Monthly Archives: November 2024

SHAC Six Announcements: Seminars, Meetings and Awards

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Dear SHAC Members,

a reminder about seminars, meetings, conferences and awards coming up in the next six months. We hope to see you online or in-person at some of them. Please scroll down to see everything!

1. Next SHAC Online Seminar – Thursday 21 November

The next on-line seminar will be given by Professor Matthew Daniel Eddy (University of Durham) who will present: ‘A Very Curious Subject’: Jane Ewbank, Public Lectures and Experimental Philosophy in Late Georgian York

This will be live on Thursday, 21 November 2024, beginning at 5.00pm GMT (6.00pm CET, 12 noon ET, 9.00am PT). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/t-rpojrkg

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at

2. SHAC Special ICHC14 Award Scheme – Grants to support attendance at 14ICHC in Valencia, Spain, 11-14 June 2025

Applicants are invited to apply for grants under a Special Award Scheme from the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) to support attendance of early-career scholars and independent scholars at the 14th International Conference on the History of Chemistry in Valencia, Spain on 11 June to 14 June 2025. Awards of up to £400 will be made as a contribution towards the cost of travel, accommodation, and registration fees for those giving a paper at the conference. Early-career scholars are defined as post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and those who have obtained a PhD since January 2015. For more information see: https://www.ambix.org/grants/

Deadline for applications is 28 February 2025

3. CHCMS Early Career Lecture Award – Call for nominations

For the 2025 edition, the awardee will be invited as guest to 14ICHC which is taking place in Valencia, Spain, 11-14 June 2025. The awardee will also commit to an interview to be shared through the CHCMS website and YouTube channel. The deadline for submitting nominations is 30 December 2024. The CHCMS Early Career Lecturer will be announced in February 2025. For more information see check the website: https://www.chcms.org/awards.html

4. SHAC Spring Meeting on the Biographies of Alchemists and Chemists

University College London on Saturday 29 March 2025

Offers of papers by 17 December 2024 – please see details at: https://www.ambix.org/2025-spring-meeting-on-the-biographies-of-alchemists-and-chemists/

5. SHAC Brock Award – Call for Nominations

Nominations by 30 June 2025 – please see details at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2024.2420472?src=exp-la

6. Call for Papers for SHAC Session on the Pesticide Chemical Industry in the 20th Century at ICHC 2025 (Valencia) https://www.ambix.org/call-for-papers-shac-session-on-the-pesticide-chemical-industry-in-the-20th-century-at-ichc-2025-valencia/?doing_wp_cron=1731068291.4582250118255615234375

Best wishes,

The SHAC Officers

Pp Frank James

SHAC Special ICHC14 Award Scheme – Grants to support attendance at ICHC14 in Valencia, Spain, 11-14 June 2025

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Applicants are invited to apply for grants under a Special Award Scheme from the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) to support attendance of early-career scholars and independent scholars at the 14th International Conference on the History of Chemistry in Valencia, Spain on 11 June to 14 June 2025. Awards of up to £400 will be made as a contribution towards the cost of travel, accommodation, and registration fees for those giving a paper at the conference. Early-career scholars are defined as post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and those who have obtained a PhD since January 2015. Given that the circumstances of independent scholars differ we are letting members ‘self-define’ and if there are any unclear cases it will be left to the discretion of the Awards Panel.

Applicants must be members of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry in good standing at the time of making an application and if successful through the period of the award. For more information and application forms please contact grants[at]ambix.org stating that you are applying for a grant to attend ICHC. SHAC has the expectation that awardees attend the whole conference, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Details of how to join the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry can be found at https://www.ambix.org/subscription/ . Membership enquiries should be made to newjoiner[at]ambix.org

For further information on the conference – please visit:

https://esdeveniments.uv.es/116631/detail/14th-international-conference-on-the-history-of-chemistry-14ichc.html

The timescale for the conference is as follows:

Deadline for submitting conference proposals: 1 December 2024

Notification of acceptance: 5 February 2025

Provisional Programme: March 2025

Early Bird Registration: before 15 April 2025

Late Registration: 16 April 2025-15 May 2025

Final Programme: Late May 2025

NB: Deadlines may change depending on local arrangements.

The deadline for applications to this Award Scheme is 28 February 2025. It is expected that applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application in good time to register for early-bird conference fees which are available until 15 April 2025.

An activity report must be submitted at the end of the conference. This will usually be published in SHAC’s Chemical Intelligence Newsletter.

Please note that applying for a Special ICHC14 Award does not preclude applying to the usual SHAC Award Scheme for 2025. There is also a separate scheme from the Commission on the History of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences (CHCMS) for ICHC14. Applying for the SHAC Scheme does not preclude application for the CHCMS grant and vice versa. However, it should be noted that there are different eligibility requirements for the two schemes. Should an application be made to both schemes, the evaluation process will be co-ordinated between SHAC and CHCMS.

Online Seminar on Jane Ewbank on Thursday, 21 November 2024

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Matthew Daniel Eddy (University of Durham) who will present:

‘A Very Curious Subject’: Jane Ewbank, Public Lectures and Experimental Philosophy in Late Georgian York

This will be live on Thursday, 21 November 2024, beginning at 5.00pm GMT (6.00pm CET, 12 noon ET, 9.00am PT). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/t-rpojrkg 

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at


Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry 

‘A Very Curious Subject’: Jane Ewbank, Public Lectures and Experimental Philosophy in Late Georgian York

Matthew Daniel Eddy

In September 1809 the artists Thomas Rowlandson and Auguste Charles Pugin published a popular print depicting the audience which had recently attended the public experimental philosophy course given in London’s Surrey Institution. Every seat was full and the audience stared with anticipation at the lecturer. Notably, at least half of the attendees were women and girls.  Though historians have observed that this was a common phenomenon at the time, studies which address the motivations and reactions of female attendees to the scientific ideas presented in such lectures have received less attention. This paper sheds new light on the subject by exploring the 1804 diary entries written by Jane Ewbank of York about the lectures of the traveling experimentalists Henry Moyes and Charles Sylvester. Ewbank’s notes represent one of the fullest known handwritten accounts of a woman who attended experimental lectures during the Regency period. The entries offer noteworthy examples of how Ewbank used scribal media to process and remember scientific information through recounting experiments from the lecture and related conversations that occurred later over tea with friends.  Overall, the paper reveals how these and other instances in the diary offer insight into how women learned to connect experimental philosophy to topics ranging from climatology to vitalism.

I look forward to you joining me at the seminar.

With Best Wishes

Frank James