Essay reviews: The early years of the Royal Society

1990 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-268
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
New Work ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional Aspects

Michael Hunter, Establishing the new science: the experience of the early Royal Society . Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989. Pp. xiv+382. £45. ISBN 0-85115-506-5. Francis Bacon as a young man claimed, 'I have taken all learning to be my province’. Michael H unter might justly claim to have taken the 17th century Royal Society as his. Over the past 20 years he has produced a profusion of articles, monographs and books dealing in detail with the institutional aspects of the Society between 1660 and 1700, based upon an unmatched survey of its activities as embodied in its manuscripts and related printed works, and now he has given us a compendium of all that he has learned in Establishing the new science . At a time when ‘social history’ is occupying so much of modern historians’ interest, this new work will be essential reading. Not that the institutional history of the Royal Society has been totally neglected over the years. Fifty years ago Sir Henry Lyons, then Treasurer of the Society, began the well-known work published four years later as The Royal Society 1660-1940. A history of its administration under its Charters , devoted primarily to the day-to-day running of the Society, an invaluable account of its formal existence, its personnel and its organization, with something about its promotion of science. At the same time, interest was turning to the problem of the pre-history of the Society, that is, what lay behind the famous organizational meeting of November 1660. A spate of articles appeared interpreting the known facts in different ways, the arguments put forward being definitively and cogently examined by R.H. Syfret in this journal under the title ‘Origins of the Royal Society’.

‘The Ballad of Robert Crosse and Joseph Glanvill’ and the Background to Plus Ultra

1981 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas H. Steneck
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
New Science ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Growth Of Science ◽  
Royal Society Of London

Joseph Glanvill is well known for his enthusiastic support of the early Royal Society. Even before Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London (1667) appeared in full, Glanvill had set a philosophic background for the new science in his Vanity of dogmatizing (1661), had attacked the outdatedness of contemporary Aristotelians in a revised edition of Vanity called Scepsis scientifica (1665), had praised the Society at length in a flowery address in Scepsis, and had defended the programme of the Society in his private correspondence. If propaganda and enthusiastic support were needed for the growth of science in Restoration England, no one seems to have done more to supply these ingredients during the early years of the Royal Society's existence than the colourful rector of Bath and Frome.

scholarly journals Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society: a reciprocal exchange in the making of Baconian science

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL HUNTER
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Systematic Data ◽  
Reciprocal Exchange ◽  
Important Development ◽  
History Of

This paper documents an important development in Robert Boyle's natural-philosophical method – his use from the 1660s onwards of ‘heads’ and ‘inquiries’ as a means of organizing his data, setting himself an agenda when studying a subject and soliciting information from others. Boyle acknowledged that he derived this approach from Francis Bacon, but he had not previously used it in his work, and the reason why it came to the fore when it did is not apparent from his printed and manuscript corpus. It is necessary to look beyond Boyle to his milieu for the cause, in this case to the influence on him of the Royal Society. Whereas the Royal Society in its early years is often seen as putting into practice a programme pioneered by Boyle, this crucial methodological change on his part seems rather to have been stimulated by the society's early concern for systematic data-collecting. In this connection, it is here shown that a key text, Boyle's influential ‘General Heads for a Natural History of a Country, Great or small’, published in Philosophical Transactions in 1666, represents more of a shared initiative between him and the society than has hitherto been appreciated.

The Royal Society of London’s history of trades programme: An early episode in applied science

1985 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-158 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
New Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
Master Craftsman

In the seventeenth century, craftsmen made most consumer products—dyed clothing, industrial chemicals, leather goods and all other household and industrial products. By the nineteenth century, the master craftsman with his apprentices had disappeared and the factory provided industrial and consumer products. The Royal Society of London’s history of trades programme was an integral part of the process which took knowledge from the craftsman and put it into the factory owners’ control. The Royal Society’s history of trades programme began in 1660 when members, excited with the new science of Galileo and the programme and promise of Francis Bacon, began the project they thought would revolutionize industry. Bacon had suggested that scholars write descriptions of trades called ‘histories of trades’ which he thought would benefit industry and provide information for the new science of the seventeenth century. Society members hoped that following Bacon’s recommendations, they could change industry as radically as Copernicus and Kepler had changed astronomy. Unfortunately, their revolution failed in the seventeenth century. Although Newton was able to bring the sciences of astronomy and mechanics to their modern forms, the makers of the applied science revolution eventually found Bacon’s programme inadequate. In 1660, however, when the Royal Society was formed, members had every reason to believe their programme would succeed, and for about two and a half decades they tried to implement Bacon’s plan. Bacon’s programme called for complete descriptions of trades, called ‘histories’, and while the Society’s scholars wrote few complete histories, they collected and published many partial accounts.

Hooke recommemorated

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-140
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
History Of

Richard Nichols, The Diaries of Robert Hooke, The Leonardo of London, 1635-1703 . Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild, 1994, Pp. 185, £15.00. ISBN 0- 86332-930-6. Richard Nichols is a science master turned historian of science who celebrates in this book Robert Hooke’s contributions to the arts and sciences. The appreciation brings together comments from Hooke’s Diaries , and other works, on each of his main enterprises, and on his personal interaction with each of his principal friends and foes. Further references to Hooke and his activities are drawn from Birch’s History of the Royal Society, Aubrey’s Brief Lives , and the Diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys. The first section of the book, ‘Hooke the Man’, covers his early years of education at home in Freshwater, at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon joined the group of experimental philosophers who set him up as Curator of the Royal Society and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, Bishopsgate. Hooke’s domestic life at Gresham College is described - his intimate relationships with a series of housekeepers, including his niece, Grace Hooke, and his social life at the College and in the London coffee houses.

Madhouse

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-363
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Tilley ◽  
Paul Christian ◽  
Susan Ledger ◽  
Jan Walmsley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Learning Disability ◽  
Social History ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Immersive Theatre ◽  
Disability Research ◽  
History Of Institutions

Until the very end of the twentieth century the history of learning difficulties was subsumed into other histories, of psychiatry, of special education and, indeed, of disability. Initiatives to enable people with learning difficulties and their families to record their own histories and contribute to the historical record are both recent and powerful. Much of this work has been led or supported by The Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Research (SHLD) group and its commitment to developing “inclusive history.” The article tells the story of the Madhouse Project in which actors with learning difficulties, stimulated by the story of historian activist Mabel Cooper and supported by the SHLD group, learned about and then offered their own interpretations of that history, including its present-day resonances. Through a museum exhibition they curated, and through an immersive theatre performance, the actors used the history of institutions to alert a wider public to the abuses of the past, and the continuing marginalization and exclusion of people with learning difficulties. This is an outstanding example of history’s potential to stimulate activism.

scholarly journals Making the States’ Translation (1637): Orthodox Calvinist Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Republic

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-463
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

In the study of the history of biblical scholarship, there has been a tendency among historians to emphasize biblical philology as a force which, together with the new philosophy and the new science of the seventeenth century, caused the erosion of universal scriptural authority from the mid-seventeenth century onwards. A case in point is Jonathan Israel's impressive account of how biblical criticism in the hands of Spinoza paved the way for the Enlightenment. Others who have argued for a post-Spinozist rise of biblical criticism include Frank Manuel, Adam Sutcliffe, and Travis Frampton. These scholars have built upon longer standing interpretations such as those of Hugh Trevor-Roper and Paul Hazard. However, scholars in the past two decades such as Anthony Grafton, Scott Mandelbrote and Jean-Louis Quantin have altered the picture of an exegetical revolution inaugurated by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Spinoza (1632–1677), and Richard Simon (1638–1712). These heterodox philosophers in fact relied on philological research that had been largely developed in the first half of the seventeenth century. Moreover, such research was carried out by scholars who had no subversive agenda. This is to say that the importance attached to a historical and philological approach to the biblical text had a cross-confessional appeal, not just a radical-political one.

Exeter Cathedral: A Conjectural Restoration of the Fourteenth-Century Altar-Screen, Part I

1943 ◽  
Vol 23 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 122-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Percy Morris
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
Advanced Stage ◽  
New Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive

The early years of the fourteenth century were memorable ones in the history of Exeter Cathedral, for work on the new presbytery, or novum opus as it is called in the Fabric Rolls, was in progress. When Bishop Bytton died, in 1307, building operations had reached an advanced stage, and the task of completing the work devolved upon his successor, Walter de Stapledon, a Devon man and at the time of his election precentor of the cathedral. At that date the presbytery vaulting was finished, with the exception of its colouring, and the windows were glazed. The transformed chancel of the Norman church was nearly ready to receive the stalls, but the Norman apse still separated the old and new parts of the building. In 1309–10 ‘John of Glastonbury’ was engaged in removing the stalls to the new quire, but we find no record of the date when the linking-up of the Norman building with the new work took place. The Fabric Roll of the following year records a visit of ‘Master William de Schoverwille’, master mason of Salisbury, to inspect the new work: from this we may infer that a stage had been reached when important decisions were pending—the furnishing of the chancel, the building of the altar-screen, and the addition of a triforium arcade and clerestory gallery to the newly built presbytery—and it may have been these undertakings which prompted the chapter to seek expert advice.

Martin Folkes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
New Science ◽  
Definition Of

In 1750, Martin Folkes became the only individual who was President of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London, and he contributed to efforts to unite both organizations. Although he failed, illness forcing him to resign both offices, this chapter outlines the book’s analysis of the ensuing disciplinary boundaries between the two organizations in the early Georgian era in the context of Folkes’s life and letters. While it is normally assumed that natural philosophy and antiquarianism are disciplines that were fast becoming disconnected in this period, this work will reconsider these assumptions. The Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries were nearly reunited for good reason. Both societies incorporated techniques and affinities from antiquarianism—natural history and landscape—and the ‘new science’—engineering principles, measurement, and empiricism. Using Folkes’s life and letters, this biography will examine the disciplinary boundaries between the humanities and sciences in early Georgian Britain and reassess the extent to which the separation of these ‘two cultures’ developed in this era. It will also consider to what extent Folkes continued the Newtonian programme in mathematics, optics, and astronomy on the Continent. In this manner, the work will refine its definition of Newtonianism and its scope in the early eighteenth century, elucidating and reclaiming the vibrant research programme that Folkes promoted in the period of English science least well understood between the age of Francis Bacon and the present.

scholarly journals Thirteen ways of looking at institutional history: a model for digital exhibitions from science archives

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkat Srinivasan ◽  
TB Dinesh ◽  
Bhanu Prakash ◽  
A Shalini
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Centre ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Official Records

Over the past decade, there have been many efforts to streamline the accessibility of archival material on the web. This includes easy display of oral history interviews and archival records, and making their content more amenable to searches. Science archives wrestle with new challenges, of not just putting out the data, but of building spaces where historians, journalists, the scientific community and the general public can see stories emerging from the linking of seemingly disparate records. We offer a design architecture for an online public history exhibit that takes material from existing archives. Such a digital exhibit allows us to explore the middle space between raw archival data and a finished piece of work (like a book or documentary). The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) digital exhibit is built around thirteen ways to reflect upon and assemble the history of the institution, which is based in Bangalore, India. (A nod to Wallace Stevens' poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”). The exhibit tries to bring to light multiple interpretations of NCBS, weaved by the voices of over 70 story tellers. The material for the exhibit is curated from records collected to build the Centre's archive. The oral history excerpts, along with over 600 photographs, official records, letters, and the occasional lab note, give a glimpse into the Centre's multifaceted history and show connections with the present.

Francis Vernon, the Early Royal Society and the First English Encounter with Ancient Greek Architecture

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 29-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Walker
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
English Language ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Architecture ◽  
European Publication ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

Francis Vernon (c. 1637-77) is not a particularly well-known figure in the history of British architecture, but perhaps he should be. In 1675 he became one of the first English people to have set foot in Athens and, the following year, published what was undisputedly the first account in the English language of the city and its architecture. Vernon was a member of the recently founded Royal Society and one of a group of English and French travellers who journeyed through central Greece and Turkey in the 1670s. He was murdered in Isfahan in early 1677. Vernon's account of the time he spent in Athens was published in the Society's journal, thePhilosophical Transactions, in 1676, and it included brief but illuminating descriptions of the Erechtheion, the Temple of Hephaestus and the Parthenon, the latter written over ten years before the bombing of the temple by a Venetian army in 1687. TheTransactionsoften contained both travel writing and antiquarian material and, in this respect, Vernon's account was typical of the journal's somewhat eclectic content in its early years. Significantly, Vernon's publication predated more famous accounts of Greece from the period, such as those written by his travelling companions Jacob Spon (who released hisVoyage d'ltalie, de Dalamatie, de Grèce et du Levantin France in 1678) and George Wheler, whoseA journey into Greecewas published in 1682. Unlike Vernon, both Spon and Wheler survived their journeys. The only European publication on Athens that preceded Vernon's was a French text of 1675 that would prove to be a fabrication. As this article will demonstrate, Vernon's initial exposure of this fabrication was one of the reasons why his account of the city became so important in English intellectual culture at the time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document