ABOUT THIS BOOK

A biography of Henry Edward Armstrong, an underappreciated maverick in the history of chemistry.

Fifth Business is a biography of the English chemist, educator, and scientific critic Henry Edward Armstrong. Today, Armstrong, who was a central figure in the development of the science of chemistry between 1885 and 1914, is more remembered for his campaigns to improve the teaching of chemistry, and science generally, and less for his theory of residual affinity and reverse electrolysis—or his hostility toward physical chemistry. However, right up until his retirement, Armstrong was a significant and prolific organic chemist, as well as a major figure in the academic and social life of the Chemical Society.

Fifth Business is structured as chronologically as possible, with Armstrong’s life and achievements as an active chemist in Part I (1848–1911) and as a critic in his long retirement in Part II (1911–1937). Brock’s authoritative biography provides a unique inside look at its subject, allowing us to better understand the history of British science, scientific institutions, scientific education, pedagogical theory, and social relations of science during the last third of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

William H. Brock (1936–2025) was a historian of science and the author of several books, among them The History of Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction; William Crookes (1832–1919) and the Commercialization of Science; Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper; Science for All: Studies in the History of Victorian Science and Education; and The Norton History of Chemistry.

REVIEWS

“Brock has turned his scholarly focus to Henry Armstrong and restored him to his rightful position as a leading organic chemist as well as an innovator in science education. Drawing on Armstrong’s own words has provided a deeper insight into his character and revealed his wider concerns for the environment and farming.”

— Peter Reed, coauthor of “Henry Enfield Roscoe: The Campaigning Chemist”

“With this wonderful study of the irascible and controversial chemist Henry Armstrong, Brock adds a further figure to his other biographies of nineteenth- and twentieth-century chemists. As Brock makes clear, Armstrong’s significance lies in his close involvement with a large number of scientific institutions through which he promoted his ideas on science education and the place of science in society. By writing this biography, Brock has done an invaluable service to the history of science by rescuing a major figure from undeserved obscurity.”

— Frank James, coeditor of “Being Modern: The Cultural Impact of Science in the Early Twentieth Century”

“Brock (1936-2025) was truly a giant amongst historians of science: an incredibly thorough researcher and an outstanding wordsmith. In this, his final book, he does not disappoint. . . . This is an essential book for anyone interested in the development of chemistry education, or for the history of British chemistry.”

— Bulletin of the History of Chemistry

“Fifth Business displays the erudition gained over a career spent studying nineteenth-century chemistry in the easy style of an accomplished and experienced biographer. . . . The reviewer was struck by the author’s ability to weave together strands of chemical technicality, architectural detail, and educational philosophy with quotidian details of his subject’s personal, social, and professional life.”

— Ambix

“Although Armstrong was a controversial, iconoclastic scientist, Brock portrays him neither as a hero nor a villain. Throughout the biography, Brock instead analyzes Armstrong as a ‘fifth business’ character, borrowing a term from novelist and playwright Robertson Davies, who used it to describe ‘[t]hose roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were nevertheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement,’ deserve our attention too. . . . Across sixteen chapters, he uses this idea to evaluate Armstrong’s significance as a researcher, reformer of scientific and technical education, member of professional societies, and scientific polemicist.”

— Metascience

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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