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In October 1743, posters appeared around Dublin advertising public displays of more than 50 chemical experiments which would be performed for ‘The Amusement and Entertainment of Ladies, as well as Gentlemen’.

The experiments to be performed for the paying audience by Boyle Godfrey, a London-born doctor-cum-scientist-cum-entrepreneur who had fled his native city to avoid angry creditors, were intriguing and mysterious. Some of them also sound just a little bit dangerous: ‘Two cold Fluids coming together instantly flame with Violence’.

Boyle Godfrey obviously hoped to make money, but he also had a serious purpose in mind: to show that everything is ‘the Product of natural Causes’ no matter how unnatural or supernatural it might at first appear. 

This public outreach, as we might call it today, brought the knowledge of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment to the general public in an engaging and entertaining way.

Citation:
For the Amusement and Entertainment of Ladies, as well as Gentlemen ([Dublin], 1743).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 6, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/486