In the 1840s, professionalization of pharmacy in Great Britain made significant steps forward, so in 1841 the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was founded, followed by university education in 1842. A significant number of early pharmaceutical leaders had received training in Germany, particularly in Justus Liebig’s Laboratory in Gießen. Among those was George Fownes (1815-1849) who visited Gießen between 1837 and 1839. He was appointed the first professor of chemistry at the School of Pharmacy in 1842. John Llooyd Bullock who was in Gießen in 1842 was one of the founding members of the Pharmaceutical Society. We may assume that Gießen visitors influenced the Society to establish a laboratory for teaching chemistry. Opened in 1844 it was one of the firsts of its kind in Britain. Liebig himself inspected the venue during a stay in London. Edward Frankland (1825-1899) who started his career in pharmacy and later became professor of chemistry in Manchester came to Germany and received his PhD at the University of Marburg. Germany was still regarded a place worth to be visited for studies so William Martindale (1840-1904) sent his son, William Harrison Martindale (1874-1933) to Marburg for doing his PhD thesis. The first major British pharmaceutical textbook, Theophilus Redwoods “Practical Pharmacy”, edited in 1849, was translated from the German “Lehrbuch der Pharmaceutischen Technik, written by Carl-Friedrich Mohr (1806-1879) later working at the University of Bonn. The translater, however, made several changes to meet the particluar needs of the British pharmaceutical chemist. Redwood also had connections to Liebig as shown in a written correspondence about the conservation of meat.

In the 20th century clinical pharmacy services developed much faster in the UK than in Germany. British hospital pharmacists helped a lot in establishing continuing education programs partcularly in the 1980’s and 1990’s. This may serve as a late example of knowledge transfer as well – in the opposite direction than in the 19th century.