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The Changing Content of Conversations on Chemistry As a Snapshot of the Development of Chemical Science Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 42, Number 1 (2017) 7 THE CHANGING CONTENT OF CONVERSATIONS ON CHEMISTRY AS A SNAPSHOT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE G. J. Leigh, University of Sussex; [email protected] Mrs. Marcet’s two-volume Conversations on Chem- students and a teacher, were not novel for the period, and istry was initially published anonymously in 1806 (1). even already a little dated in 1805. That the anonymous The name of the author, Jane Marcet, first appeared on writer and the teacher in the book, Mrs. B, were both the thirteenth edition of 1837 (2), though her name and women certainly was novel. Even more noteworthy is reputation were widely that the preface states that Table 1. The publication dates and print runs of the various known long before then. A the book was directed at editions of Conversations on Chemistry, data abstracted directly biography of Jane Marcet from the Longmans Archive at the University of Reading, UK. women. It also described has been published (3), experiments that could be and there are numerous Year Edition or Impression Print Run performed at home, perhaps short articles about her, in the kitchen, though most principally concerning were originally performed Conversations on Chem- 1806 First edition 1000 by Mrs. Marcet in the labo- istry and another popular 1807 Second edition 1000 ratory set up by her husband book Conversations on 1809 Third edition 1500 in her father’s house in St. Political Economy. Con- Not recorded Fourth edition Not recorded Mary Axe, in London. It is versations on Chemistry remarkable that a popular 1813 Fifth edition 1500 was one of the most in- chemistry book first pub- fluential chemistry books 1817 Sixth edition 1500 lished in 1806 should still of the nineteenth century. 1819 Seventh edition 1500 excite interest today, but it The way in which it came 1822 Eighth edition 1500 has concerned historians not to be written has recently 1824 Ninth edition 1000 only because the author was been described in detail a pioneer in writing about 1825 Tenth edition 2000 (4, 5) though other writ- chemistry but also because ers have provided some 1828 Eleventh edition 2000 she was a rarity as woman of the background mate- 1832 Twelfth edition 1500 writer in a field of science. rial (6). The appearance 1837 Thirteenth edition 1000 Conversations in Chemistry of the title page and the 1841 Fourteenth edition 1000 was also an unusual chem- kind of content, a series istry book in that it was 1846 Fifteenth edition 1000 of dialogues between two continuously revised by its 1852 Sixteenth edition 1000 8 Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 42, Number 1 (2017) author throughout its sixteen editions, which are listed in The Chemistry Content of Conversations on Table 1, and the author took every opportunity in her text Chemistry to echo the latest scientific developments. She personally knew luminaries such as Wollaston, Davy, Berzelius, Chemistry books of the early nineteenth century, Smithson Tennant, and Faraday, and she certainly relied like Conversations on Chemistry itself, were generally upon them for the latest scientific information (6). directed to a voluntary audience (9, 10). Discussion of Conversations on Chemistry in the past has tended to When Jane Marcet died in 1858, she was widely be based upon selected editions, often the first of 1806, recognized as an expert in education, science and eco- of which an account has recently been published (11). nomics, despite never having attended a formal education Though that account is titled Chemistry in the School- establishment at any time in her life. After the French room: 1806, there were precious few schoolrooms in revolution of 1789, there was a widespread antagonism which chemistry was taught at that time. in parts of British society towards French ideas, but nev- ertheless after 1790 the “French chemistry” propounded People who read such books usually studied alone by Lavoisier and his colleagues gradually established and voluntarily rather than enrolling as students in itself in both Scotland and England. This process took classrooms. Jane Marcet revised her text throughout its perhaps twenty years, and one of the major influences publication life of about fifty years, so that a comparison in its general adoption was Conversations in Chemistry, of an early edition and a late edition provides an informa- written by an author who was at the time of the original tive picture of how chemical science was changing. The publication essentially unrecognized outside her family. reactions of the three participants in the Conversations, a tutor Mrs. B and two students, Emily and Caroline, also How this came about raises the questions of what convey a picture of the political and social atmosphere of kind of person the author, Jane Marcet, was. Her preoc- that period. Conversations is not a dry text. The partici- cupations were often not dissimilar to those of many pants emerge from the two volumes as real individuals. contemporaneous researchers, as illustrated by Jenny Here we compare the twenty-five Conversations of the Uglow’s masterly accounts (7, 8) of the people who second edition (12, Figure 1) with the corresponding provided a significant impulse to the British Industrial Conversations in thirteenth edition (Figure 2), the first to Revolution in the 1780s. bear the author’s name, and described by her as enlarged Jane was the daughter of a wealthy Swiss banker and corrected (2), but it is not intended to imply that the and businessman, Antoine Haldimand, who settled in changes noted in the thirteenth edition compared to the London after working for some time in Italy. He became second edition were made only in 1837. Changes were a British subject and married the daughter of a British made gradually in successive editions, but the thirteenth business acquaintance. Jane was born in 1769. He and edition provides a useful place to summarize the changes later Jane maintained the connection with their Swiss up to that edition. In both editions, Volume 1 carries the relations. In 1794 Alexandre (later Alexander) Marcet subtitle On Simple Bodies, and Volume II the subtitle On was born in Geneva in 1770, and was banished from his Compound Bodies. We consider first Volume 1. home city as a consequence of his life and activities when the French Revolution finally reached there. He went to Conversation 1, On the General Principles of study medicine at what was then the foremost school of Chemistry medicine in Europe, the University of Edinburgh, and there he came under the influence of Joseph Black and Mrs. B makes clear that Emily and Caroline should became interested in chemistry. He graduated in 1797 and already be familiar with “elementary notions of NATU- moved to London where he practiced as a fever surgeon RAL PHILOSOPHY” but Caroline is not so keen on and physician. He married Jane in 1799 and remained learning more: “To confess the truth, Mrs. B I am not interested in chemistry until he died in 1822. Whether disposed to form a very favourable idea of chemistry, nor he still pronounced his surname in the French style do I expect to derive much entertainment from it.” This (“Marsay”) or adopted an English variation (“Marset”) provokes a little lecture from Mrs. B: “I rather imagine, is impossible now to determine. my dear Caroline, that your want of taste for chemistry proceeds from the very limited idea you entertain of its object ... Nature also has her laboratory, which is the universe, and there she is incessantly employed in Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 42, Number 1 (2017) 9 Figure 1. The title page of Volume 1 of the second edition of Conversations on Chemistry published in 1807. A facsimile of the first edition has recently been published by Cambridge University Press. The volume illustrated seems to have passed through the libraries of several learned societies in London, and is now in the library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The hand-written words “By Mrs. Marcet” must Figure 2. Title page of Volume 1 of the thirteenth edition of have been added some years after publication, perhaps by a Conversations on Chemistry of 1837, the first that bore the librarian. author’s name. chemical operations.” Caroline is still not entirely con- Emily then asks about chemists and the philoso- vinced until Mrs. B tells her that “Without entering into phers’ stone. Mrs. B dismisses alchemists with the ob- the minute details of practical chemistry, or penetrating servation that “chemistry ... has now become a regular into the profound depths of the science, a woman may and beautiful science” and she justifies it in terms of obtain such a knowledge of chemistry as will not only the useful products that have developed from it. Em- throw an interest on the common occurrences of life, ily again interjects “But I do not understand by what but will enlarge the sphere of her ideas, and render the means chemistry can facilitate labour: is that not rather contemplation of nature a source of delightful instruc- the province of mechanics?” Mrs. B puts her right, cit- tion.” What is surfacing here is a common attitude of ing, amongst other developments, the Steam-Engine, the period to what might be expected of a cultivated but not today generally regarded as a chemistry subject, leisured woman, and also a semi-religious justification but chemists of the period were concerned about the of learning for its own sake. mysteries of the amounts of heat involved in chemical 10 Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 42, Number 1 (2017) reactions and topics such as the latent heats of melting as four constituents of soils) so that the ancient concept and vaporization.
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