chemical philosophy to theoretical chemistry: Dynamics of matter and dynamics of disciplines 1800–1950 (Berkeley, 1993), has shown that questions of structure and reactivity in organic chemistry prompted the development of theoretical chemistry as a separate sub-discipline.

Geison Gerald L. , Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology (Princeton, 1978), is the first book-length study of a research school.

Geison Gerald L. Holmes Frederic L. (eds), Research schools: Historical reappraisals (Osiris, n.s., viii (1993)), in which Nye Mary Jo , “National styles'? French and English chemistry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”, 30–49, Rocke Alan J. , “Group research in German chemistry: Kolbe's Marburg and Leipzig Institutes”, 53–79, and Morrell Jack B. , “W. H. Perkin, Jr., at Manchester and Oxford: From Irwell to Isis”, 104–26, appear.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1).

Ibid., 17, on Liebig, and 28, on Thomson.

Kuhn Thomas S. , Structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago, 1962), later emphasized in Kuhn Thomas S. , The essential tension (Chicago, 1977), chap. 9.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 5.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 8, 10.

Geison Gerald L. , “Research schools and new directions in the historiography of science”, in Geison Holmes (eds), op. cit. (ref. 10), 226–38, p. 228.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 6–7, discussed the problematic notion of charisma, which he valued chiefly for conveying “extraordinarily effective … leadership”.

Geison , op. cit. (ref. 9). Geison's conclusions are summarised in chap. 11, pp. 328–63, while his denial that this study is a test of Morrell's model is found in the Preface, p. xv.

In the case of Hofmann and his London school, three contributions to Meinel Christoph Scholz Hartmut (eds), Die Allianz von Wissenschaft und Industrie: August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818–1892): Zeit, Werk, Wirkung (Weinheim, 1992), presented a range of interpretations. Russell Colin A. , “August Wilhelm Hofmann — Cosmopolitan chemist” in Meinel Scholz (eds), op. cit., 65–75, p. 67, referred to transfer of “the whole Giessen model”, whilst both Meinel Christoph , “August Wilhelm Hofmann — ‘Regierender Oberchemiker’” in Meinel Scholz (eds), op. cit., 27–64, p. 35, and Roberts Gerrylynn K. , “Bridging the gap between science and practice: The English years of August Wilhelm Hofmann”, in Meinel Scholz (eds), op. cit., 89–99, p. 89, recognized the need for the Giessen system to be adapted to new circumstances. See also Rocke Alan J. , “Origins and spread of the ‘Giessen Model’ in university science”, Ambix, 1 (2003), 90–115.

Hofmann to Liebig, October-December 1845 [undated], Letter 11 in Brock William H. (ed.), Liebig und Hofmann in Ihren Briefen (1841–1873) (Weinheim, 1984), 39 and 211 (English translation).

Roberts Gerrylynn K. , “The establishment of the Royal College of Chemistry: An investigation of the social context of early Victorian chemistry”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, vii (1976), 437–85.

Hofmann to Liebig, 11 June 1851, Letter 76 in Brock, op. cit. (ref. 20), as paraphrased in English translation, 224. The German original, 116, described how Hofmann had been forced to direct his research away from pure science towards practical application in response to the prevailing scientific environment in Britain.

Michael Polanyi's identification of tacit knowledge as underlying “every single act of articulate communication” led to a new understanding of “science as craft”, an idea that was developed by Ravetz Jerome . See Polanyi Michael , Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy (London, 1962), 203, and Ravetz Jerome R. , Scientific knowledge and its social problems (London, 1971), chap. 3. Olesko Kathryn M. , “Tacit knowledge and school formation”, in Geison Holmes (eds), op. cit. (ref. 10), 16–29, has analysed the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge in school formation. The transmission of tacit skills has been investigated by Collins Harry , Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London, 1985), in his study of the TEA laser, chap. 3.

**24. Olesko Kathryn M. , Physics as a calling: Discipline and practice in the Königsberg Seminar for Physics (Ithaca, NY, 1991), and Warwick Andrew C. , Masters of theory (Chicago, 2003). In the case of Königsberg, the absence of a family of related problems led Olesko to deny that her subject of study was a research school, while Warwick has explored the question of when a research school of mathematical physics could usefully be said to have emerged in Cambridge at some length. The specific references are to Olesko, op. cit., 8, and Warwick, op. cit., chap. 6, on the emergence of the Maxwellian research school of electromagnetic theory.

Latour Bruno Woolgar Steven , Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts (London, 1979), and Latour Bruno , Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Milton Keynes, 1987).

Cahan David , “The institutional revolution in German physics, 1865–1914”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, xv (1985), 1–65, and Cahan David , An institute for an empire: The Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, 1871–1918 (Cambridge, 1989). James Frank A. L. (ed.), The development of the laboratory: Essays on the place of experiment in industrial civilisation (Basingstoke and London, 1989) is exemplary of the relative neglect of chemical laboratories. This collection of thirteen essays on the development of laboratory science in the nineteenth century contains only three essays on chemical laboratories, of which only two are concerned with the laboratory as a physical space.

Gooday Graeme , “Precision measurement and the genesis of physics teaching laboratories in Victorian Britain”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 25–51, and Schaffer Simon , “Late Victorian metrology and its instrumentation: A manufactory of Ohms” in Bud Robert Cozzens Susan E. (eds), Invisible connections: Instruments, institutions, and science (Bellingham, WA, 1992), 23–56. Where historians have addressed chemistry laboratories, they have generally concentrated on the period up to and including the eighteenth century, as in the case of Holmes Frederic L. , Eighteenth century chemistry as an investigative enterprise (Berkeley, 1989), and Maurice Crosland's recent discussion of laboratories as the location of experimental science, Crosland Maurice , “Early laboratories c. 1600-c. 1800 and the location of experimental science”, Annals of science, lxii (2005), 233–53.

Holmes Frederic L. , “The complementarity of teaching and research in Liebig's laboratory” in Olesko Kathryn M. (ed.), Science in Germany: The intersection of institutional and intellectual issues (Osiris, n.s., v (1989)), 121–64, p. 163.

The RCC was created to house Hofmann's research school, which remained at the RCC's Oxford Street laboratories even after the merger between the RCC and the Royal School of Mines (RSM) in 1853. Thus, the RCC and Hofmann's research school are broadly synonymous, and are used interchangeably throughout this article.

Brock, op. cit. (ref. 20), 36. Letter 10, undated [October? 1845], is Hofmann's first to Liebig following his arrival in London. See Fruton Joseph S. , “The Liebig research group — A reappraisal”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxxxii (1988), 1–66, p. 50, on Bleibtreu's training in Giessen.

See Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), for a recent analysis of Hofmann's research program, also studied by Bentley Jonathan , “The work in England of A. W. von Hofmann, Professor of Chemistry at the Royal College of Chemistry 1845–1865”, unpublished M.Sc. dissertation, University of Leicester, 1969.

One such was William H. Perkin, whose 1856 preparation of mauve led to the development of the hugely profitable dyestuff industry.

The key modern literature on the RCC under Hofmann includes Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21), Bentley Jonathan , “The Chemical Department of the Royal School of Mines: Its origins and development under A. W. Hofmann”, Ambix, xvii (1970), 153–81, Meinel Scholz (eds), op. cit. (ref. 19), and Travis Anthony S. , The rainbow makers (Bethlehem, 1993). One study that explicitly addresses training and research at the RCC is Gay Hannah , ‘“Pillars of the College’: Assistants at the Royal College of Chemistry, 1846–1871”, Ambix, xlvii (2000), 135–69, a detailed examination of the work and leisure activities of the professors' assistants between 1846 and 1871. Although Gay makes some interesting comments on the social interactions that were promoted in the new laboratory setting, including the value of the independence fostered amongst the lower-class students, her more oblique engagement with the research school literature, coupled with the “sketchier” archival evidence for the early part of her period, limit the relevance of her work to this methodological discussion (the quotation is from p. 139).

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1).

In addition, Morrell's admitted use of mainly secondary sources for his work on Liebig warrants some comment. Morrell gave Jacob Volhard's 1909 biography of Liebig as his major source, and although, as Brock has urged, Volhard consulted all the available documentary evidence, Volhard's status as official biographer, pupil and family friend of Liebig, suggests a likely bias in his assessment, see Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 3, and Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), p. xii. Note also Usselmann Melvyn C. , Reinhardt Christina Foulser Kelly Rocke Alan J. , “Restaging Liebig: A study in the replication of experiments”, Annals of science, lxii (2005), 1–55, which refers to an error in Volhard's biography concerning the development of the Kaliapparat.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 61–62. Alkaloids are a group of basic nitrogenous natural products that includes morphine, quinine, strychnine, brucine, and cinchonine.

Holmes , op. cit. (ref. 28), and Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19).

Holmes , op. cit. (ref. 28).

Fruton , op. cit. (ref. 30), 33–34. Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 63.

Fruton , op. cit. (ref. 30), 34.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 18–20. Of Liebig's British students, eleven obtained prestigious university appointments, but none of them is recognized as having established a successful research school. Even amongst his German students, Hofmann's leadership of the RCC was exceptional but, as I argue, highly significant.

Bentley , op. cit. (ref. 19), 154. See also Brock William H. Stark Suzanne , “Liebig, Gregory and the British Association, 1837–1842”, Ambix, xxxvii (1990), 134–47, concerning the role that William Gregory played in encouraging his teacher, Liebig, to come to Britain. Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 94–114, also discussed Liebig's influence on British chemistry, including his Familiar letters on chemistry (London, 1843).

Liebig sent Hofmann the proofs in November 1845 and they were translated into English by Hofmann that winter. See Brock , op. cit. (ref. 20), 38–43, Letters 11–13.

The Giessen-trained Scottish chemist, William Gregory, was one of the main advocates of British laboratory schools based on Liebig's. See Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21), 462, fn 70, Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 69, and Brock Stark , op. cit. (ref. 42).

Russell , op. cit. (ref. 19), 72, shows a family tree of Hofmann's chemical descendants, many of whom were British.

Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19), and Usselmann Melvyn C. , op. cit. (ref. 35). The detailed account was Liebig Justus , “Analyse, organische”, Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie, i (Braunschweig, 1836–42), 357–400 (1837), which appeared simultaneously from the same publisher as a separate monograph, Anleitung zur Analyse organischer Körper, and was translated by Gregory William as Instructions for the chemical analysis of organic bodies (Glasgow, 1839).

Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35), 47.

Collins , op. cit. (ref. 23), 73. This is the second of six propositions that emerged from the study of the TEA Laser that comprised chap. 3 of Collins's book.

Bryant John H. , “Heinrich Hertz's experiments and experimental apparatus: His discovery of radio waves and his delineation of their properties”, in Baird Davis Hughes R. I. G. Nordmann Alfred (eds), Heinrich Hertz: Classical physicist and modern philosopher (Dordrecht, 1998), 39–58, described the author's modern replications of Hertz's classic experiments. Following Hertz's publication of his results, “other investigators promptly got into the act” (p. 54). See Glasser Otto , Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the early history of the Roentgen Rays (London, 1933), 30–32, on the rapid replication of Röntgen's experiments in many laboratories.

Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35), 45–46, italics in original. These points are also germane to the discussion in Klein, op. cit. (ref. 5).

Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19), 98.

Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35), 48.

Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19), 98, fn. 24 refers to the Liebig—Berzelius correspondence edited by Carrière Justus , Berzelius und Liebig: Ihre Briefe von 1831–1845 (Wiesbaden, 1967), 43, 46, 49–51, 60, 66, 68, and the Liebig—Woehler correspondence, Wallach , op. cit. (ref. 3), 609. The same references to primary sources were interpreted as Liebig's gift to Berzelius of a Kaliapparat to try out by Holmes op. cit. (ref. 28), 142. The direct quotation is from a letter from Berzelius to Liebig, 30 August 1833, Carrière , op. cit., 68, and is my translation of the original: “Für das schöne Geschenk von … Apparat zu organischen Analysen … statte ich Ihnen meinen verbindlichsten Dank ab. — Möchte ich vom Apparate einen würdigen Gebrauch machen können. Sie waren zwei, der eine war aber zerbrochen; dieses bedeutet aber nichts da ich mir selbst so viele ich nur will nach dem erhaltenen Modelle blasen kann.”.

See Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 3), 22, regarding Berzelius's visit to Germany in 1830. Rocke Alan J. , “Organic analysis in comparative perspective: Liebig, Dumas, and Berzelius, 1811–1837”, in Holmes Frederic L. Levere Trevor H. (eds), Instruments and experimentation in the history of chemistry (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 273–310, p. 288, has also noted that it was not until March 1835, more than 18 months later, that archival evidence exists to confirm that Berzelius was using the Kaliapparat on a regular basis. See Wallach , op. cit. (ref. 3), letter from Berzelius to Woehler, 20 March 1835.

Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35), 48.

A similar description of the transmission of blowpipe analysis has been developed by Dolan Brian , “Embodied skills and travelling savants: Experimental chemistry in eighteenth-century Sweden and England”, in Simñes Ana Carneiro Ana Diogo Maria Paula , Travels of learning: A geography of science in Europe (Dordrecht, 2003), 115–41. As Dolan has commented (p. 117), “[p]ublications on blowpipe analysis were descriptions of experimental practices linked to particular contexts”, which included artisanal familiarity with glassblowing. The transfer of blowpipe analysis, which demanded a high degree of skill from the analyst, from Sweden to England was not achieved by the publication of written instructions alone. Practitioners travelled to Sweden, where they received face-to-face, practical training, and then returned home to pass their skills on to others.

Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35), 11–12, 43–44. The Kaliapparat is thought to have been developed from a much simpler glass U-tube which, when filled with lye, absorbed carbon dioxide gas in a manner exactly analogous to the existing practice in which water vapour was trapped during its passage through a tube containing the drying agent, calcium chloride. Quotation from p. 44.

Gregory , op. cit. (ref. 46).

William Gregory's letter to Liebig, 25 September 1840, cited in Brock Stark , op. cit. (ref. 42), 140.

Griffin John J. , Descriptive catalogue of chemical apparatus complete to 1850 (London, 1850), Part 1, July 1841, 37, which advertised “LIEBIG'S APPARATUS FOR ORGANIC ANALYSIS, made exactly after patterns received from Professor Liebig”.

Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19), 111, linked the spread of the “Giessen model” of laboratory training, which incorporated the use of the Kaliapparat, to Britain with Hofmann's arrival and the establishment of the RCC in 1845.

Gooday , op. cit. (ref. 27).

Schaffer , op. cit. (ref. 27), described how Glazebrook and Shaw's textbook of experimental physics became the standard throughout Britain and the Empire.

The Kaliapparat has been extensively studied, most notably by Rocke, opera cit. (refs 19 and 54) and Usselmann , op. cit. (ref. 35).

Holmes , op. cit. (ref. 28), addressed exactly this question for the Giessen laboratory, and see also Fruton , op. cit. (ref. 30). In the earlier period, Holmes , op. cit. (ref. 27), provided a description of eighteenth-century chemistry laboratories as places of research, whilst Rocke , op. cit. (ref. 19), discussed the laboratory training of pharmacists prior to Liebig.

Fischer Emil Beckmann Ernst , Das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie Berlin-Dahlem (Braunschweig, 1913), 7–8, described the early stages in gaining support for the new institute.

Fischer Beckmann , op. cit., 19, which was part of Fischer's address on the opening of the new institute: “Indessen ist die Gesellschaft keineswegs der Meinung, es habe sich die alte deutsche innige Verbindung von Forschung und Lehre allmählich überlebt. Im Gegenteil — Noch immer offenbart sie ihren Segen, und noch immer befruchten sich Forschung und Lehre aufs trefflichste. Auch an diesen Instituten wird die Lehre nicht ganz ausfallen; denn wo gäbe es einen Forscher, der nicht mittelbar und unmittelbar lehrt und Schüler um sich sammelt?”.

In the case of late nineteenth-century organic chemistry, the routine skills were isolation, purification, analysis and identification.

Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), chap. 9, described how Arthur Eddington became the first Cambridge mathematician and astronomer to understand and appreciate Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, a process that was brokered by the Dutch astronomer, Willem de Sitter.

Ibid., chap. 1, and references therein to Foucault Michel , Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (London, 1977). Rouse Joseph , Knowledge and power: Toward a political philosophy of science (Cornell, 1987), also recognized the very close links between Foucault's ideas and those articulated in the work of Jerome Ravetz and Bruno Latour.

See Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), chap. 4, on the discipline demanded of students of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, and chap. 5, on the coaching system that arose to support the rigours of such competitive training. Quotations from pp. 241 and 228 respectively.

Liebig's innovation of the Kaliapparat for measuring the mass of carbon dioxide produced on combustion of organic matter was similar in concept to Gay-Lussac's earlier modification for water, and was followed by the development of a similar piece of apparatus for the accurate analysis of nitrogen content by Will and Varrentrapp.

Hofmann August W. , “Researches conducted in the laboratories of the Royal College of Chemistry”, Reports of the Royal College of Chemistry, and researches conducted in the laboratories in the years 1845-6-7 (London, 1849), XLV–LXIII, pp. XLV–XLVI.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 45–46, has also noted this similarity between Giessen and the Mathematical Tripos. See also Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), 235–6, on Edward Routh's use of biweekly “fights” to accustom his students to working at speed and his use of a publicly displayed mark list to encourage competition.

Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 36–37.

This is part of a fragment of Liebig's autobiographical notes cited by Fruton , op. cit. (ref. 30), 18, in Fruton's own translation.

A remark from Liebig to Kekulé, quoted in Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 319.

Brock , op. cit., 51.

Volhard Jacob Fischer Emil , August Wilhelm von Hofmann: Ein Lebensbild (Berlin, 1902), 3, discussed Hofmann's marriage to Hélène Moldenhauer.

Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), chap. 4. Quotation from p. 179.

Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), 181, for direct quotation, and p. 217 on moral economy.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 65.

Letter from Gibbs to Channing, 22 November 1846, quoted in Brock , op. cit., 62.

Sulphuretted hydrogen (hydrogen sulphide) and nitrous acid (nitric acid) were two of the most commonly used reagents.

Tiemann Ferdinand , “Erinnerung an das fünfundzwanzigjährige Bestehen der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft und an ihren ersten Präsidenten: August Wilhelm von Hofmann veranstaltet Gedächtnissfeier”, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, xxv (1892), 3369–414, 3384–5. See also Ward Edward R. , “Charles Blatchford Mansfield, 1819–55: Coal tar chemist and social reformer”, Chemistry in Britain, xv (1979), 297–304.

*86. Perkin William H. , “Hofmann Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Chemical Society, lxix (1896), 596–637, p. 602.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 41, and 334. Liebig's original 1824 laboratory, created on his return from studying with Gay Lussac in Paris, had been housed in the Giessen garrison block, moving to a purpose-built addition to the building, which housed a library and lecture theatre as well as the famous teaching laboratory, in 1839. Hofmann himself was later responsible for improving the design of fume cupboards by introducing gas jets to increase the flow of air. See Brock , “Liebig's and Hofmann's impact on British scientific culture”, in Meinel Scholz , op. cit. (ref. 19), 77–80, p. 80.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 70–71; Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 1), 36–37.

Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), chap. 6, on the emergence of the Maxwellian research school in Cambridge.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 70–71.

The central importance of assistants has been discussed in the context of the RCC in Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), and Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6). Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 62, has also recognized the “considerable roles” played by Liebig's assistants in teaching.

Bentley op. cit. (ref. 33), and Roberts op. cit. (ref. 21), are examples of the former, whilst Playfair Lord , “Hofmann Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Chemical Society, lxix (1896), 575–9, and Volhard Fischer , op. cit. (ref. 78), fall into the latter category. Hofmann August W. , “A page of scientific history: Reminiscences of the early days of the Royal College of Chemistry”, Quarterly journal of science, viii (1871), 145–53, provides an autobiographical perspective, but a contemporary account is contained in Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 73). It is worth emphasizing that the RCC was not founded within a university context. Like Liebig's early institute in Giessen, the RCC was initially privately funded. It acquired state funding upon its merger with the Royal School of Mines (RSM) in 1853 and was eventually incorporated within Imperial College.

Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21), 464.

Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 92), 145.

Playfair , op. cit. (ref. 92), 577–8.

Roberts Gerrylynn K. , “The Royal College of Chemistry (1845–1853): A social history of chemistry in early-Victorian England”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1973, 9–10.

Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21), 439–40.

Abel Frederick A. , “Hofmann Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Chemical Society, lxix (1896), 580–96, pp. 581–2.

The professions of students enrolling at the RCC are taken from a register that is held in the Imperial College Archive.

Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 92), 146, recalled Sir James Clark's suggestion that Liebig be called upon to recommend one of his assistants.

Ibid., 146–8.

Volhard Fischer , op. cit. (ref. 79), 3, showed the Hofmann family tree. Hofmann married four times, firstly to Hélène Moldenhauer on 12 August 1846, and thirdly to her sister Elise. Hofmann survived all of his wives. Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 44, also discussed Hofmann's close connections by marriage to the Moldenhauer family — Liebig was married to Hélène and Elise's aunt, Henriette [Jettchen] Moldenhauer.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 20), Letter 8 from Sir Clark James to Liebig , 23 August 1845, 33–34.

Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), 236. Hofmann acknowledged Nanny's rejection of his suit in at letter to Liebig. Brock , op. cit. (ref. 20), 184–5, Letter 141, dated 10 December 1854. Hofmann wrote to Liebig once more in January 1855, but then not until June 1858.

Bentley , op. cit. (ref. 33), 161, included a quotation from a letter from Thomas Graham, then Professor of Chemistry at University College, to his brother John describing a meeting in 1844 between Graham, Buckland, Peel and Liebig at which Liebig had expressed a very similar view. The direct quotation is from a letter from Liebig to Prof. Dr Schleiden at Jena, 16 July 1846, in the collection of the Royal Society of Chemistry Library.

Abel , op. cit. (ref. 98), 588, contains the direct quotation. See also Armstrong Henry E. , “Hofmann Memorial Lecture”, Journal of the Chemical Society, lxix (1896), 637–732, p. 638, on Hofmann's qualities as a leader.

Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 73), p. XLIX, on pure and applied science. The quotation is from Hofmann , “Prefatory remarks”, Reports (ref. 73), pp. V–XXII, XLIII.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 45–46, described the analytical “alphabet” along with regular Saturday examinations through which both Liebig and Hofmann trained their new students. Hofmann used the textbook of analysis written by Heinrich Will to support Liebig's course. Correspondence between Liebig and Hofmann shows that Hofmann was desperate to have Will's textbook, so much so that Liebig sent proof copies in November 1845 — See Brock . op. cit. (ref. 20), Liebig to Hofmann, 29 November 1845 (LM 589: 4 S), 40, and English summary, 211. The published version, Will Heinrich , Outlines of organic analysis (London, 1846), included Liebig, op. cit. (ref. 46).

“Royal College of Chemistry: Statement of the Council”, 10, printed as an Appendix to Hofmann, Reports (ref. 73).

Hofmann , Reports (ref. 73), pp. XLVII–XLVIII.

Brown James Campbell , Essays and addresses (London, 1914), 75.

Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 144.

Brown , op. cit. (ref. 111), 66. See Armstrong , op. cit. (ref. 106), 588, which also described the occasional impromptu lectures delivered by Hofmann in the laboratory. It is noteworthy that Hofmann did not deliver a formal course of lectures at the RCC until the new laboratory in Oxford Street was well established, well over a year after instruction had begun. Lectures were therefore a desirable but not essential complement to the crucial laboratory-based training program.

Hofmann , Reports (ref. 73), p. XLVII.

See Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 139. Note also that Gay emphasized the importance of the RCC as a social leveller in which young men (and a few women) from diverse backgrounds learnt to work together, a feature of which Hofmann himself was also extremely proud. See, for example, Hofmann's report in the Minutes of General Meetings of the RCC, 5 June 1848 (C5/564 Imperial College Archive).

Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21), 473.

Hofmann , Reports (ref. 73), pp. XII–XIII.

See Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 129–36, and especially 134–5, and see also Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 21).

Hofmann , Reports (ref. 73), p. XII, described possible reasons for the difficulty of obtaining funds, whilst Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 92), 151, related Hofmann's decision to accept only half his salary, which he presented as a gesture of solidarity towards Sir James Clark.

Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 96).

Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), 15 and 211. Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33).

Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 140–1. See also Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), 228–9. Hofmann held the position of Assayer to the Royal Mint.

Keas , op. cit., 216–34.

B-Club Collection, Royal Society of Chemistry Library. Letter from August Bopp to Hofmann, reprinted in Hofmann August W. , “Zur Erinnerung an Peter Griess”, Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, xxiv (Referate, 1891), 1007–57, p. 1038.

Hofmann introduced the German system of two sessions per year to the RCC.

Abel , op. cit. (ref. 98), 589, described this process of handing over detailed practical knowledge.

Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 142, has enumerated the responsibilities of the early teaching assistants.

Minutes of Council RCC, 23 March 1846 (C3/567 Imperial College Archive).

Minutes of the General Meetings RCC, 5 June 1848, Hofmann's Report to Council (C5/564 Imperial College Archive).

Minutes of Council RCC, 2 August 1848 (C3/567 Imperial College Archive).

Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), 128.

Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 141.

Armstrong Henry E. , Pre-Kensington history of the Royal College of Science and the university problem (Address given to the Old Students Association of the Royal College of Science, September, 1920; printed version, 1921, in the Imperial College Archive), 3–4.

Armstrong , op. cit. (ref. 106), 640.

Ibid., 591, and see also Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 80.

Gay , op. cit. (ref. 33), 140–1, discussed the position of Hofmann's German assistants. Footnotes 32 and 115 enable the compilation of a list of these assistants, who included the expert glassblower, Hermann Sprengel.

Gay, op. cit., 140.

Keas , op. cit. (ref. 6), 234.

Keas , op. cit., 318.

Hofmann , Reports (ref. 73), p. XLVIII.

Liebig Justus , Instructions for the chemical analysis of organic bodies. 2nd edn (London, 1853).

Bloxam Charles L. Abel Frederick A. , Hand-book of chemistry: Theoretical, practical, and technical (London, 1854).

The first edition was Fownes George , Manual of chemistry (London, 1844). Bentley , op. cit. (ref. 31), 94, described how Hofmann and Bence Jones produced a large number of revised editions during the late 1840s and the 1850s. Hofmann was also a staunch supporter of the Library Committee formed by students of the RCC. The library of the RCC continued to stock Fownes until at least the mid-1870s, when it had reached its 11th edition, see the Library Catalogue of the RCC (983 SC Imperial College Archive).

Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 6), p. viii. Hofmann wrote this textbook, which he based on the lecture course that he had developed at the RCC, as a parting gift before his return to Germany, see Brock , op. cit. (ref. 4), 50.

Warwick Andrew C. Kaiser David , “Conclusion: Kuhn, Foucault, and the power of pedagogy”, in Kaiser David (ed.), Pedagogy and the practice of science: Historical and contemporary perspectives (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 393–409, p. 400.

Examination papers are available in the Prospectuses of the RSM (D2/272 Imperial College Archive).

Examination in Chemistry, 1856.

Examination in Chemistry, 1861. One question which was far distant from Hofmann's own research interests concerned the chemical conditions involved in coal mine accidents and some of the precautions suggested for avoiding them.

Examination in Chemistry, 1865.

Brock , op. cit. (ref. 20), 36–37. Letter 10, undated [October?] 1845.

Abel , op. cit. (ref. 98), 588, referred to Liebig and Hofmann's involvement. Minutes of Committees, 18 November 1846, records the establishment of a Laboratory Committee at the RCC (C4/568 Imperial College Archive). Hofmann's appointment took place at a Council Meeting, 19 October 1846 (C3/566 Rough Minute Book Imperial College Archive). My study of the minutes revealed only one occasion, in June 1846, when Hofmann's absence from a meeting of the Building Committee was recorded.

I am grateful to Malte Gather for his help with the translation of Volhard Fischer , op. cit. (ref. 78), 32: “[A]ndere wollten daraus eine Art von Panopticum machen, das durch glänzende Ausstellungen, unterhaltende unbelehrende Abendvorlesungen haufenweise Mitglieder anlocken würde.” I also thank Simon Schaffer for drawing my attention to the meaning of ‘panopticon’ in this context. Volhard's paraphrasing of Hofmann , op. cit. (ref. 92), 150–1, made explicit the earlier implicit reference to the then popular German panoptica as places of entertainment, rather than to Jeremy Bentham's 1843 Panopticon inspired by the Parisian École Polytechnique.

Armstrong , op. cit. (ref. 106), 690.

Hofmann August W. , “On the use of gas as a fuel in organic analysis”, Quarterly journal of the Chemical Society, vi (1854), 209–16.

Complaints from neighbours of the RCC were a recurring problem, especially in its temporary accommodation. For example, the proposed system of ventilation for the new building was recommended by the Building Committee explicitly as a means of avoiding such complaints. Minutes of Building Committee, 18 February 1846 (C3/566 Imperial College Archive).

Perkin William H. , “Some of the laboratories I have worked in” (1906), a MS quoted in “100 years of synthetic dyestuffs”, Tetrahedron, Supplement 1, vii (1958), 18, and cited in Bentley , op. cit. (ref. 33), 174, lamented the lack of provision for ventilation in the laboratories of the RCC. It is noteworthy that even in 1906 Perkin did not use the term ‘fume cupboard'. Perkin's claim that at the time of the merger with the RSM, the laboratory contained nothing remotely resembling modern fume cupboards is at odds with the references to “enclosures” in the records of the RCC, but nevertheless all the available documentary evidence supports the inference that the facilities for ventilation at the RCC were primitive and probably limited by cost.

Minutes of General Meetings, 3 June 1850 (C5/564 Imperial College Archive).

Minutes of Council, 18 December 1849 (C3/567 Imperial College Archive).

Minutes of Council, 16 July, 18 November and 17 December 1850 and 21 January 1851 (C3/567 Imperial College Archive).

Hofmann's description is cited in Armstrong, op. cit. (ref. 106), 708–9.

Hofmann August W. , “Report on the chemical laboratories in process of building in the Universities of Bonn and Berlin”, Thirteenth report of the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education (London, 1866), 291–342. When Hofmann was planning his return to Germany, he originally intended to return to Bonn but was subsequently called to Berlin and he was involved in the building of new institutes for chemistry in both cities.

Minutes of Council Meeting, 23 September 1845 (C3/566 Imperial College Archive). The Council Minutes record purchases of German glassware amounting to some £150 on the following dates: 6 January 1846, 14 July 1847, 13 December 1848, and 15 January 1850.

Griffin John J. , Descriptive catalogue of chemical apparatus manufactured and imported by J. J. Griffin. New edition, corrected to March 1850 (London, 1850), Part 1 (catalogue published July 1841), 37, italics in original. Note that, although Griffin was by no means the only local supplier of glassware to the RCC, this paper refers only to Griffin's catalogues.

Griffin did not supply accurately graduated glassware in Britain until 1849, see Griffin John J. , Scientific circular, no. 9 (May 1849), contained within Griffin , op. cit. (ref. 163). An extensive range of such items first appeared in Griffin John J. , Chemical handicraft: A classified and descriptive catalogue of chemical apparatus (London, 1866), 455.

Sprengel was Hofmann's assistant at the RCC in 1862, and later became widely known for his improvements to Heinrich Geissler's vacuum pump in 1865, see L'Estrange Gerard , Nineteenth-century scientific instruments (London, 1983), 103–4.

Musterbuch translates as pattern book, and is item 1005 in the catalogue of the Imperial College Archive.

The tentative dating of the Musterbuch is based on a comparison between the items it shows and the Griffin catalogues published between 1841 and 1866. Not all the items of apparatus that appear in the Musterbuch are to be found in the Griffin catalogue, even as late as 1866. The neat German script in the Musterbuch is not Hofmann's.

The syringes are items 35–352 in the Musterbuch. Griffin , op. cit. (ref. 164), 179, listed three items under the heading “Syringes or glass pumps”, item 1714 corresponded to item 342 in the Musterbuch, whilst items 1715 and 1716 corresponded to various sizes similar to item 335. (Note that Griffin , op. cit., 400–1, also advertised an Air Pump or Syringe for exhausting air from glass tubes, but these syringes were not made from glass.).

See refs 95 and 96. My interpretation of the rhetorical significance of such claims differs from Roberts's view that they were narrowly focused propaganda for the RCC. Instead I suggest that they were aimed to increase the status of chemistry, so that it would be recognized as a valuable and central scientific discipline within the universities.

See Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), 211, on educational and moral economies.

Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 24), 37–39, has shown that it is through the detailed study of systems of training, of how they differ from one location to another, and of how they are adapted to different geographical and temporal demands, that the methods of transmission of acquired expertise are best made visible.

Djerassi Carl , “Foreword”, in Morris Peter J. T. (ed.), From classical to modern chemistry: The instrumental revolution (Cambridge, 2000), p. vi.

The most notorious of these was Berthollet's fulminating silver, which “cannot be touched without producing a violent explosion. It is the most dangerous preparation known; for the contact of fire is not necessary to cause it to detonate. It explodes by the mere touch of any substance. Its very preparation is so hazardous, that it is not to be safely attempted without a mask with strong glass eyes upon the face. No more than a single grain will admit of exhibiting its effect, and even that quantity must be approached with caution. A larger portion cannot be exploded without imminent danger.” See Accum Fredrick , A system of practical and theoretical chemistry (London, 1803), 149–50, italics in original.

For example, Fischer described the effects of exposure to Phenylhydrazine, a substance first prepared by him in 1878 and which formed the basis of his research program for years afterwards. As well as eczema, Fischer attributed his chronic digestive problems to poisoning by Phenylhydrazine. At the end of his life, Fischer was suffering from cancer of the colon which is also considered to have resulted from exposure to this substance. Fischer Emil , Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1987 [1922]), 140. Fischer's final illness was investigated by the toxicologist Lewin Lewis , Naturwissenschaften, vii (1919), 878–92, as cited in Bernhard Witkorp's Prologue to Aus meinem Leben, p. xvi.

See, for example, the introduction concerning laboratory safety in Fischer Emil , Anleitung zur Darstellung Organischer Praeparate, Siebente neu durchgesehene und vergroesserte Auflage (Braunschweig, 1905). This is the earliest example of such instruction in a textbook that I have seen and advocates the routine wearing of eye protection in the laboratory.