Partington: The Missing Part

Abstract

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) was a prolific author, making major contributions in physical chemistry and history of chemistry. He spent most of his career teaching chemistry at Queen Mary College, University of London. Retiring to Cambridge in 1951, much of his time was devoted to writing the biographically and bibliographically rich A History of Chemistry. Three volumes were published by Macmillans from 1961 to 1964, with the first part of volume four appearing posthumously in 1970. This paper considers the reasons why its second part, though planned and partly written, was never published. The evidence is contained in an archive of papers in the Science Museum Library, and amongst the correspondence of Joseph Needham, who struck up a close relationship with Partington. Prominent historians who were involved in Macmillans’ eventual decision not to complete the series, either directly or indirectly, included William Brock, Allen Debus, June Fullmer, Frank Greenaway, Geoffrey Lewis, Robert Multhauf, Walter Pagel, Harry Sheppard, Nathan Sivin, William Smeaton, and Needham himself.