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Many people were involved in producing the seven volumes that make up the fourth series of the Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers. Included were about two hundred volunteers and about one hundred people working either on short-term contracts or carrying out piece work. At the Royal Society there was a small, largely female, secretariat working full-time. It included both clerical and bibliographic staff. Coordinating all the work was the chemist Herbert McLeod, appointed director of the catalogue in 1901. As is discussed, the position of director was created especially for him after his forced retirement from the Royal Indian Engineering College. The paper shows the complexity of the work involved in producing the catalogue, as well as something of the office culture at the Royal Society in the early twentieth century. The working conditions of the women employees, and prevailing attitudes toward the largely female clerical and bibliographic staff, are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of chemical pesticides increased considerably after World War II, and ecological damage was noticeable by the late 1940s. This paper outlines some ecological problems experienced during the post-war period in the UK, and in parts of what is now Malaysia. Also discussed is the government's response. Although Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring (1962), was important in bringing the problems to a wider public, she was not alone in sounding the alarm. Pressure from the public and from British scientists led, among other things, to the founding of the Natural Environment Research Council in 1965. By the 1970s, environmentalism was an important movement, and funding for ecological and environmental research was forthcoming even during the economic recession. Some of the recipients were ecologists working at Imperial College London. Moved by the political climate, and by the evidence of ecological damage, they carried out research on the biological control of insect pests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raphael Meldola FRS (1849-1915) was professor of chemistry at the City and Guilds Technical College in Finsbury. He was a colleague and close friend of Silvanus Phillips Thompson FRS (1851-1916), the college principal and professor of physics. This paper follows an earlier one on Thompson and the making of his career. It is intended to illustrate further the ways in which scientists of Meldola and Thompson's generation gained advancement within the scientific community. Meldola had interests beyond chemistry, including a serious interest in field entomology. In this he had several well-known mentors including Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin. The paper, which includes much new information derived from archival work, is presented as six thematic narratives related, among other things, to chemical and technical education, dye chemistry, the Royal Society solar eclipse expedition of 1875, natural history and Darwinism, field clubs, learned societies, and the honouring of scientists. Together these narratives illustrate a generalist/voluntarist career pattern that came to an end with the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is both (a) an exercise in historical recovery in that it details some of the events surrounding the founding of the City and Guilds of London Institute and describes the way in which the Institute set about the building and running of two of its colleges, the City and Guilds Technical College, Finsbury, and the Central Institution in South Kensington (new archival detail is added to what is already known of this history) and (b) an attempt to interpret the above material in terms of various forms of association within the City Corporation and the guilds. Collectively the City and the guilds made an effort to come to terms with a modernizing world through the means of providing scientific and technical education. The guilds wanted to remain important even though traditional apprenticeship was dying out. In joining in a new venture to provide technical education for young people it was necessary to maintain an order in which the City's presence was clear and apparent. This paper will show how such an order was achieved and, in so doing, it shows something more generally of the relationship of tradition and rhetoric to institution building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]