Australia and IUPAC

The expansion of chemical research, development, and industrial applications in the 19th century led to initiatives in international cooperation, one of the first of which was a conference convened in Karlsruhe in 1860 in an attempt to reach agreement on the theory of organic chemistry, including the standardisation of nomenclature. The first International Congress on Applied Chemistry was held in Brussels in 1894, while a series of meetings on the standardisation of atomic weights and constants followed in the 1890s and early 1900s. The French, German, and British Chemical Societies formed the International Association of Chemical Societies in 1911 and by 1912 had recruited Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and the USA. The Danes, Dutch, and Norwegians soon followed.

The first Australian participation in these activities seems to have been in the eighth triennial International Congress on Applied Chemistry held in Washington and New York in 1912. There were two delegates from Australia. W. Percy Wilkinson, the Australian Government Analyst, was sent by the Government and W. Russell Grimwade, the Victorian industrial chemist, was there as a private citizen. The significance of analysis and analytical chemists to the new Commonwealth of Australia (the Federation of previously independent States occurred in 1901) can be understood by examining the government’s revenue sources in its early years. In 1901-02, revenue from Customs and Excise accounted for 73 % of Commonwealth revenue. This rose to 75 % in 1906-07, but dropped to 46 % in 1916-17, as the Commonwealth gained some income taxing powers.

In the first few years, the Commonwealth used the services of the Government Analyst for the State of Victoria, W. Percy Wilkinson. He was appointed as the Commonwealth Analyst in 1908 and remained in that position until 1933. The significance of his position is reflected in his being listed, in the 1909 Commonwealth Year Book, as one of the Principal Commonwealth Officers, along with the Secretaries of the main Government Departments. As the senior Commonwealth scientist, he was the natural choice to represent Australia at the 1912 International Congress on Applied Chemistry referred to above, a predecessor organisation to IUPAC.

These activities all came to a halt during World War I, but started up again as the war ended with the formation in 1919 of the International Research Council (later the International Council of Scientific Unions, ICSU, and now the International Council for Science) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

At a conference held at the Royal Society of London in October 1918, it was decided to form an International Research Council. At a further conference, in Paris in November 1918, an invitation was issued to Australia to join this international body by establishing a National Research Council. The first meeting to consider this proposal was held in August 1919 and the Australian National Research Council was established in January 1921.

At the time, a country could join the International Research Council, or any Union connected with it, either through its principal Academy, its National Research Council, some other national institution or associations of institutions, or through its government. As noted in the IUPAC history, in 1920 the French Secretariat gave Canada independent status but assumed that Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa would be represented by the UK.

However, by 1947 Australia is listed as an independent country in Category B of IUPAC members, along with South Africa, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

In 1919 Australia had formed the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) to represent Australian science on these international bodies, but Australia did not become a member of IUPAC until 1949, with ANRC as the adhering body. This continued until 1954 and the formation of the Australian Academy of Science, one of Australia’s learned academies, which replaced the ANRC as the Adhering Organisation to IUPAC. It is important to note that the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) was never the adhering body, though over the years some efforts have been made to change this situation. Currently, RACI shares the funding of IUPAC dues with the Academy, and RACI members and fellows of the Academy continue to be active in representing Australia at IUPAC and in participating in IUPAC activities.

The Australian National Research Council granted the Australian Chemical Institute £50 (or about AUD4000 in 2016 dollars) to meet expenses entailed during the year for the work of the National Committee.

Australian Members having served on the IUPAC Bureau; see text box page 12-13.

The Committee had forwarded a list of ten Commissions that it thought should be formed in Australia to undertake work being carried out in the countries affiliated with the Union. The Commissions are listed below with their chosen Chairmen, all distinguished figures in Australian chemistry and the national scientific community.

1. Plenary Commission for the Reform of Biological Chemistry Nomenclature (Professor T. Brailsford Robertson)

2. Commission for the Bureau of Physical Chemical Standards (Professor N. T. Wilsmore)

3. Commission for Tables of Constants (Professor N. T. Wilsmore)

4. Commission for Pure Research Products (analytical reagents) (Professor C. E. Fawsitt)

5. Commission for Liquid Fuels (Professor J. Kenner)

6. Commission for Ceramic Products (Dr. E. S. Simpson)

7. Commission for Bromatology (Mr. J. B. Henderson)

8. Commission for Scientific and Industrial Property (Mr. L. B. Davis)

9. Commission for Industrial Hygiene (Professor Chapman)

10. Commission for Solid Fuels

Professor Thorburn Brailsford Robertson was Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry at the University of Adelaide from 1991-1927 and then the Chief of the newly formed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Division of Animal Nutrition from 1928 until his death from influenza in 1930.

Professor Norman Thomas Wilsmore was an electrochemist trained in Melbourne, London, Göttingen, and Zürich. He was the foundation Professor of Chemistry at the University of Western Australia from 1913 to 1937.

Professor Charles Edward Fawsitt was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney from 1909 to 1946. Prior to that he had been a lecturer in metallurgical chemistry in Glasgow.

Professor James Kenner was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Sydney from 1924 to 1927, when he returned to Great Britain as the Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Manchester.

Dr. Edward Sydney Simpson was a mining and metallurgical engineer, a graduate of the University of Sydney who had been appointed as the first mineralogist and assayer for the Geological Survey of Western Australia in 1897.

Mr. John Brownlie Henderson was a graduate of Anderson’s University, Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde) and the Queensland Government Analyst from 1893 to 1936.

Leslie Bartlett Davies was a leading figure in the patent attorney profession working for Collison and Co. He acquired the firm in 1929 and renamed it Davies and Collison. It is now called Davies, Collison, and Cave.

The ‘commissions’ that the Australians established weren’t exactly as established in Europe. It is unclear why Australian chemists were asked to work only on the above set of topics. Most of the commissions have been replaced by a system of specific projects. enabling a more wide-ranging and flexible approach to the development of agreed-upon standards and protocols.

The IUPAC archives list 14 IUPAC Conferences held in Australia, the first one being the International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products held in August 1960 across Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney locations. Of the 14 conferences, six concerned organic chemistry and two concerned coordination chemistry, with one each dealing with polymer chemistry, condensed matter, chemistry teaching, and solution chemistry. The remaining two were Congress meetings, the first being the 22nd Congress, held in Sydney in August 1969, and the second the 38th Congress, held in Brisbane in July 2001. The Sydney IUPAC Congress came at the height of the ‘polywater’ controversy and attracted much media attention. These IUPAC meetings did much to engage Australian chemists with their international colleagues.

IUPAC, being an international organization, has quite a complicated governance structure. At the top is the Council. consisting of delegations from the National Adhering Organizations. The Council meets every two years. The Bureau conducts the affairs of IUPAC between Council meetings and meets annually. It consists of the President, Vice-President, Secretary General, Treasurer, Immediate Past President, Presidents of Divisions, Chairs of Standing Committees, and ten elected members. The Executive Committee, consisting of the officers together with three of the elected members of the Bureau, handle the day-to-day affairs.

Dr. Lloyd Rees was the first Australian to be a member of the IUPAC Bureau. He joined in 1963 and was elected President in 1969. Professor Andy Cole replaced Dr. Rees on the Bureau from 1973-1981 and Professor Ron Brown was a member of the Bureau from 1989 to 1997. Professor David StC. Black was the Secretary General of IUPAC from 2004 to 2011. Other Australians who have served on the IUPAC Bureau are Bob Gilbert (1998-2005), John Ralston (2002-03), Robert Loss (2010-13), Brynn Hibbert (2014-15), and Mary Garson (2014-15).

The Academy of Science, as part of its organizational structure, established Standing Committees in various disciplines to deal with relations with the various international Unions. For IUPAC, the standing committee was the National Committee for Pure and Applied Chemistry, later changed to the National Committee for Chemistry. In general, the committees were charged with promotion of their branch of science, nominating delegates to represent Australia at meetings of the Unions, and carrying proposals or discussion topics to those Union meetings. As standing committees of the Academy of Science, it is not surprising that membership of the national committee was dominated by Fellows of the Academy, a practice that changed only slowly over the years. RACI eventually was represented with one or two members and now, through its President, ex officio. The committee was always very much smaller than that first gathering of the Australian national committee of IUPAC formed in 1925 that had 41 members. Of those 41, 21 were elected by the Australian National Research Council and 20 by the Australian Chemical Institute. Note that the Royal Charter was granted in 1932, leading to the renaming of the ACI as RACI).

Senior members of RACI provided willing support to the national Committee over subsequent years. The first Convener/Chairman was Dr. Ian W. Wark, while subsequent conveners (often serving for several years) were Dr. A. Lloyd G. Rees, Dr. James (Jerry) R. Price, Dr. Sefton D. Hamann, Professor Andrew R. H. Cole, Professor Ronald D. Brown, Dr. Alan F. Reid, Ronald W. Rickards, Professor Noel S. Hush, Professor James H. O’Donnell, Dr. Thomas H. Spurling, Professor David St. C. Black, Professor Francis P. Larkins, Professor Alan J. Canty, Professor Christopher J. Easton, Professor Curt Wentrup, Professor Paul Mulvaney, and currently Professor Martina H. Stenzel (the first female chair).

Currently, the National Committee is composed of the Chair and four members appointed by the Academy, two members from the Academy’s Early and Mid-Career Researchers Forum, plus three observers, one of whom is long-serving IUPAC officer, Prof. David Black. This composition reflects the changing demographic and awareness of the profession, with three members and one observer being female. The age profile is a mix of mid-career and experience, rather than the senior ‘oldies’ of previous years. The Committee’s duties are, as expected fostering chemistry in Australia, linking Australian chemistry to overseas chemists, primarily through IUPAC, nominating Australia as host for IUPAC meetings, and, with the cooperation of RACI, developing a decadal plan for chemistry. The latest of these was launched in 2016.

This focus on the formal engagement of Australian chemists with IUPAC should not obscure the work of a large number of Australian chemists and members of RACI in supporting the technical work of the various Divisions, Standing Committees, and related bodies of IUPAC. A comprehensive list of these contributions is not feasible here, but their links to IUPAC are significant in enriching the work of IUPAC, and indeed, of chemistry itself.

Finally, the National Committee of Chemistry is aware of the importance of a continuing presence of Australian chemists in IUPAC for Australian chemistry. To this end, they are actively encouraging the next generation to make nominations for positions in the appropriate Divisions and Standing Committees.