Central Headquarters for British Chemists

Abstract

AT a dinner held in honour of Lord Moulton on July 21, Sir William Pope announced that a public appeal was about to be made for funds for the erection of central headquarters for British chemistry. None of the chemical bodies has the accommodation for a meeting of more than two hundred persons, or adequate libiary space. The Chemical Society conducts its business at Burlington House, Piccadilly, in rooms provided by the Government nearly fifty years ago, when the membership was about one-fifth of what it is to-day. The Institute of Chemistry possesses a good building in Russell Square, completed during the first year of the war, but it is barely adequate for the present activities of the institute, which has to look to colleges for hospitality for any general meeting of unusual interest and for lectures. The Society of Chemical Industry and the Society of Public Analysts hold their meetings at the Chemical Society's rooms. Neither of these bodies nor any other which is concerned with chemistry, such as the British Association of Chemical Manufacturers, the Faraday Society, the Biochemical Society, and those devoted to the various branches of technology—brewing, dyes, glass, ceramics, iron and steel, non- ferrous metals, leather, concrete, petroleum, and so forth—possesses accommodation to compare with the spacious halls and headquarters of the Institutions of the Civil, the Mechanical, and the Electrical Engineers, and of the Royal Society of Medicine.