Women and Chemistry in Regency England: New Light on the Marcet Circle

Abstract

Jane Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry (first edition, 1806) was possibly the best-selling English-language chemistry book of the first half of the nineteenth century. Recent scholarship has explored the degree to which her husband assisted in the writing of the book, without diminishing the high merits of the author. Previously unpublished correspondence, some of which appears here for the first time, casts new light on the social and professional circle of Jane and Alexander Marcet, including its influence on Jane's book. One of the members of that circle was a hitherto unrecognised but highly capable young female chemist, Frederica Sebright. The story told here underlines the tensions in elite circles in early nineteenth-century England between broad-minded acceptance and patronising limitations for women in science.