Chemistry in the Schoolroom: 1806

About the Book

ABOUT THE BOOK

                                                                                                                                     1806: Chemistry lectures were all the rage in fashionable London, and not only for men. But one member of the audience at the Royal Institution thought that women would benefit more from the lectures if there were a suitable book to accompany them. So Jane Marcet wrote Conversations on Chemistry, which features Mrs. B. tutoring two bright teenagers: diligent Emily and ebullient Caroline. The book inspired not only women; Michael Faraday was one of Marcet’s many fans, and nearly 160,000 copies of the fifteen editions of the book were eventually sold in Britain and North America.

            To understand the book’s popularity, to enjoy Marcet’s fresh approach and elegant diagrams, and to learn much of the social life of the time, today’s reader need only dip into these lively selections, introduced by a former tutor of chemistry. Although some of the science may now seem quaint, Mrs. B.’s educational ideas, and Caroline’s undisciplined intelligence will strike a chord with many of today’s teachers and their former pupils.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Marcet (née Haldimand), 1769-1858, was the oldest child in a well-to-do Anglo-Swiss London family which had wide scientific, literary and financial connections. She was educated mainly at home, both by visiting tutors in “boys’ ” subjects and by traditional governesses. When her mother died, fifteen-year-old Jane had to run the large household, be hostess at her father’s frequent intellectual soirées and supervise the education of her siblings. In 1799, she married the physician Alexander Marcet, who had a strong interest in chemistry, and later was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Medicine. She produced four children, (one of whom died aged 10), and about thirty educational books. She enjoyed riding, travel to her relations in Switzerland, and painting; her elegant draughtsmanship is evident from the diagrams in this book.

ABOUT  THE  EDITOR  

Hazel Rossotti (née Marsh) was Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, UK for nearly forty years (and a part-time teacher of science to 12-year old boys for three). She did her first degree and her doctorate at Oxford, where married Francis, a fellow research student. There followed research and teaching at Stockholm and Edinburgh, a break for family and book-writing, and return to Oxford. Her primary research interest is chemical equilibria in solution, and she has written specialist books in this field. But she also enjoys writing about wider aspects of science for a variety of readers, including young people and adult non-scientists.

       Now a Senior Research Fellow of St. Anne’s, she is exploring previous scientific books for pre-adult readers. She and her husband still live in Oxford, where she appreciates its libraries, townscape, countryside and good company; and its opportunities for continued learning: in stained-glass work, in modern and ancient Greek, in IT and, until recently, in windsurfing. But her main hobby is black-and-white photography.