I started chemistry with a boxed set in 1962. In those days they contained serious amounts of chemicals, but I very soon ran out of most of them. Two discoveries turned what might have been a typical discarded christmas present into a lifelong career and hobby.
The first was 60 Stoke Newington High Street in north London, the home of Albert N. Beck, Chemist (or his son; my information comes from a historical listing of the shops present on the high street in 1921). I would set out from our home in London SW6 on the #73 bus route (top deck) and it would take about an hour to arrive. On entering the shop, I ventured down a set of stairs into the basement to replenish the chemicals with sensible stocks, and purchase the odd glassware, filter paper, etc. And then venture back across London carrying the proceeds of many weeks, possibly months worth of hoarded pocket-money (apart that is from 1 shilling every two weeks which I reserved for football at Craven Cottage). At some stage, health and safety legislated against 12-year-old boys (and certainly also girls) purchasing chemicals in this manner! However, I can assure you all that I never came to any harm with anything I purchased at A. N. Beck and Sons. Apart that is from giving my parents a good fright.
The second was coming across this book by A. J. Mee. I had thought it was well and truly lost; imagine my delight when I recently found it at home, complete with chemical stains, and dated as from a reprint in 1959.
The pages of this book list 289 experiments, and I assiduously recorded a tick against all the ones I actually did. This is a typical page (click to expand).
Lost unfortunately is the laboratory book where I recorded my results, but one or two samples still exist!
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I have today found some letters kept by my Mum and Dad from when I was at Uppingham school in the 1950s. One ends with a request list for my 14th birthday:-
From: A.N.Beck & Sons,
60, Stoke Nwington High St.,
London. N.16.
---------
1 Spirit Lamp. 2/6d.
1 Tripod stand. 2/6d.
1 Kipps apparatus (substitute) 3/6d.
Sulphuric acid (dilute) 4 1/2d.
Total 34/4d.
I googled "A.N.Beck chemical supplies"
and came up with your blog:
http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=13220
which I greatly enjoyed reading, and finding so many "kindred spirits"!
The 30 items in that list, so kindly purchased, formed the basis for my bedroom "laboratory", and probably helped towards my achieving good 'S' levels (incl. Chemistry) 2 years later, so schoolboy enthusiasm for science - which I'm sure you shared - is certainly a "good thing".
Not a hark-back to chemical suppliers to students, but a parallel reference to that heroic age, is Lippy and Palder's 'Modern Chemical Magic' (1959) which describes 'Fired Liquid' (aka 'Liquid Match'), a solution of white phosphorus in carbon disulphide (a double-whammy for Health and Safety). The CS2 evaporates in seconds whereupon the phosphorus ignites. I know of one (elderly) demonstrator who still uses it. Other experiments for the brave are described.
A useful resource on demonstrations is http://www.chymist.com/Booklist.pdf
Ah, we are moving into the topic of memorable lecture demonstrations in chemistry.
The famous Colonel Shaw used to tour the UK (and possibly further afield) in the 1970s and 80s. I suspect this would have been one of his demonstrations. Another, with possibly a further ingredient as oxidant (could it have been perchlorate) would sit quietly for 30-50 minutes, by which time the audience had entirely forgotten its presence. It would then explode with great gusto, and I can assure that this unexpected shock would quite literally make the audience jump out of their seats. I saw him give several lectures, and once, after the 50 minute mark had been reached, he had to give the game away to the audience by prodding it with a stick. We still all jumped.
For me at least, an equally memorable demonstration was the release of fluorine gas from a cylinder. It was simultaneously a smell you knew you had never smelt before, but at the same time incredibly halogen-like and "familiar". Unforgettable (even if the molecules that reached your nostrils were probably not F2 but F2O).
I've come across an old box in my father in law's shed whilst clearing it out. The box is marked MEDICINE -URGENT and is addressed to A.N. Beck and Sons of Stoke Newington. It contains 6 glass apparatus (Wood Bros)with some bungs, a small mortar and pestle, some filter paper, a tube full of 'chalk carbonate' and a tube full of 'copper sulphate'......it also contained lots of saw dust and straw that the mice lived in.
Can you suggest anywhere that might be grateful to take this? Having seen your posts it seems you know lots about the history.
thanks
Michael
I remember ordering many items from 'Beck's' in the mid 1960's to furnish my attic laboratory at home. Spent many hours testing soils and doing experiments. My father even ran a gas supply up to the attic for my Bunsen Burner! It is true that way back then you could indeed buy anything chemical wise and have it delivered by post. Today it would be frowned on to buy such items for a home laboratory. I eventually came top of my class at Science and worked in the Public Analyst's Laboratory for a spell. It is a shame that there are no photographs of A.N.Beck's shop, inside and out, it would be great today to see the premises from where we got our laboratory items from.
for some time now a box of bottled chemicals has been kicking around my garage/workshop getting in the way, today I decided to clean them out but before doing so I noticed label denoting A.N.Beck and sons, so I thought I would google the name, glad I did, a number of these bottles have no labels and some have labels stating poisonous, not sure what to do with them now, will probably dispose of the contents, well those left, and perhaps offer them. kind regards
Henry, you remember me as "Soss" from Laurie Phillips group ... now when I was a schoolboy aged 15, me and two other boys used to buy stuff from Beck's in the post, every few months we would put an order together for glassware, chemicals etc. I remeber the excitement when it all arrived, this was what got me into Chemistry (I was good at Classics and my very traditional school really wanted me to go that way). I had a whole room full of chemicals and apparatus! We lived in northern Essex and my father did take me to Stoke Newington once, to buy conc. H2SO4 and other nasty chemicals that could not be sent in the post, I was struck by how small the shop was. But I really remember with pleasure those times perusing Beck's catalogue and gettng an order together. I did a Google search for Beck's and that's how I came to this blog.
I just found this blog when i was searching for the name of the marvellous chemist's shop in Birmingham (Hogg's) where as a boy in the late 1960s I would invest my pocket-money in buying all sorts of exciting chemicals for my experiments. I went on to be a biologist and now, in retirement in Thailand, write books on science. I thank Prof Rzepa for his anecdotes and the other comments - actually I ended up as a prof at Imperial too, so that was a nice coincidence. Great memories of a time when you could get tins of chlorate to make rockets and go to the Midland Educational store and buy refills of cobalt chloride.
I was also a very frequent customer of A N Beck's in Stoke Newington High Street when I was a teenager attending the Hackney Downs School in the 1940s. Among my prized purchases were a Woulff bottle with two necks, gas jars and a beehive shelf. I also used to visit Griffin & Tatlock's in the City and on one occasion picked up a large glass condenser for 3/6d which the bus conductor was rather reluctant to let me bring on to his bus as I was carrying it home. To obtain ammonium dichromate I visited a printers somewhere in Clerkenwell and received detailed instructions for photoetching copper plates, which wasn't what I had in mind at all!!
Fings ain't wot they used ter be - no HSE or HAZCHeM to protect budding scentists in them days! I retired after 45 years a an industrial chemist, still with my fingers and eyes, and with fond memories of my early chemistry.
I'd say the eponymous AN Beck was Albert Neve Beck, who indeed died in 1921, the date of your address list. His address was given as 9 Summerhill Grove, Bush Hill Park, Enfield. His widow died in 1927, her address was nearer to the shop, at 7 Ardleigh Road N1. Probate was to their two daughters - Gladys Greenwood [m 1923] and Constance Dean [m 1921] both born in Southwark, in the late 1890s. It's not clear if AN Beck had any sons [you'd need to look at the family in 1901/11 censuses] so it may not have been a Beck by name running the business when you were a visitor. A fascinating story and thread, about which I knew nothing.