Edinburgh and Paris

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-155
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

Paris was the most important centre for evolutionary speculations in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Two of its most influential evolutionary thinkers, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire both worked there in the city’s Museum of Natural History. This chapter explores the impact of these French thinkers’ theories in Edinburgh and the close connections that existed between natural history circles in the two cities. It was common for students and graduates of the medical school of the University of Edinburgh to spend time studying in Paris, where they imbibed many of the exciting new ideas being discussed there. Two of the key figures discussed in this book, Robert Grant and Robert Knox, had both spent time in Paris and were deeply influenced by the theories they encountered there. The chapter also examines the impact of the key writings of Lamarck and Geoffroy in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh’s University and Medical Schools in the Early Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 7-36
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Anatomy ◽  
Medical Schools ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

Edinburgh and its ancient university provided an important context for the reception of pre-Darwinian evolutionary theories. Much more socially and intellectually inclusive than the contemporary English universities, the open and tolerant atmosphere of the University of Edinburgh provided an atmosphere in which exciting new speculations on the natural world and man’s place in it could be debated and discussed by both professors and students. Outside the University, Edinburgh’s extra-mural anatomy schools were home to some of the most innovative thinkers in early nineteenth-century comparative anatomy, such as Robert Knox and Robert Grant. This chapter explores these institutions which played such a vital role in creating an atmosphere in which radical new ideas about the natural world could flourish.

Jean Grier and Mary Bownes, Private Giving, Public Good: The Impact of Philanthropy at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), vi+218pp. ISBN: 9780748699575

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Private Giving ◽  
Inherited Wealth ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
Private Philanthropy

This chapter reviews the book Private Giving, Public Good: The Impact of Philanthropy at the University of Edinburgh (2014), by Jean Grier and Mary Bownes. The book offers an account of ‘private giving’, focusing primarily on recent gifts and drawing on the case of the University of Edinburgh. It shows that Scottish universities lacked the inherited wealth of Oxford and Cambridge. In the nineteenth century they received significant support from the state, but from the 1860s also made serious efforts to appeal to private donors and build up endowments. There is a chapter devoted to ‘research and scholarship’, which illustrates some of the problems of relying on private philanthropy. Another chapter deals with ‘bursaries, scholarships, and prizes’—once a favourite field for individual legacies and donations, and for the Carnegie Trust.

Natural History in Edinburgh, 1779–1832

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-74
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The University ◽  
John Walker ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses in on Edinburgh’s natural history circles in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. First it examines the chair of natural history at the University and the work of its two incumbents during this period, John Walker and Robert Jameson, before turning to natural history in the extra-mural anatomy schools. These were the site of some of the boldest thinkers on evolutionary themes in early nineteenth-century Britain. Edinburgh was also the home of a number of important natural history societies in this period, for example, the Plinian and Wernerian Natural History Societies. These served as lively forums for the discussion of the latest developments and theories. This chapter will explore the nature and role of these societies, before finally turning the spotlight on the scientific and natural history journals published in the city, such as the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal and the Edinburgh Journal of Science.

Disrupting the Quotidian: Hoaxes, Fires, and Non-theatrical Performance in Nineteenth-century London

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Queen Mary College ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethical Intention ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Performance Events ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

In this essay Jim Davis considers two examples of everyday non-theatrical performance in nineteenth-century London: hoaxes and fires. Whereas an element of hoaxing can be perceived in some contemporary performance events and in the practice of ‘invisible theatre’, usually with some ethical intention, hoaxes in early nineteenth-century London were perpetrated for the sake of creating disruption and making dupes of unsuspecting witnesses. A more visible form of disruption and spectacle was created by fires and firefighting itself, which, at least after Captain Eyre Massie Shaw took control of the London fire brigade, became a form of public performance. Although hoaxes were common in pantomime and farce, and conflagrations often strengthened the impact of sensation melodramas, the disruptive effects of extra-theatrical hoaxes and fires on everyday life created a less reassuring and more dystopian sense of the metropolis. An earlier version of this paper was originally delivered at ‘The Audience through Time’ conference at Queen Mary College, University of London, in December 2011. Jim Davis is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. His his most recent books are Victorian Pantomime: a Collection of Critical Essays (2010) and Lives of the Great Shakespearian Actors: Edmund Kean (2009). He is also joint author of Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing 1840–1880 (2001).

The collaboration of the French naturalist Charles De Gerville with the Sowerby family and its contribution to early nineteenth-century geology

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Cleevely
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Exchange Of Information ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

Letters discovered in Normandy between Charles De Gerville (1769–1853), the French archaeologist and naturalist, and members of the Sowerby family concern his investigation of the strata, their fossils and the exchange of information, specimens and publications. Together with other archives at the Natural History Museum, London, the University of Bristol and the Bibliotheque Municipale de Cherbourg, they deal with his research during the early nineteenth century on the geology of the Cotentin (Cherbourg Peninsula). A brief resumé of James Sowerby's early botanical interests is mentioned as the likely link for this relationship. Sowerby's Mineral conchology is believed to have had a major role in influencing De Gerville's research, particularly through its support of John Farey's advocacy of William Smith's methods. These letters, together with references to published accounts about geology at that time, reveal the difficulties under which this research was conducted. An account of De Gerville's early life is given to explain his links with English contemporaries, mention his characteristic qualities, or foibles, and assess the value of his contribution to geology.

Robert Jameson (1774–1854) and the concept of a public museum

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey N. Swinney
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Public ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
Public Museum

Attention is drawn to Robert Jameson's distinction between “the public” and “the working classes” in relation to the audience for the Natural History Museum of the College (later the University of) Edinburgh. This distinction is discussed, together with specific usage of the related term “closed”, in the context of recent theoretical studies on the creation and construction of the public and a public sphere during the nineteenth century.

Translation, Annotation and Knowledge-Making: Leopold von Buch's Travels through Norway and Lapland (1813)

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 323-341
Author(s):  
Alison E. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

This paper sheds new light on the relationship between translation and annotation by adding the theoretical coordinate of expertise to the discussion about the ways in which translators contribute to the making of knowledge. It takes as its case study the German geologist Leopold von Buch's account of his scientific travels through Scandinavia, the Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland (Berlin: Nauck, 1810), which appeared in English three years later as the Travels through Norway and Lapland during the Years 1806, 1807 and 1808 (London: Colburn, 1813). It was translated by the Scottish journalist John Black, who added a handful of his own annotations, while a weightier footnote apparatus was appended by Robert Jameson, Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. The paratextual material was not, however, meant merely to aid comprehension. Black's additions helped to vaunt his ‘practical’ expertise as a linguist and translator, while Jameson's additions repeatedly stressed his own ‘subject’ expertise as a specialist on the geology of Scotland and an ardent devotee of the German geologist Abraham Werner. These two sets of footnotes highlighted the tensions between transnational scientific knowledge-making and national, regional and individual agendas in nineteenth-century translation and annotation practice.

John Robertson Henderson (1863–1925): Scotland, India and anomuran taxonomy

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Christian College ◽  
Apparent Absence ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
The University ◽  
Crustacean Taxonomy

John Robertson Henderson was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified as a doctor. His interest in marine natural history was fostered at the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton (near Edinburgh) where his focus on anomuran crustaceans emerged, to the extent that he was eventually invited to compile the anomuran volume of the Challenger expedition reports. He left Scotland for India in autumn 1885 to take up the Chair of Zoology at Madras Christian College, shortly after its establishment. He continued working on crustacean taxonomy, producing substantial contributions to the field; returning to Scotland in retirement in 1919. The apparent absence of communication with Alfred William Alcock, a surgeon-naturalist with overlapping interests in India, is highlighted but not resolved.

Thinking About Scots Law

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Rodger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Memorial Lecture ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

This article is the revised text of the first W A Wilson Memorial Lecture, given in the Playfair Library, Old College, in the University of Edinburgh, on 17 May 1995. It considers various visions of Scots law as a whole, arguing that it is now a system based as much upon case law and precedent as upon principle, and that its departure from the Civilian tradition in the nineteenth century was part of a general European trend. An additional factor shaping the attitudes of Scots lawyers from the later nineteenth century on was a tendency to see themselves as part of a larger Englishspeaking family of lawyers within the British Empire and the United States of America.

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