scholarly journals The Role of Patronage in early nineteenth-century science, as evidenced in letters from Humphry Davy to Joseph Banks

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Fulford
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Controversy ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Era ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Century Science

The recently published Collected edition of Davy's letters throws new light on the importance and modus operandi of Banksian patronage as a means of organizing and promoting science. It demonstrates how dependent on, and manipulative of, Banks's favour Davy's careerism was, despite his later fame as an original genius. Here, I select from the edition some examples that offer new perspectives on how the patronage relationship worked—how Davy fashioned himself to be patronized, as well as how Banks operated as patron. Discussing Davy's activities at the Royal Institution, at the Royal Society and for the Board of Agriculture, I show that his public success allowed him to shift the power balance in this relationship, so that he was able to call upon Banks's support over issues of his choice, and, during the safety lamp affair (1815–18), to cause Banks to take the rare step of entering a scientific controversy in the newspapers. This shift to a highly public medium heralded a significant change: in a new era of widespread industrialization, in which engineers operating outside scientific institutions had increasing scope to put their inventions into production, priority—and the general reputation of scientific knowledge—increasingly needed demonstration before a wider court of public opinion than hitherto. Davy pulled Banks into a new, exposed, position in an expanded and oppositional public sphere. After Banks died, and Davy was no longer a protégé of a powerful patron but was himself in a position to distribute patronage—Banks's successor as President of the Royal Society and Commissioner of the Board of Longitude—the letters reveal the strengths and limitations of Banksian governance in an era in which science was specializing and was increasingly discussed in the national press. Davy rejected some of his predecessor's policies but essentially retained Banks's method of directing science by privately exerting influence and controlling patronage. I suggest that this method was relatively successful at the Royal Society, where Davy managed (uneasily) to incorporate a generation of mathematical savants excluded by Banks; at the Board of Longitude it failed: Davy's efforts to emulate Banks as the promoter of exploration fell foul of institutional intransigence that he had neither power nor influence enough to shift.

The Royal Society’s first rejection of the kinetic theory of gases (1821), John Herapath versus Humphry Davy

1963 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Theory ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Kinetic Theory Of Gases ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Mathematical Inquiry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Apparent Similarity ◽  
Caloric Theory

On 24 May 1820 a manuscript entitled ‘A Mathematical Inquiry into the Causes, Laws and Principal Phenomena of Heat, Gases, Gravitation, etc.’ was submitted to Davies Gilbert for publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . The author was John Herapath (1790-1868), and his article included a comprehensive (if somewhat faulty) exposition of the kinetic theory of gases. Sir Humphry Davy, who assumed the Presidency of the Royal Society on 30 November 1820, became primarily responsible for the fate of the article and wrote several letters to Herapath concerning it. After it became clear that there was considerable opposition to its publication by the Royal Society, Herapath withdrew the article and sent it instead to the Annals of Philosophy , where it appeared in 1821 (1). Herapath’s theory received little notice from scientists until thirty-five years later, when the kinetic theory was revived by Joule, Krönig, Clausius, and Maxwell. The incident is significant in the history of physical science because it illustrates an important distinction between the two doctrines concerning the nature of heat—the kinetic and the vibration theories—a distinction which is often forgotten because of the apparent similarity of both doctrines as contrasted with the caloric theory. It also throws some light on the character of early nineteenth century British science, both in and out of the Royal Society.

‘Divine right’ or democracy? The Royal Society ‘revolt’ of 1935

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Public Role ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Economic

In October 1934, several Fellows of the Royal Society submitted a petition critical of the oligarchic nature of the Society's Council and the power wielded by a small elite in the Society's activities. The ‘Royal Society Reform Group’ also voiced concern over the Society's neglect of the increasingly pressing public issue of the ‘social responsibility of science’, and fundamentally questioned the role of the Royal Society as a representative body for science. Against a background of national economic crisis and political upheaval, the reformers sought to ensure that the Royal Society should act as an authoritative public voice for scientists rather than for establishment science. In so doing they raised profound political issues concerning the relationships between the Society, working scientists, other scientific institutions and the wider polity. The Reform Group's campaign culminated in the first contested Council election in living memory in November 1935, when more than half of the Fellowship attended in person to vote. In this paper I explore the activities and changing public role of the Royal Society in the inter-war years, the reformers' campaign, the Royal Society's response and the outcomes of this ‘Revolt in the Royal Society’.

Ukrainian Scientific Society in intellectual space late nineteenth – early twentieth century

2017 ◽  
pp. 206-212
Author(s):  
Zinayida Zaytseva
Keyword(s):  
Academic Community ◽  
Scientific Society ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
Scientific Reputation ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
Century Science

This article examines creation of «Scientific Society named after Taras Shevchenko in Lviv» and «Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kiev». Trends of their activity witch provide joining with global academic community are discoursed. Particular attention is paid to the role of M.Hrushevskyi in establishment of scientific and academic foundations of Ukrainian scientific societies functioning. It is proved that in the XIX century science has become an almost ideological monopoly that shaped not only the natural cosmological segment of people's world outlook, but also an understanding of reality that shaped the socioeconomic and political strategies for its reform or even revolutionary transformation. It is determined that this attitude impressed the Ukrainian national intelligentsia. The conclusions note that the foundations of scientific institutions were perceived by intellectuals of oppressed nations as a means of national-cultural liberation, the positioning of their nation among civilized nations. Convincing object-object orientation of scientific publications of NTU and CNT caused their recognition by the academic world. Imperative observance of academic performance parameters by Ukrainian societies formed their functional equivalents with academies of sciences, contributed to the incorporation of these societies into the world scientific space, establishing dialogue with the culture and science of Europe. The scientific reputation of Ukrainian societies is confirmed by the membership of a number of outstanding foreign scientists in them. Keywords: Intellectual area, scientific societies, academy, M. Grushevsky, scientific communications

Relics of Davy and Faraday in New Zealand

1998 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Tee
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Michael Faraday ◽  
Royal Society Of London

In April 1997 Sir John Meurig Thomas, F.R.S., toured New Zealand, as the 1997 Rutherford Lecturer of the Royal Society of London. He delivered his Rutherford Lecture on Sir Humphry Davy, P.R.S. (1778–1829), and Michael Faraday, F.R.S. (1791–1867), the first and second Directors of the Royal Institution. Many place–names in New Zealand commemorate scientists. There is Mount Davy (1012 m) at 42°23'S, 171°23'E, between Greymouth and Blackball. Mount Faraday, at 42°03'S, 171°30'E, is the highest peak (1485 m) in the Paparoa Range (south of Westport), whose successive peaks from south to north are named Mounts Lodge, Ramsay, Dewar, Priestly, Faraday, Curie, Einstein, Euclid and Kelvin. And Mount Copernicus and Mount Galileo are 10 km east of the Paparoa Range.

scholarly journals Sir Humphry Davy and the coal miners of the world: a commentary on Davy (1816) ‘An account of an invention for giving light in explosive mixtures of fire-damp in coal mines’

2015 ◽  
Vol 373 (2039) ◽  
pp. 20140288 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Meurig Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Coal Mines ◽  
Coal Industry ◽  
Coal Miners ◽  
Literary Expression ◽  
The North ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Michael Faraday ◽  
Newcastle Upon Tyne

In the period between 1815 and 1818, Sir Humphry Davy read four papers to the Royal Society and published a monograph dealing with a safety lamp for coal miners, all of which record in detail the experimental work that he carried out, with his assistant Michael Faraday, so as to determine how to prevent catastrophic accidents in coal mines by the explosion of fire-damp (methane) in the presence of a naked flame. This article describes the key experiments that he performed at the Royal Institution and some of the subsequent trials made in the coal mines of the north of England. It begins, however, with an account of Davy's prior achievements in science before he was approached for help by the clergymen and doctors in the Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne areas. There is little doubt that the Davy lamp, from the 1820s onwards, transformed the coal industry worldwide. It also profoundly influenced the science of combustion, and in the words of a pioneer in that field, W. A. Bone, FRS, ‘There is no better model of logical experimental procedure, accurate reasoning, philosophical outlook and fine literary expression.’ It is a remarkable fact that it took Davy essentially only two weeks from the time he was given samples of fire-damp to solve the problem and to devise his renowned miner's safety lamp. A brief account is also given of the contemporaneous invention of a safety lamp by George Stephenson, and of some of Davy's subsequent accomplishments. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society .

scholarly journals An autopsic art: drawings of ‘Dr Granville's mummy’ in the Royal Society archives

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Riggs
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Egyptian Mummy ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Race Science ◽  
Scientific Expertise ◽  
First Time

In 1821 Augustus Bozzi Granville FRS unwrapped and dissected an ancient Egyptian mummy, presenting the results of his examination to the Royal Society in 1825. He commissioned artist Henry Perry to draw the process in stages; these drawings were subsequently engraved by James Basire for publication in Philosophical Transactions . This article presents the original drawings for the first time, allowing comparison with their engravings. Taken together with Granville's accounts of the unwrapping of the mummy, the drawings demonstrate the significant role of illustration and other visual practices in anatomical argumentation in the early nineteenth century, as well as the prestige that commissioned illustrations lent to the performance and dissemination of scientific expertise. Moreover, the drawings include one of the key visual tropes of race science—a skull in left-facing profile, mapped with a facial angle—and thus indicate the early incorporation of Egyptian mummies into typologies of race.

scholarly journals The importance of picking Porter: the Royal Institution, George Porter and the two cultures, 1959–64

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupert Cole
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Future Role ◽  
First Choice ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Scientific Director

This paper examines the cultural reasons why in 1964 the Royal Institution (RI) selected George Porter, who became the only person so far to have been Director of the Royal Institution (1966–85), President of the Royal Society (1985–90) and President of the British Association (1985–86) at the same time, to succeed William Lawrence Bragg as the institution's scientific director and resident professor. Porter was established as first choice by an inner group of RI Managers before the formal selection process began. In this article I argue that Porter won their favour by presenting himself, during his tenure as the RI's Professor of Chemistry (1963–66), as a candidate who fitted well with the Managers' ideas about the future role of the RI—ideas that were deeply influenced by the prevailing technocratic visions of ‘science and society’, particularly C. P. Snow's writings on the ‘two cultures’.

Humphry Davy, nitrous oxide, the Pneumatic Institution, and the Royal Institution

2014 ◽  
Vol 307 (9) ◽  
pp. L661-L667 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. West
Keyword(s):  
Nitrous Oxide ◽  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Respiratory Gases ◽  
Joseph Black ◽  
Michael Faraday

Humphry Davy (1778–1829) has an interesting place in the history of respiratory gases because the Pneumatic Institution in which he did much of his early work signaled the end of an era of discovery. The previous 40 years had seen essentially all of the important respiratory gases described, and the Institution was formed to exploit their possible value in medical treatment. Davy himself is well known for producing nitrous oxide and demonstrating that its inhalation could cause euphoria and heightened imagination. His thinking influenced the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and perhaps we can claim that our discipline colored the poetry of the Romantic Movement. Davy was also the first person to measure the residual volume of the lung. The Pneumatic Institution was the brainchild of Thomas Beddoes, who had trained in Edinburgh under Joseph Black, who discovered carbon dioxide. Later Davy moved to the Royal Institution in London formed, in part, to diffuse the knowledge of scientific discoveries to the general public. Davy was a brilliant lecturer and developed an enthusiastic following. In addition he exploited the newly described electric battery to discover several new elements. He also invented the safety lamp in response to a series of devastating explosions in coal mines. Ultimately Davy became president of the Royal Society, a remarkable honor for somebody with such humble origins. Another of his important contributions was to introduce Michael Faraday (1791–1867) to science. Faraday became one of the most illustrious British scientists of all time.

Between Hostile Camps: Sir Humphry Davy's Presidency of The Royal Society of London, 1820–1827

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Philip Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
World Wide ◽  
British Society ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Science ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Royal Society Of London

The career of Humphry Davy (1778–1829) is one of the fairy tales of early nineteenth-century British science. His rise from obscure Cornish origins to world-wide eminence as a chemical discoverer, to popular celebrity amongst London's scientific audiences, to a knighthood from the Prince Regent, and finally to the Presidency of the Royal Society, provide apposite material for Smilesian accounts of British society as open to talents. But the use of Davy's career to illustrate the thesis that ‘genius will out’ is not without its problems. As Davy began to reap the benefits of his early chemical discoveries, and to acquire status and wealth, his dedication to research waned. The ‘new’ Davy who emerged in the years after Waterloo, though admired by many sections of the metropolitan scientific community, was also widely criticized. Ambivalence became marked with Davy's election to, and conduct in, the Presidency of the Royal Society.

Animal and Social Ecologies in Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-599
Author(s):  
Christie Harner
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Active Participant ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Agnes Grey ◽  
Century Science ◽  
Day By Day

In Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey (1847), the eponymous narrator uses a range of ecological metaphors to make sense of her interactions with others. She likens governessing to domestic horticulture and envisions how her task of educating children will be “to train the tender plants, and watch their buds unfolding day by day.” Rather than voice her unfulfilled romantic feelings for Weston or consciously work through her self-doubts about physical appearance, she visualizes them both as insects: she is the “humble glow-worm” who, without a “power of giving light” (i.e., beauty), “the roving fly might pass her . . . a thousand times, and never light beside her” (123). Even the reader, in the opening sentence, assumes the role of active participant: a nucivorous beast hunting for whatever “dry, shriveled kernel” of narrative meaning might be found by “cracking the nut” (5). As character, the budding naturalist “botanize[s] and entomologize[s] along the green banks and budding hedges”; as narrator, she projects herself and those around her into complex ecosystems (95). Her choice of metaphors captures a matrix of exchanges in which species of all kinds interact with one another and their environments in unpredictable ways. Agnes assigns the life cycles of flora and fauna to characters, populating the novel with human and nonhuman animals in ways that draw heavily on early nineteenth-century science even as they also prefigure some of the concerns of contemporary animal studies and ecocriticism.

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