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Scientific Institutions

Geoffrey Cantor

in Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650-1900

This chapter seeks to analyse the involvement of Jews and Quakers in a range of scientific institutions. One is the Royal Society of London, the membership of which was open to non-Anglicans since no ... More

This chapter seeks to analyse the involvement of Jews and Quakers in a range of scientific institutions. One is the Royal Society of London, the membership of which was open to non-Anglicans since no corporeal oath was required. The membership patterns of both Jews and Quakers displayed networks of business and of patronage, as illustrated by the career of Emanuel Mendes da Costa among others. Quakers flocked to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), which they found ideologically appealing. Quaker social and political interests were also reflected in the Aborigines’ Protection Society and the Ethnological Society, where they adopted a monogenist stance that was opposed by other ethnologists. Jewish concerns with assimilation and improvement were manifested in the Jews’ and General Scientific and Literary Institution (1844-59). Both communities were greatly attracted by the Great Exhibition (1851), but in different ways: for the Anglo-Jewry, it raised the question of whether Jews were intellectually able; the Quakers saw it as a harbinger of world peace.Less

Organizing Science

Ruth Barton

in The X Club: Power and Authority in Victorian Science

Through examination of the activities of the X-men within scientific societies this chapter reveals much about the mundane operation of scientific societies, their characteristic organisational ... More

Through examination of the activities of the X-men within scientific societies this chapter reveals much about the mundane operation of scientific societies, their characteristic organisational structure, the roles of officers, and Victorian expectations as to the roles appropriate to persons of different social statuses. The concerns of the X-men were chiefly with the public image of science, that science be dignified and socially respected, judged by scientific criteria alone. Their specifically professionalizing concerns focused on building the infrastructure for scientific research. They devoted considerable effort to getting themselves elected to high positions in the Royal Society, and ensuring that high birth was no longer a criterion for the presidency. In the Ethnological Society of London, Lubbock, Busk and Huxley sought both scientific and social respectability for the science of man. They succeeded in reuniting the squabbling Ethnological and Anthropological Societies, and in holding the amalgamated Anthropological Institute together. By contrast, in the Linnean Society Hooker lost his long control, largely because Busk and Lubbock refused to act as his lieutenants. Through the British Association they shaped public opinion more widely, using public lectures and presidential addresses to interpret the tendencies and directions of modern science to large audiences.Less

‘Accidents of the air’: Sydenham and Boerhaave in the tropics

Mark Harrison

in Medicine in an age of Commerce and Empire: Britain and its Tropical Colonies 1660-1830

Chapter 2 shows how British practitioners, many from Dissenting backgrounds or trained at the University of Edinburgh, sought to apply the insights of Sydenham and Boerhaave to their work on disease ... More

Chapter 2 shows how British practitioners, many from Dissenting backgrounds or trained at the University of Edinburgh, sought to apply the insights of Sydenham and Boerhaave to their work on disease in the tropical colonies. Again, it stresses the centrality of place and climate to their understanding of disease and the vital part played by morbid anatomy. The chapter traces a number of important intellectual networks, spanning both the East and West Indies, and Britain and the American colonies. Some of these were Dissenting networks which linked surgeons in the Army, Navy, and East India Company to figures such as John Fothergill and Benjamin Rush in Britain and America; others were more formal, such as the Royal Society of London and ties to universities such as Edinburgh.Less

“The Wonderful Elaboratory of the Animal Body”: The Royal Society's Repository at Work

Matthew C. Hunter

in Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London

This chapter focuses on the Royal Society’s early museum at Gresham College in London where objects from the institution’s far-flung contacts were put on public display. Examining the ways in which ... More

This chapter focuses on the Royal Society’s early museum at Gresham College in London where objects from the institution’s far-flung contacts were put on public display. Examining the ways in which these valuable artifacts were physically disassembled, reconfigured and recoded with meaning (often many times over) in the Royal Society’s meetings, the chapter demonstrates how the museum collection came to serve as a powerful model for the faculties of cognition particularly for Robert Hooke, Keeper of the museum itself. Hooke’s writings on cognition from the early 1680s, I argue, articulate this epistemological geography. Distributed networks of informants became the senses of the experimental body which would deliver ontologically-fragile, unreliable objects to the centralized laboratory of the mind. There, the countervailing agency of what Hooke would call (through engagement with Elizabethan philosopher John Dee) “Archietonical Power” brings them to stable, rational order and feeds intelligence back out to the periphery. By shifting between the Royal Society’s constant bricolage of museum artifacts and Hooke’s conception of reason, the chapter sheds raking light on the darker textures of experimental intelligence.Less

The Membership

G. L’E Turner

in Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society 1780-1787

This chapter contains biographical sketches of the members, together with a record of attendance and non-attendance at the meetings, and brief commentary. The men who met at the Chapter Coffee House, ... More

This chapter contains biographical sketches of the members, together with a record of attendance and non-attendance at the meetings, and brief commentary. The men who met at the Chapter Coffee House, and later the Baptist Head Coffee House, regarded themselves as natural philosophers. Of the fifty two identified members, thirty three are included in the Dictionary of National Biography, thirty three were Fellows of the Royal Society of London, seven were Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London, twenty two had the degree of MD, and medical fellowships from London or Edinburgh were also common among the members. Not all those listed as members attended even one meeting. The author suggests that should one wish to make any claims regarding the intellectual or social character of the Society, one must look to those who actually came to meetings, rather than to the totality of the membership.Less

Fifty‐Eight Years of Friendship: Kelvin and Stokes

Alastair Wood

in Kelvin: Life, Labours and Legacy

This chapter focuses on the friendship between Sir G. G. Stokes and Kelvin. Kelvin was Stokes's principal correspondent over a period of fifty-six years. The correspondence between the two provide ... More

This chapter focuses on the friendship between Sir G. G. Stokes and Kelvin. Kelvin was Stokes's principal correspondent over a period of fifty-six years. The correspondence between the two provide valuable insight not only into the research and research methods of two giants of 19th-century British science, but also into the day-to-day running of Cambridge and Glasgow Universities and of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh at a critical time in their histories. The family backgrounds and formative influences of Kelvin and Stokes, their life in Cambridge, their early research correspondence, professorships, marriages, and political activities are discussed.Less

The Author and the Referee

Alex Csiszar

in The Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century

In the late 1820s, British scientific practitioners joined political crusaders calling for the reform of institutions of governance. Among other things, scientific reformers wanted means of ... More

In the late 1820s, British scientific practitioners joined political crusaders calling for the reform of institutions of governance. Among other things, scientific reformers wanted means of identifying true scientific practitioners in the hopes that delimiting a core of professionals would prompt the state to take greater interest in natural philosophy. This chapter follows the rising fortunes of two key identities in the emergence of the scientific expert: the author and the referee. In Britain, periodical authorship was an ambiguous professional identity, but the idea that certain kinds of specialized authorship could be a privileged marker of scientific activity was gaining ground. Concurrently, several learned societies were experimenting with new systems of judgment for their publications. The system initiated by the Royal Society of London was inspired by the Paris Academy of Sciences which used a system of public reports to judge manuscripts and inventions. But transporting this system across the Channel led to its transformation into a system based instead on the anonymous reports of individuals. The persona of the referee that emerged by mid-century was an amalgam of various identities including the legal expert, the trustworthy gentleman, the state bureaucrat, and the anonymous book reviewer.Less

Edward Bancroft’s Guiana Eels and London Connections

Stanley Finger and Marco Piccolino

in The Shocking History of Electric Fishes: From Ancient Epochs to the Birth of Modern Neurophysiology

This chapter centers on what Edward Bancroft, a New Englander who became close to Franklin and who was elected a member of the Royal Society with his help, wrote about the South American eels. During ... More

This chapter centers on what Edward Bancroft, a New Englander who became close to Franklin and who was elected a member of the Royal Society with his help, wrote about the South American eels. During the 1760s, Bancroft had practiced medicine and surgery in Guiana, as had Ingram before him, where he too had the opportunity to study the eels feared by the natives. Franklin had no way of knowing at the time that Bancroft would serve as a double agent during the American War of Independence. But he was quick to appreciate the case made by Bancroft for animal electricity, and fully understood why scientists of the famed Royal Society should mobilize to pursue additional groundbreaking research in this field.Less

Confirming Signs: The Prophetic Ethos of the Early Royal Society

Lynda Walsh

in Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy

This chapter discusses Francis Bacon's influence on the ethos of the fledgling Royal Society of London. Bacon was more than just an authorizing figurehead for the Society's founders. They imitated ... More

This chapter discusses Francis Bacon's influence on the ethos of the fledgling Royal Society of London. Bacon was more than just an authorizing figurehead for the Society's founders. They imitated many of the prophetic strategies he recommended and performed. They did so not just because Bacon had told them to but because they witnessed first-hand the power of prophetic ethos: in a tenuous political climate, it enabled the Society to transcend a host of political dilemmas—framed by antinomies such as public/private, experience/authority, and contemplation/action—to establish itself as a civic oracle in Restoration London.Less

The Electrical World of Benjamin Franklin

Stanley Finger and Marco Piccolino

in The Shocking History of Electric Fishes: From Ancient Epochs to the Birth of Modern Neurophysiology

The previous chapter showed how theories involving rapid muscle contractions replaced ancient ideas about cold vapors and venoms, and vague notions of occult (hidden) forces, when accounting for the ... More

The previous chapter showed how theories involving rapid muscle contractions replaced ancient ideas about cold vapors and venoms, and vague notions of occult (hidden) forces, when accounting for the effects of torporific fish. These mechanical theories emerged in the final decades of the 17th century, and with Réaumur in France, they continued to have substantial backing in the first half of the 18th century. The first suggestions that these fish just might function in another way, by electricity, would first appear around 1750. This significant change in thinking would emerge in the context of the tremendous attraction that electricity held for academic scientists and even amateurs in the 1740s and 1750s. In this Zeitgeist, a wide variety of phenomena, in both the animate and inanimate world, would be increasingly perceived as electrical. This chapter examines this phase in the history of electricity, and by so doing it sets the stage for the understanding of how torpedoes, a family of African catfish, and the South American eel, literally became electrical. It also introduces a number of technological innovations and introduces Benjamin Franklin, who would not only play a major role in understanding the nature of electricity, but would also be influential in showing that torpedoes are, in fact, electrical. The chapter also presents historical information about the Royal Society of London, emphasizing its commitment to overthrowing falsehoods with experiments, and its belief that even the smallest facts might lead to useful knowledge.Less

Introduction

T. H. Levere

in Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society 1780-1787

This chapter discusses the origins of the Coffee House Philosophical Society, a group of chemists, medical practitioners, political radicals, philosophical clergymen, industrialists, and instrument ... More

This chapter discusses the origins of the Coffee House Philosophical Society, a group of chemists, medical practitioners, political radicals, philosophical clergymen, industrialists, and instrument makers who met from 1780-1787. As a group, the members of the Society were decidedly impressive in natural philosophy and medicine, roughly sixty per cent of them becoming Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The purpose of the Society was defined in a resolution agreed to at the first meeting: ‘That the Conversation of this Society shall be confined to Natural Philosophy, in its most extensive signification; and, that it shall commence at every meeting by an enquiry, on the part of the Chairman, whether the members have anything new to communicate.’ The members of the Coffee House Philosophical Society exchanged scientific information, discussed experiments, and contemplated industrial improvements.Less

Agricultural improvement and the rise of crop breeding

Denis J. Murphy

in People, Plants and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity

The Renaissance provided some stimulus to European agriculture but a far more profound phenomenon after 1550 CE was a ‘neonaissance’ involving the creation and publishing de novo of reliable ... More

The Renaissance provided some stimulus to European agriculture but a far more profound phenomenon after 1550 CE was a ‘neonaissance’ involving the creation and publishing de novo of reliable knowledge based on systematic observation. This was paralleled by the emergence of an entrepreneurial culture, especially in the maritime nations of England and the Netherlands, that encouraged exploration and agrarian innovation for private profit. In England, land enclosure began as a way to establish farming as a profitable business venture rather than as a socially based subsistence activity. Practical scientific breeding began to emerge in the 17th century with a newly united Britain and the independent Netherlands as major centres. This process was assisted by improved literacy and the establishment of agricultural and scientific societies, such as the Royal Society in London.Less

Philosophers, Mariners, Tides

in Tides of History: Ocean Science and Her Majesty's Navy

This chapter traces England's initial commitment to the study of the littoral environment. After an initial surge of interest in tidal theory following the founding of the Royal Society of London, ... More

This chapter traces England's initial commitment to the study of the littoral environment. After an initial surge of interest in tidal theory following the founding of the Royal Society of London, Isaac Newton formulated a general theory of the tides based on his law of universal gravitation. Edmond Halley then searched out the tides, beginning in the Thames estuary and extending his study to the Atlantic Ocean as master and commander of the Paramore. The study of the sea shifted to the Continent, especially France, where Pierre-Simon Laplace and others made significant advances on Newton's achievements, formulating a hydrodynamic theory that still serves as the basis of tidal analysis. Newton's general theory marshaled several sets of tidal observations for support, but as explorers spread across the globe, his theory rarely held, or was held up, as an explanation. Naval captains such as Henry More and James Cook gathered observations of tides that contradicted Newton's theory, while others such as Charles Vallancey, a colonial engineer, and John Abram, a teacher of navigation, offered theories that were explicitly anti-Newtonian.Less

Patrons of the Nation

Anton Howes

in Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation

This chapter illustrates the eighteenth century as an age of improvement in which letters of scholars criss-crossed Europe and North America, even India or China, in an active pursuit and sharing of ... More

This chapter illustrates the eighteenth century as an age of improvement in which letters of scholars criss-crossed Europe and North America, even India or China, in an active pursuit and sharing of knowledge. It talks about the scholar's letters that transcended all political and social barriers and confirmed to a specific agenda set by Francis Bacon, an English politician and philosopher of the early seventeenth century. It also discusses the “Baconian programme,” which was aimed to accumulate and rigorously test knowledge. The chapter highlights the Baconian obsession with collection and cataloguing that was applied beyond natural philosophy, to history, archaeology, and ancient languages. It also mentions the founding of the “Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge” in 1660, as well as the establishment of the “Académie des Sciences” in France.Less

Celestial Events

Tamara Plakins Thornton

in Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: "How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life"

This chapter examines Bowditch’s attempts to join the international Republic of Letters through scholarly publication, culminating in 1818 with his honorary membership in London’s Royal Society, the ... More

This chapter examines Bowditch’s attempts to join the international Republic of Letters through scholarly publication, culminating in 1818 with his honorary membership in London’s Royal Society, the result of his friends’ behind-the-scenes lobbying, and an occasion of nationalist celebration in America. Bowditch turned down a Harvard professorship in favor of combining a business career with mathematical and astronomical labors. Newspaper duels with mathematical inferiors enhanced his American reputation, but European authorities generally deemed his work as outdated though capable. His as-yet unpublished annotated translation of Pierre-Simon Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste required Bowditch to master advanced mathematical techniques unknown to Americans and eventually prompted him to study the latest in German scientific developments. Though Federalists smelled ideological danger in Laplace’s work, Bowditch rejected partisan approaches to scholarship and instead found lifelong inspiration in the Laplacean vision of order and regularity in the solar system.Less

The Two hundred and Fiftieth-anniversary Celebration of the Royal Society and The International Entomological Congress

Anna Botsford Comstock

Karen Penders St. Clair (ed.)

in The Comstocks of Cornell-The Definitive Autobiography

This chapter describes how John Henry Comstock was asked to represent Cornell University at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Society of London in 1912. On the evening after the ... More

This chapter describes how John Henry Comstock was asked to represent Cornell University at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Society of London in 1912. On the evening after the Comstocks' arrival in London, Henry went to the first informal meeting of the delegates to the Royal Society Celebration. On July 16, 1912, there was an impressive service in Westminster Abbey, which was attended by the delegates who were all in Academic dress. That evening, there was a great dinner in the Guild hall for the delegates. Eleven of the wives of delegates, including Anna Botsford Comstock, were entertained at dinner by Lady Bradford at her home in Manchester Square. The closing event of the celebration was the garden party at Windsor Castle. The delegates were received by their Majesties in the palace and were shown through it afterwards. Henry then attended the International Congress of Entomologists in Oxford in August of 1912.Less

Burned by Success

Alistair Sponsel

in Darwin's Evolving Identity: Adventure, Ambition, and the Sin of Speculation

This chapter shows how, with Lyell’s collaboration, Darwin navigated the social world of British science in the late 1830s. Lyell’s interventions were a mixed blessing. Although he groomed Darwin as ... More

This chapter shows how, with Lyell’s collaboration, Darwin navigated the social world of British science in the late 1830s. Lyell’s interventions were a mixed blessing. Although he groomed Darwin as a spokesman for uniformitarian geology, he complicated Darwin’s relationship with his Captain Robert FitzRoy and made Darwin feel intense pressure to publish his geological ideas rapidly and boldly. While Darwin struggled to make progress on his book of Beagle geology, Lyell incorporated the younger man’s unpublished findings and ideas into his own new book, Elements of Geology, and into revised editions of Principles of Geology. By mid-1838 Darwin was in a tense position: he had begun to regret that his geological work under Lyell’s guidance was earning him a scientific reputation for overzealous theorizing (or “speculation”) even as he was in avid private pursuit of a theory of the origin of species. Darwin tried to manage the situation by requesting that Lyell “quote [him] with caution” and studying books by John Herschel and William Whewell on scientific method. Darwin’s 1839 paper on the geology of Glen Roy, Scotland was boldly speculative, but he couched his theorizing in philosophical terms intended to demonstrate his matured judgment.Less

Interlude: Competing Ethical Models and a Catch-22

Lynda Walsh

in Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy

This chapter reviews the major factors influencing the construction of late-modern scientific ethos in light of the findings on the persistent meme of prophetic ethos. It examines the rhetorical ... More

This chapter reviews the major factors influencing the construction of late-modern scientific ethos in light of the findings on the persistent meme of prophetic ethos. It examines the rhetorical tension that developed between the progressive model of scientific ethos as practiced by the early Royal Society and a philosophical model of scientific ethos (is/ought model) derived from Hume's Guillotine. The progressive model posited that since scientists best understood the world, they were best positioned to set policy. The is/ought model tends to be activated either by conservative administrations suspicious of centralized regulation or in response to perceived abuses of power by scientists. But neither model ever goes away entirely, and the latent competition between them creates an ethical catch-22 for science advisers in the following way: in policy crises, the old progressive model triggers calls to scientists for advice.Less

Melamchi River Blues

Cheryl Colopy

in Dirty, Sacred Rivers: Confronting South Asia’s Water Crisis

While I lived in Kathmandu, I regularly visited the American Mission Association. Members call it Phora, while some Nepalis call it “mini America.” It’s a club, and expatriates with the right kind ... More

While I lived in Kathmandu, I regularly visited the American Mission Association. Members call it Phora, while some Nepalis call it “mini America.” It’s a club, and expatriates with the right kind of visa can apply to become members. It has a pool and tennis courts, a small gym, a field for baseball and soccer, a children’s playground, movie rentals, manicures and massages, a commissary and wifi café, and very polite Nepali staff. It has a certain colonial feel to it, which bothered me at times: yet it was also a haven where on a weekday afternoon I could exercise, read the papers, and eat lunch. Phora refers to phohara durbar, which in Nepali means “fountain palace.” The extensive, welltended grounds where dozens of expats and their children gather for hours on weekends was once the site of a Rana palace, a place for parties and dances, performances and cinema. It got its name because there were fountains throughout the gardens as well as inside the building. The ornate, neoclassical palace is long gone. In serious disrepair by 1960, the palace was demolished and the land sold to the American government. But phohara durbar has other claims to fame. It was also the site of the first piped water in the Kathmandu Valley. To explain how this came about, I’ll tell you a little more about the valley’s history and culture. The Lichchhavis and Mallas kept the city from growing beyond certain limits. They prohibited building outside a ring of shrines to various mother goddesses, like Kali. They knew that disturbing the land beyond that ring would be “killing your own food, your economic base,” says Sudarshan Tiwari, the architect and cultural historian who has reconstructed aspects of ancient life in the valley. There is still some agriculture in the Kathmandu Valley, because a few of the old landowners stubbornly hold on to their fields even as a sea of “wedding cake,” multistory, pastel houses engulfs them. But daily the green plots of rice and vegetables shrink as the valley succumbs, like the ancient water channels, to unplanned urban development. Less