By Emmeline Ledgerwood ‘We lost a type of job for a type of person in this country’: changing expectations of working in the UK scientific civil service By Abi Wilson Philanthropy, industry and the city of Manchester: the impact of Sir Joseph Whitworth’s philanthropy on Manchester’s built environment By Colin Ford Obituary: Dame Margaret Weston, DBE, FMA (7 March 1926–12 January 2021) By David Bryden Science and the City: Valentine Gottlieb, immigrant engineer of Lambeth: his trade card of c. 1810 unpacked By Emily Rees Koerner Inventor, devoted daughter, or lover? Uncovering the life and work of Victorian naval engineer Henrietta Vansittart (1833–1883) By Ian Blatchford Lyon Playfair: chemist and commissioner, 1818–1858 By Hannah Bower An overlooked eighteenth-century scrofula pamphlet: changing forms and changing readers, 1760-1824 By Ben Russell Book review: The Life and Legend of James Watt by David Phillip Miller By Keith Harcourt and Roy Edwards Engineering and the family in business: Blanche Coules Thornycroft, naval architecture and engineering design By Glyn Parry Review: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee (Royal College of Physicians, 18 January-29 July 2016)