Further to my recent musings about Walter Morley Fletcher, I was interested to see a couple of exhibitions advertised, both in London.
The Royal Society have mounted an exhibition Frederick Gowland Hopkins and the Chemistry of Life, to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth. Hopkins worked with Fletcher and I have seen his name crop up a lot when reading about that period so I was vaguely aware that he was a major figure. The exhibition celebrates Hopkins’ life and his “enormous contribution to one of the key scientific disciplines of the twenty-first century”, namely biochemistry. The Royal Society website has a nice summary of the exhibition; the final part is titled “The Father of Biochemistry”. There is also a lecture about Hopkins, tomorrow, being given by Dr Alison Thomas from Anglia Ruskin University. I was interested to note that the blurb for the lecture states
Many subsequently well known women biochemists began their careers in Hopkins’ department. This talk will introduce Hopkins’ life and work, concentrating in particular on his role in encouraging women to pursue careers in biochemistry.
The Royal Society webcast many of their lectures but I am not sure yet whether this one will be webcast.
The other exhibition is at University College, London and marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Francis Galton. Actually it is a pair of exhibitions, one at the UCL Main Library features exhibits from the Galton Papers held by UCL Special Collections and the Galton Collection; the other is at the Petrie Museum, featuring photographs that Galton comissioned Flinders Petrie to take of different ‘racial types’ on monuments in ancient Egypt. The news item linked above includes a gallery of photos from the exhibitions.
