ABSTRACT
The 1840s marked the infusion into Manchester of new scientific blood. Lured to Manchester by its reputation as a "boom town" and by its renown as Britain's city of opportunity, they came seeking to establish the utility and relevance of science—and thereby themselves—in a way which had few precedents. It was an exciting time, and they were, for the existing scientific community, exciting people. Thomas Graham directed a laboratory and lectured on chemistry, he had excited a great deal of interest and enthusiasm upon his coming to Glasgow. Another striking fact which the profile of the civic scientists accentuates is the imprint of Justus von Liebig. Liebig eagerly developed his interest through wide reading at the Darmstadt library. The British students of Liebig and especially those who settled in Manchester in the 1840s devoted their careers to the application of organic chemistry to the relief of man's estate, both in industry and in public health.
