Category Archives: SHAC Meetings & Events

Fall 2025 News: Brock Award, SHI Meeting, Ambix Special Issues, Partington Prize

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Brock Award 2025

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry is pleased to announce the winner of the first Brock Award. The Brock Award honours Professor William ‘Bill’ Hodson Brock (1936-2025), one of the leading historians of chemistry of the last fifty years, and is for outstanding contributions in the fields of the history of alchemy and chemistry.

The Brock Award for 2025 is given to Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent for her lifetime of outstanding work in the history of chemistry. For about four decades she has produced original and thought-provoking research in the history and philosophy of chemical and materials science, significantly shaping the historiography of chemistry. Her work stands as an inspiring example of how innovative approaches in these fields can not only illuminate significant historical and philosophical ideas in the chemical sciences, they can also meaningfully contribute to addressing contemporary societal challenges. Bensaude-Vincent has played a key role in establishing collaboration and building scholarly communities across Europe, and in nurturing new generations of scholars in history of chemistry, both formally and informally.

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, a philosopher by training holds a doctorate from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. A professor at University of Paris Nanterre from 1989 to 2010, she moved to the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She is now professor emerita and a member of the French Academy of Technologies. She continues to publish innovative work and engage with both the scholarly community and public audiences.

The Brock Award will be presented to Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent at a special SHAC meeting to honour Bill Brock’s memory in spring 2026. Details will be sent to SHAC members when available.

SHAC at SHI – 16-17 October 2025

Just a quick reminder that registration to attend this meeting on the history of alchemy and chemistry, jointly organised by SHAC and SHI, to be held at SHI in Philadelphia is open until 10 October. For further details please visit: https://www.sciencehistory.org/visit/events/fall-2025-meeting-of-the-society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/

Forthcoming Special Issue of Ambix – August and November 2025 Double Issue

The next issue of Ambix to be published will be a special double issue covering August and November 2025. It will explore the nature and agency of fire and its role in human interaction with the material world by focusing on premodern heat technologies. It takes a wide comparative view of different practices, including metalwork and distillation, with an emphasis on early modern Europe and pre-Hispanic South America. The double issue is scheduled for the November Ambix publication slot and members will be updated on dispatch nearer the time. In advance of publication, articles will appear online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/yamb20 . Remember online access to Ambix is included in your membership.

Partington Prize 2026 – Call for Entries

The Partington Prize is awarded every three years for an original and unpublished essay on any aspect of the history of alchemy or chemistry. The prize consists of five hundred pounds (£500), with the winning article published in SHAC’s Journal, Ambix. The competition is open

to anyone with a scholarly interest in the history of alchemy or chemistry who, has not reached thirty-five years of age, or if older is enrolled in a degree programme or has been awarded a master’s degree or PhD within the previous three years. Entries must arrive before midnight GMT on 31 December 2025.

Examples of past-prize winning essays, including Armel Cornu’s 2023 Prize-Winning Essay, “Senses and Utility in the New Chemistry” can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/yamb20/collections/best-paper-partington-prize

Full details can be found in the May 2025 issue of Ambix and at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2025.2477948

Best wishes

SHAC Officers

Upcoming Online Seminar “Women and the construction of scientific memory”

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Francesca Antonelli (University of Bologna) who will present:

Family historians? Women and the construction of scientific memory, from Mme Lavoisier (1758-1836) to Lucie Laugier (1822-1900)


This will be live on Thursday, 25 September 2025, 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.


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/shac-on-line-seminar-dr-francesca-antonelli-university-of-bologna/e-pbyeye


The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/-IqrYQ3h9gg

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

Family historians? Women and the construction of scientific memory, from Mme Lavoisier (1758-1836) to Lucie Laugier (1822-1900)

Francesca Antonelli

Family history is widely recognized as one of the first domains where women engaged with modern historical writing, often being regarded as the “natural” custodians of family memory. But what about the history of science? This presentation focuses on how women between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shaped the posthumous memory of scientists within their families, particularly through the curation of scientific and personal archives, the management of instruments and other objects, and biographical writing. Beginning with the well-documented case of Mme Lavoisier (1758-1836), who crafted her husband’s memory in the early nineteenth century, I turn to the largely overlooked figure of Lucie Laugier (1822-1900), François Arago’s niece and author of biographical accounts of her uncle (published only in the 1990s). Both women served as “secretaries” – as they would put it – to their relatives and managed extensive material and paper collections in radically different political contexts—from post-Revolutionary rehabilitation to Second Empire hostility. Significantly, both are commemorated in public monuments—Arago’s in 1879 and Lavoisier’s in 1900—depicted precisely in these roles. I will thus deal with their cases to raise some questions on women’s agency in constructing scientific memory and the complex negotiations between family and institutional narratives of scientific commemoration.

May News (Online Seminar about Alchemical Characters, AGM, Partington Prize, Brock Award & future meetings)

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This post is almost overflowing with news of forthcoming events brought to you by SHAC over the next few months.

1.     SHAC WEBINAR – Thursday 22 May 2025 at 5pm BST: Ellen Hausner – Early modern alchemical characters: the case of Simon Forman (1552-1611)

An invitation to the next SHAC seminar to be held on 22nd May and a reminder to register for the AGM to be held on Monday 12th May .

The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Ellen Hausner (University of Oxford) who will present:

Early modern alchemical characters: the case of Simon Forman (1552-1611)

This will be live on Thursday, 22 May 2025, 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.
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-yajvvzp 

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

Early modern alchemical characters: the case of Simon Forman (1552-1611)

Ellen Hausner

From the late medieval era through the end of the early modern period, writers of alchemical literature used both verbal and pictorial methods of communication. Alongside these two systems, a third, visually abstract language began to be used to transmit meaning. Known in the period as ‘characters,’ these symbolic notations and signs were pervasive across alchemical literature and became a vital form of expression in alchemical texts.

This talk will explore the ways in which alchemical characters may have been perceived in the early modern period through an examination of the writings of Simon Forman (1552-1611). He was one of many alchemists in the early seventeenth century fascinated by these characters, creating several lists of them along with their interpretations. The evidence from Forman’s writings shows that he did not regard alchemical characters solely as a notation system for representing alchemical substances, processes, and apparatus. Rather, he believed them to have a celestial origin, and to contain some of the same properties as those found in magical sigils, astrological glyphs, and angelic signs. Forman serves as an example of how the early history of alchemical characters is situated in the context of a culture steeped in symbolic characters which were seen to connect humans to other realms.

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2. The SHAC AGM covering 2024 will take place on Monday 12 May 2025 at 2 pm (UK time) on Zoom.   

If you would like to attend the AGM, please register ahead of the meeting using the Ticketsource link below:

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

If you are unable to attend but wish to send your apologies please contact our administrative coordinator, Dr. Rebecca Martin, using meetings@ambix.org. 

3.     SHAC AWARD SCHEME 2025

Remember the deadline is 31 May 2025 and application forms have to be requested in advance from grants@ambix.org

Information from: https://www.ambix.org/grants/

4.     SHAC Autumn Meeting – Call for Papers

 16 and 17 October 2025, at the Science History Institute, Philadelphia 

It is intended that the first day of this two day meeting will cover the history of alchemy and early modern chemistry, while the second day will discuss the history of chemistry from then to the modern period. Offers of papers on any aspect of the history of alchemy and chemistry, including their historiography, should be sent, with a short description, to the SHAC chair, Professor Frank James (frank.james@ucl.ac.uk), by 31 May 2025.

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.     Partington Prize 2026 – Call for Entries

The Partington Prize is awarded every three years for an original and unpublished essay on any aspect of the history of alchemy or chemistry. The prize consists of five hundred pounds (£500), with the winning article published in SHAC’s Journal, Ambix. The competition is open to anyone with a scholarly interest in the history of alchemy or chemistry who, has not reached thirty-five years of age, or if older is enrolled in a degree programme or has been awarded a master’s degree or PhD within the previous three years. Entries must arrive before midnight GMT on 31 December 2025. 

Examples of past-prize winning essays, including Armel Cornu’s 2023 Prize-Winning Essay, “Senses and Utility in the New Chemistry” can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/yamb20/collections/best-paper-partington-prize

Full details can be found in the May 2025 issue of Ambix and at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00026980.2025.2477948

Best regards

Rob Johnstone

Hon Treasurer SHAC

March 2025 News

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The next on line seminar will be on Thursday, 27 March 2025

The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Christopher Halm (Deutsches Museum, Munich) who will present:

Escaping Earth, Sustaining the Moon: The ‘Chemistry’ Behind Public Narratives of Lunar Habitation and Cosmic Age
This will be live on Thursday, 27 March 2025, 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.
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-lnpldga

 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

Escaping Earth, Sustaining the Moon: The ‘Chemistry’ Behind Public Narratives of Lunar Habitation and Cosmic Age 

Christopher Halm

Recent space programmes, particularly NASA’s Artemis initiative, present space travel and lunar habitation in ecological terms, emphasising sustainability and resource efficiency. Yet this rhetoric obscures a deeper historical trajectory.

This talk explores how lunar exploration narratives—rooted in museological practices, Cold War geopolitics, and the public presentation of moon rockresearch—have constructed the Moon as both a spatial and temporal escape from earthly crises. Focusing on museum displays and the scientific use of lunar samples, I argue that moon rocks have served as instruments for advancing and disseminating narratives of civilisational progress. In this context, the Apollo programme offered a redemptive vision—an escape from the destruction, division, and psychological rupture of the Second World War into the pristine, unclaimed realm of the Moon. Space exhibitions, such as those in Bonn’s Haus der Geschichte, and research institutions like the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have reinforced a narrative of spatial and temporal transcendence, framing moon rocks as heralds of a new era.

By tracing the political and scientific representations of moon rocks, this talk examines how the Moon has been enlisted in broader efforts to reframe human history, resolve cross-cultural traumas, and establish new frontiers of political and technological legitimacy.

Chemical Intelligence

The winter edition of Chemical Intelligence is now available on the SHAC web site on either of these links:

Chemical Intelligence Winter 2025 issue
Chemical Intelligence

Best wishes

Rob Johnstone

On behalf of Frank James

SHAC Spring Meeting 29th March in person at UCL

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The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) is holding its Spring Meeting, which will also mark its 90th Anniversary, in person on Saturday 29 March 2025 at University College London (LG04, 26 Bedford Way).

The meeting will be on The Biographies of Alchemists and Chemists and registration, which costs  £18.50, is now available  via this TicketSource link:

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

Programme:

9.30Coffee 
10.00Frank James (UCL)Opening remarks
10.15Laurence Chen (UCL)Mercurial self-fashioning: mythological (auto)biographies in Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum
10.45Sergei Zotov (Warwick)Visual Biographies: Portraits and Monuments in Early Modern Alchemical Manuscripts
11.15Charlotte Abney Salomon (SHI)J.G. Gahn, in the Words of Others
11.45Anna Simmons (UCL) “The perspicuity of style, and the proprietary of expression”: Lectures, Laboratories and William Thomas Brande (1788-1866)
12.15Lunch, not provided but some will be heading to the Wellcome café 
2.00Jenny Wilson (UCL)Campaigning for peace: The work of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale FRS (1903-1971)
2.30Annette Lykknes (NTNU, Trondheim)Clusters of women in laboratories or institutes of technology: Reflections on prosopographical approaches to the history of (women in) chemistry
3.00Tea 
3.30Carsten Reinhardt (Bielefeld)Autobiographies of Chemists: The Lives in Chemistry Series
4.00Judith Kaplan (SHI)Who are the Biographers? Reflections on Problem Choice and Personal Investment
4.30Roundtable for reminiscences to mark the 90th anniversary of SHAC with a glass of wineParticipants will include Gerrylynn Roberts, John Brooke, Robert Anderson and Peter Morris
5.30End of meeting 

We look forward to seeing you there.

Best regards

Rob Johnstone

Hon Treasurer.

90th Anniversary Meeting (Spring 2025)

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SHAC is holding the SHAC Spring Meeting 2025  and it marks the Society’s 90th Anniversary,

It will be held “in person” on Saturday 29 March 2025 at University College London (LG04, 26 Bedford Way) on the subject of:

Biographies of Alchemists and Chemists

Registration costs  £18.50 and is now available  via this TicketSource link:

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

The schedule for the meeting, showing the list of excellent speakers, is shown below:

9.30Coffee 
10.00Frank James (UCL)Opening remarks
10.15Laurence Chen (UCL)Mercurial self-fashioning: mythological (auto)biographies in Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum
10.45Sergei Zotov (Warwick)Visual Biographies: Portraits and Monuments in Early Modern Alchemical Manuscripts
11.15Charlotte Abney Salomon (SHI)J.G. Gahn, in the Words of Others
11.45Anna Simmons (UCL)  “The perspicuity of style, and the proprietary of expression”: Lectures, Laboratories and William Thomas Brande (1788-1866)
12.15Lunch, not provided but some will be heading to the Wellcome café 
2.00Jenny Wilson (UCL)Campaigning for peace: The work of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale FRS (1903-1971)
2.30Annette Lykknes (NTNU, Trondheim)Clusters of women in laboratories or institutes of technology: Reflections on prosopographical approaches to the history of (women in) chemistry
3.00Tea 
3.30Carsten Reinhardt (Bielefeld)Autobiographies of Chemists: The Lives in Chemistry Series
4.00Judith Kaplan (SHI)Who are the Biographers? Reflections on Problem Choice and Personal Investment
4.30Roundtable for reminiscences to mark the 90th anniversary of SHAC with a glass of wineParticipants will include Gerrylynn Roberts, John Brooke and Peter Morris
5.30End of meeting 

I look forward to seeing you there and sharing with you a glass of wine during the last item of the schedule.

Best regards

Frank James

Next online seminar: “Undecompounded bodies” in nineteenth-century chemical textbooks

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Dr Sarah Hijmans (Université Paris Cité) who will present:

 Not quite simple: The classification of “undecompounded bodies” in nineteenth-century chemical textbooks

This will be live on Thursday, 23 January 2025, 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-moxndee

 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

  Not quite simple: The classification of “undecompounded bodies” in nineteenth-century chemical textbooks

 Sarah Hijmans

Near the end of the eighteenth century, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier famously argued that any substance which could not be decomposed should be seen as a chemical element. Often called the “negative-empirical” criterion for elementary nature, this characterization of chemical elements remained dominant in chemical textbooks until the end of the nineteenth century. While there has been much discussion in the literature on the origins of the negative-empirical criterion, few have questioned whether this term adequately captures nineteenth-century views of chemical elements. In this talk, I will argue that the actual identification and characterization of chemical elements during the first half of the nineteenth was neither strictly based on the negative criterion of failed decomposition, nor a simple empirical fact. I will illustrate this by focusing on a group of “undecompounded bodies” and their classification in the textbooks of Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848), Louis Jacques Thenard (1777-1857) and Thomas Thomson (1773-1852). This will show a distinction that only few chemists explicitly reflected upon: on the one hand, not all undecompounded bodies were seen as simple, and on the other, not all simple bodies could be isolated in the form of undecompounded bodies.

Best regards

Rob Johnstone

Hon Treasurer, SHAC