Chemistry was the key science in Victorian Manchester, and Manchester was a key site in British chemistry from John Dalton (1766-1844) through the Second World War. This campus tour will include the fine (former) laboratories established by Henry Roscoe in 1873 as he helped lead the expansion of Owens College to full University status. Nearby are the labs associated with the organic chemists Carl Schorlemmer, William Henry Perkin Junior, Chaim Weizmann, Robert Robinson and Alexander Todd, and with the physical chemistry of HB Dixon and Michael Polanyi. Alongside them is the Schunck Building, once the home in North Manchester of the noted industrialist and authority on biological pigments, Edward Schunck: this building, which contained his private laboratory and library, was moved to the present site after his death.

We will also visit the historical displays in the new chemistry laboratories on Brunswick Street, which include Jacob Epstein’s bust of Weizmann and information about Manchester’s many winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. These laboratories stand, appropriately, on the site of the birthplace of J T Merz, chemist and pioneering historian of nineteenth-century science and philosophy!      

The walk will be led by Dr Diana Leitch, a chemist, former Deputy Director of the University of Manchester’s Library, and historian of both chemistry and Manchester, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a member of the RSC Historical Group.

There is no charge for this walk. Numbers will be limited, so please register in advance. You can do this at any time before the Congress by emailing tours@ichstm2013.com with your details; or you can sign up in person at the Congress Events Desk.