A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

The Association of Certified Dispensers then asked the Private Court
to improve the assistants‘ status by introducing a statuary register and the
Clerk of the Society was instructed to consult the officials of the Privy
Council. 25 By 1923, Mr Trayner had been replaced as Secretary by Mr Bott
who, having received many letters about the Society‘s inaction, asked the
Private Court to improve the assistants‘ position. He wanted them to have a
new title: ―Certified Dispenser of the Society of Apothecaries.‖ He wanted
the minimum age for entry to the examination to be raised from 18 to 20
and for the period of practical training to be increased. He believed that the
society had a duty to protect its assistants, of whom 450 were members of
the Association of Certified Dispensers. He was aware however that if they
upgraded the examination to approach that of the chemist and druggist,
they might lose candidates to the Pharmaceutical Society. 26
We now turn to the second part of the strategy, that of amending the
legislation. The Society of Apothecaries had considered introducing a Bill in
1913 that would have extended the powers of the Apothecaries Act (1815) in
respect of the assistant‘s qualifying examination. 27 Acting on instructions
from the Court, the Clerk approached Mr Charles Bathurst, the Unionist
M.P. for Wiltshire South and Dr Christopher Addison, the Liberal M.P. for
Shoreditch, Hoxton Division, for assistance. Mr Bathurst was a keen
agriculturalist, a tariff reformer in parliament and a barrister by profession.
25
Society of Apothecaries Archive, Court Minute Book 1913-1926, p. 485, Private Court Minutes, 6 Feb.
1923.
26
Society of Apothecaries Archive, Box 10, E/4/4/1/2, Bingham Watson, Clerk to the Society of
Apothecaries, „Society of Apothecaries, Position of Dispensers‟, Apr. 1923.
27
Society of Apothecaries Archive, Court Minute Book 1913-1926, p. 8, Private Court Minutes, 1 Apr.
1913.
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