UNSW Chemical Society 100th Anniversary Conversazione

Celebrating 100 years of the UNSW Chemical Society

On 2 August 1913, the newly inaugurated Sydney Technical College Chemical Society held its first meeting. Early meetings were often called “conversazione” or conversations. To mark the one hundredth anniversary of this event the School of Chemistry held a celebration on 2 August 2013. 

The event was a great success with guest speakers Prof. Leonard Lindoy (University of Sydney), Prof. Sam Stupp (Northwestern University USA) and Dr Edith Chow (CSIRO Lindfield), a birthday cake, exhibition, no less than 16 Presidents of the Chemical Society as well as descendants of H.G. Smith, one of the founding fathers of the Chemical Society, in attendance. 

Many thanks go to the people (Lucy Stride, Neeraj Sharma, Ken McGuffin and many others) who organised it.

Watch a short video clip of the afternoon below.

UNSW Chemical Society: 100 years on

Former Sydney Morning Herald science journalist and chemist Deborah Smith has written an excellent piece on the history of the UNSW Chemical Society.

The article, entitled “UNSW Chemical Society: 100 years on,” was first published in the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) magazine Chemistry in Australia in October 2013. It is reproduced with the kind permission of the RACI at the link below.

Specially labelled celebratory bottles of wine and commemorative mugs were sold at the event in order to raise funds for the Dwyer Lecture and Medal. The funds help ensure that the very best Inorganic Chemists are invited to share their knowledge with staff and students at UNSW. 

We thank our event sponsors LabTek and Air Liquide for their generosity.