This paper introduces a previously unstudied collection of some 2000 chemical samples collected between around 1870 and 1960 and held at the University of Leeds. Chemical museums such as this one are rare, because samples of this kind were always viewed by the chemists who used them as disposable materials. Also, they have historically held little interest to the collector. Yet, for historians they offer a rare glimpse into the day to day workings of a typical turn of the century chemical laboratory. This collection unusually has survived and, as I will argue in this paper, offers tantalising clues as to how chemistry was done in the late 19th and early 20th century, and in particular, how a university such as Leeds related to and interacted with surrounding industry and the broader scientific community.

The collection includes material from well known international brands such as ICI and Boots; it contains material relating to Robert Bunsen and to the 1876 HMS Challenger expedition, yet these connections have never previously been explored. The collection also contains material relating to local Leeds industries, to colour chemistry and the textile industry, to building materials and to local chemical manufacturers.

This paper is a presentation of the very early stages of what will hopefully become an extended research project on this collection. It looks at some of the problems involved in trying to turn a poorly documented collection of 3D artefacts into the subject of a coherent research project. This is research that takes the object, or rather a collection, as the starting point, and looks for clues in that collection that will in some way inform our understanding of some of the broader stories in the history of science.

As a starting point to this research, this paper looks at the Leeds chemical museum collection within the context of other related collections – the colour museum collections in Bradford for example and the HMS Challenger collections at the British Museum. It also considers other, non-object based research on this history of chemistry in the university in this period to establish what the key questions a study of this kind might hope to address.