{"id":13220,"date":"2014-12-22T17:01:17","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T17:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=13220"},"modified":"2023-12-25T08:40:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T08:40:05","slug":"chemistry-in-the-early-1960s-a-reminiscence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=13220","title":{"rendered":"Chemistry in the early 1960s: a reminiscence."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I started chemistry with a boxed\u00a0set in 1962. In those days they contained serious amounts of chemicals, but I very soon ran out of most of them. Two discoveries turned what might have been a typical discarded christmas present into a lifelong career and hobby.<\/p>\n

The first was 60 Stoke Newington High Street<\/a> in north London, the home of Albert N. Beck, Chemist<\/a> (or his son; my information comes from a historical listing of the shops present on the high street in 1921). I would set\u00a0out from our home in London SW6<\/a> on the #73 bus route (top deck) and it would take about an hour to arrive. On entering the shop, I ventured down a set of stairs into the basement to\u00a0replenish the chemicals with sensible stocks, and purchase the odd glassware, filter paper, etc. And then venture back across London carrying the proceeds of many weeks, possibly months worth of hoarded pocket-money (apart that is from 1 shilling every two weeks which I reserved for football at Craven Cottage<\/a>). At some stage, health and safety legislated against 12-year-old boys (and certainly also\u00a0girls) purchasing chemicals in this manner! However, I can assure you all that I never came to any harm with anything I purchased at A. N. Beck and\u00a0Sons. Apart that is from giving my parents a good fright<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second was coming across this book by A. J. Mee. I had thought it\u00a0was well and truly lost; imagine my delight when I recently found it at home, complete with chemical stains, and dated as from a reprint\u00a0in 1959.<\/p>\n

\"IF\"<\/a>On the inside cover, I found one shopping list from my expeditions to A. N. Beck and Sons. The price 1\/6 is the representation of\u00a0one shilling and six pence (more than\u00a0the price of a football match, or perhaps \u00a350 in today’s money? I think football was much cheaper then! Oh, 1\/6 is 7.5p in the decimal currency of today, or \u00a30.075). Note that iodine was one of the items<\/a> purchased. And note the wish list at the bottom! I was clearly starting to do organic chemistry.<\/p>\n

\"shopping-list\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The pages of this book list 289 experiments, and I assiduously recorded a tick against all the ones I actually did. This is a typical page (click to expand).<\/p>\n

\"IF\"<\/a>Thus expt 205<\/strong> is the preparation of 1,3,5-tribromobenzene from 1,3,5-tribromoaniline (ticked), followed by that of o-cresol from o-toluidine (ticked). You can see how all the aromatic rings are still represented by what now looks like cyclohexane. This book gave me many hours of delightful recreation (I have not counted the ticks, but I think I attempted around half the experiments). Note in particular the huge scale these experiments were done at; 18g of product (I suspect I must have scaled them down a fair bit in order to preserve pocket money). Expt 198<\/strong> was that of benzidine<\/a>, of which I do recollect preparing \u00a0~2g. No warnings then about the extremely carcinogenic nature of this substance!\u00a0Chemistry has certainly changed since then.<\/p>\n

Lost unfortunately is the laboratory book where I recorded my results, but one or two samples still exist!<\/p>\n\n<\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Amongst other activities, it publishes two editions\u00a0of a newsletter each year for its members. A new theme was recently launched asking for contributions on the topic of \u00a0\"two influential books\" and shortly to appear in the winter 2023\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14984,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=14984","url_meta":{"origin":13220,"position":1},"title":"The atom and the molecule: A one-day symposium on 23 March, 2016 celebrating Gilbert N. Lewis.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"December 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"You might have noticed the occasional reference here to the upcoming centenary of the publication of Gilbert N. Lewis' famous article entitled \"The atom and the molecule\". A symposium exploring his\u00a0scientific impact and legacy\u00a0will be held in London on March 23, 2016, exactly 70 years to the day since his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5204,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=5204","url_meta":{"origin":13220,"position":2},"title":"Historical detective stories: colourful crystals.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"October 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Organic chemists have been making (more or less pure) molecules for the best part of 180 years. Occasionally, these ancient samples are unearthed in cupboards, and then the hunt for their origin starts. I have previously described tracking down the structure of a 120 year-old sample of a naphthalene derivative.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/DSCF8570.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19999,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19999","url_meta":{"origin":13220,"position":3},"title":"Early “curly” (reaction) arrows. Those of Ingold in 1926.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"August 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2012, I wrote a story of the first ever reaction curly arrows, attributed to Robert Robinson in 1924. At the time there was a great rivalry between him and another UK chemist, Christopher Ingold, with the latter also asserting his claim for their use. As part of the move\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7068,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=7068","url_meta":{"origin":13220,"position":4},"title":"More joining up of pieces. Stereocontrol in the ring opening of cyclopropenes.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"July 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Years ago, I was travelling from Cambridge to London on a train. I found myself sitting next to a chemist, and (as chemists do), he scribbled the following on a piece of paper. When I got to work the next day Vera (my student) was unleashed on the problem, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/dichlorocarbene.svg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9754,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=9754","url_meta":{"origin":13220,"position":5},"title":"William Henry Perkin: The site of the factory and the grave.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"March 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"William Henry Perkin\u00a0is a local chemical hero of mine. The factory where he founded the British (nay, the World) fine organic chemicals industry is in\u00a0Greenford,\u00a0just up the road from where we live. The factory used to be close to the Black Horse pub (see below) on the banks of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"Perkin-Factory-plaque","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Perkin-Factory-plaque.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"authors":[{"term_id":2661,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"admin","display_name":"Henry Rzepa","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/897b6740f7f599bca7942cdf7d7914af5988937ae0e3869ab09aebb87f26a731?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13220"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26596,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220\/revisions\/26596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13220"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fppma_author&post=13220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}