Welcome to the Website of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), publisher of the scholarly journal Ambix.
Founded in 1935, SHAC has consistently maintained the highest standards of scholarship in all aspects of the history of alchemy and chemistry from early times to the present. The Society has a wide international membership from over thirty countries.
We hold meetings and webinars, offer scholarly prizes and grants, and publish the journal Ambix. The Society’s newsletter, Chemical Intelligence, is published twice a year. We have also established the Graduate Network to bring together postgraduate students in the field.
Keep up to date with the news and events of SHAC by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
You can watch our SHAC Online Seminars on YouTube here.
Please note that changes are processed manually and you will receive a confirmation email when our records have been updated. For any queries please find relevant contact information on https://www.ambix.org/contact-us/
The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Katy Duncan (Royal Institution) who will present:
The Experimental Life of Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle
This will be live on Thursday, 3 December 2026, beginning at 5.00pm (London time). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.
To register please e-mail meetings@ambix.org<mailto:meetings@ambix.org> with ‘SHAC on-line seminar’ in the subject line. You will then be sent a Zoom link on the morning of the seminar.
The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at
The Experimental Life of Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle
Katy Duncan
Michael Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle (1861) has never been out of print. Candle was the publication that followed a series of lectures that Faraday gave to young people over Christmastime at the Royal Institution (Ri). It sought to demonstrate basic chemical principles through its namesake, exploring capillary action to burning and everything in between. With new editions and translations, it has been one of the most impactful pieces of science communication across the globe as it continues to inspire people into science over 150 years on.
This festive talk will examine the trajectory of Candle. First, it will examine some of the previous iterations of the demonstrations and lectures Faraday gave, at Christmas Lectures and otherwise, and trace various changes Faraday made over time. It will then examine his preparation notes, and compare Faraday’s demonstrations to recreations of these demonstrations at the Ri today, underscoring the difficulties in undertaking many of these apparently ‘simple’ experiments. In closing, it will explore the reception of Candle over time, both in terms of its own legacy, and publishing (ostensibly) children’s lectures as a successful form of popular science communication.
Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle on 25 January 1627. To mark the 400th anniversary of this event, a one-day conference celebrating Boyle and his achievements will be held at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Burlington House, London, on Monday, 25 January 2027.
This event is organised by the Historical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry with the support of the Science History Institute. Speakers will include Peter Anstey, Michael Bycroft, Michele DiMeo, Sachiko Kusukawa and Lawrence Principe. There will also be a round-table discussion on the significance of Boyle for modern science.
There is no charge for registration, but those wishing to reserve a place should send an e-mail, with ‘Boyle meeting’ in the subject line to the SHAC administrative co-ordinator at meetings@ambix.org.
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 15th International Conference on the History of Chemistry in Bologna, Italy between 8 and 12 June 2027. 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 2017. 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@ambix.orgstating 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.
Deadline for submitting conference proposals: 15 December 2026
Notification of acceptance: 5 February 2027
Provisional Programme: mid-March 2027
Early Bird Registration: before 1 April 2027
Final Programme: End April 2027
NB: Deadlines may change depending on local arrangements.
The deadline for applications to this Award Scheme is 21 February 2027. 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 1 April 2027.
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 15ICHC Award does not preclude applying to the usual SHAC Award Scheme for 2027. There is also a separate scheme from the Commission on the History of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences (CHCMS) for 15ICHC. 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.
The hybrid conference will take place on 14–15 November 2026 at the University of Oxford, UK, and online. It invites proposals for 15-minute academic, creative, or blended presentationsexploring alchemy’s metaphorical role in creativity, scholarship, and arts-based research. The deadline for proposals October 9, 2026. The official submission form is: https://forms.gle/hqGQttrRdf8L7JB56
The call may be particularly relevant to colleagues working on historical and cultural work on alchemy, hermetic language, ritual, myth, symbolism, and alchemical representations in art and literature.
The recipient of the 2025 Paul R. Jones Outstanding Paper Award of the Division of the History of Chemistry (HIST) of the American Chemical Society is Prof. Dr. Robert B. Heimann. The paper was “The German Polymath Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and His Pursuit of the European Hard-Paste Porcelain Formula,” Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, 2025, 50(2), pp 80-92.
The award is presented to the authors of the best paper published in the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry during the previous three years, 2023, 2024, 2025.
Robert B. Heimann of the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg is the recipient of the 2025 Paul R. Jones Outstanding Paper Award for “The German Polymath Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708) and His Pursuit of the European Hard-Paste Porcelain Formula,” Vol. 50, No. 2 (2025) 80-92.
Robert Heimann obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mineralogy (1) from the Freie Universität Berlin in 1963 and 1966, and his habilitation for mineralogy and crystal chemistry at Fachbereich Chemie of the same university in 1972. He is now professor emeritus of Technical (Applied) Mineralogy at Freiberg, living in Görlitz., Saxony He also spent much of his career in Canada in industry (3M Corp.), Government (Atomic Energy of Canada, Alberta Research Council) and Academia (University of Toronto).
Professor Heimann is well-known for his outstanding published papers. He received the Pergamon Press Prize Award for 1984 for “Structural aspects and conformation of linear carbon polytypes (carbyne).” He received the Georg-Agricola Medal of the German Mineralogical Society for “outstanding lifetime achievements in the field of Applied Mineralogy” in 2001. Also, in 2025, he received the Wiley Top Viewed Article recognition for “Ancient and historical cooking pots and food: an eternal communion,” published in Archaeometry67(1) (2025) 219-234. He has published more than 300 research articles and authored and co-authored 11 books!
While “priority disputes” often dominate historical papers, Heimann chooses to place the history of hard-paste porcelain in full context. He defends the claim that the work of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus is the foundation of the later industry, while acknowledging the administrative role of Johann Friedrich Böttger, Tschirnhaus’s assistant, in the success of “Meissen porcelain”.
Porcelain likely originated in China during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 CE). When the first Chinese porcelain masterpieces arrived in Europe in the 14th century, many attempts to reproduce it were made, but only in the early 18th century was true hard-paste porcelain produced in Germany. Tschirnhaus benefitted from his education in Leiden. He conversed with Baruch de Spinoza. He also read the works of Descartes. Among other things, he learned how to cast, grind and polish very large “burning lenses.” He also made his “Grand Tour” (1674-1679) to England, where he possibly visited Isaac Newton, to France, where he consulted with François Villette, and to Italy, where he met Manfredo Settala in Milan. The outcome of this extensive research was the construction of powerful solar furnaces.
Tschirnhaus also corresponded with Leibniz. In 1694, he was already modifying minerals to create “glassy” solids. The final secret was to find and use the right clay. Rather than working in secret, he visited many fabrication sites of refractories including John Dwight’s Fulham stoneware kilns in 1675, and the faience and frit porcelain factories in Delft and Saint-Cloud in 1701. The key published evidence of the progress made by Tschirnhaus occurred in 1697. The keys were: highly refined clay, sintering with the right flux, and taking advantage of eutectic mixtures. What he found was that porcelain was primarily polycrystalline, not amorphous.
Böttger was primarily an alchemist, employed by the Saxon elector to make “chymical” gold. In 1706, Tschirnhaus convinced the Saxon viceregent Prince of Fürstenberg to put him to better use in constructing truly high temperature furnaces on Tschirnhaus’s advice. These were used to create high temperature crucibles and later, red stoneware called jasper porcelain. When Tschirnhaus finally obtained his “white earth clay” i.e. kaolin in the summer of 1708, he mixed it with alabaster as a flux and fired it to produce a type of true white porcelain. Unfortunately, Tschirnhaus died a few months later.
Heimann then documents the nefarious behavior by Böttger involving theft and misrepresentation. He also notes that in1962, a laboratory protocol, dated 1708, was found and that it contained the secret of hard-paste porcelain. It was the Tschirnhaus recipe, written by a Dr. Bartholomäi. This fact was already celebrated in Tschirnhaus’s obituary in the Acta Eruditorum of 1709. Nevertheless, Böttger brought the commercial product to market at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory at Meissen from 1710 onward. Alas, times are tough for this famous firm in 2025!
1) Dr. Heimann’s Ph.D. advisor was Prof. Dr. Karl Richard Mehnert (1913-1996), director of the Institute of Mineralogy, Freie Universität Berlin. Mehnert was a petrologist, but the topic of Heimann’s dissertation was much more of a chemical-technical nature (“Dissolution of quartz in glass-forming melts,” transl.) This was the outcome of the rules and regulations of German universities at this time. The “chief” of an institute was more or less automatically the nominal advisor/supervisor of all Ph.D. dissertations, regardless of their topics. In his case, Mehnert delegated the task to the assistant professor, Dr. Alexander Willgallis (1927-2017). Subsequently, Heimann published with him a paper related to his dissertation (“Zerbrechung von Quarz in Schmelzen und Gläsern” [“Cracking of quartz in melts and glasses”], Glastechn. Ber.1969, 43(1), 12-15).
Next SHAC on-line seminar, Thursday, 1 October 2026, 5pm (London time)
The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Rob Johnstone (UCL) who will present:
A horrible history of the English Glass Industry
This will be live on Thursday, 1 October 2026, beginning at 5.00pm (London time). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.
To register please e-mail meetings@ambix.org with ‘SHAC on-line seminar’ in the subject line. You will then be sent a Zoom link on the morning of the seminar.
A horrible history of the English Glass Industry Rob Johnstone This talk will outline the results of my PhD research which examined the development of the English glass industry between 1750 and 1860. This was during a time of population growth, urbanisation and transport improvements. At the same time, the revenue demanded to fund the expansion of the British military fiscal state led to the imposition of Excise Duties on manufacturers. In the talk I will examine the methods and controls by which the Excise Commissioners enforced the collection of the revenue from the industry and their impact on the development of the technology. We’ll look at the interplay between the industry, the Excise Commission and the Treasury over the period. New economic theories began to take root in the second decade of the 19th century which began to influence Government policy at the same time as new entrants to the business challenged the strictures and controls of the Excise Commission. There was a sudden flowering of new manufacturing developments in the 1830’s, a government inquiry into the Excise Commission which led to the relaxation and eventual repeal of the Excise Duties. A boom in glass manufacturing then occurred, followed by collapse and consolidation by 1860.
