On August 7, 1874, 25 public analysts met in London and founded the Society of Public Analysts, later renamed the Society for Analytical Chemistry. The society was established to set standards for food analysis and to educate analysts in legal work. Its formation was a key step in the professionalization of food safety testing and the fight against adulteration.

The founding of the Society of Public Analysts marked the triumph of scientific rationality over commercial fraud, a theme that resonated with Victorian writers who valued progress and reform. The society's work provided factual support for the social criticism of poets and novelists, who often used the language of purity and contamination to comment on society. The society also contributed to the development of forensic science, which would later appear in detective fiction.