The Royal Society and Science in the Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Collins

To celebrate its 350th anniversary, the Royal Society initiated several activities. One was the publication, under the editorial name of Bill Bryson, of a lavish and relatively popular compendium of articles by a wide range of authors with themes extending over the whole period. Seeing Further (1) was reviewed recently in Crystallography Reviews.Melvyn Bragg formally gave his ‘observations of an amateur on the history of the Royal Society’ (2). Now has appeared a collection of 16 self-contained articles, looking only slightly backwards to the twentieth century, by science historians and active or newly retired professional scientists (mostly Fellows). Even a single article from this has been reviewed in another journal. The emphasis is on the second half of the century, with rather little reference to the wartime influence of Fellows, such as W.H. Bragg (WHB) in World War I (WL Bragg (WLB) was even more actively involved) and, in World War II, J.D. Bernal, WLB and many other established and prospective Fellows. It is not an honours version of Seeing Further (it actually has fewer articles to tax the non-scientist), but is aimed at a broad range of scientist readers who are at least interested in the recent history of science. The articles published in this supplement derive from a Royal Society conference in April 2010 on the Society and twentieth century science, coinciding with the opening of the Society’s new Centre for History of Science; they are edited by the Centre’s Director, Dr Peter Collins. In view of the contribution made over the period by crystallographers, it is not surprising that the first article, by D.J. Weatherall on ‘Molecular Medicine’, highlights the activities of Max Perutz, Francis Crick and Linus Pauling (and, from the medical side, Fellows Vernon Ingram and Herman Lehmann) in integrating basic biological and health sciences so that molecular medicine emerged. Indeed, the first illustration is almost symbolic, showing Perutz carrying a molecular model into the Wetherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. In addition, the last article in this supplement is by a crystallographer though she does not declare her trade.  Collins aims to try to discern the identity and impact of the Society per se and not just the influence of Fellows as individuals, though he notes that famous Presidents have considered that election of Fellows (following identification of good science) is the Society’s most important activity. Peter J.T. Morris investigates the effect on careers of Royal Society Membership through three leading organic chemists, W.H. Perkin, Jr, Robert Robinson and Alexander Todd, whose lives extended over 1860–1997. He finds that scientific reputation rather than Fellowship influenced election to prestigious chairs at Oxbridge and Manchester. (Obviously, it is difficult for those elected relatively early in a career to ignore completely a celebrity effect of the prestige bestowed.) Like other historians, Morris is conscious of the effect of supervisor/mentor sequences in a researchbased discipline. More generally, he finds in a survey of Royal Society Officers 1940–1990

Field of study: Materials science