Gentlemen and geology: The emergence of a scientific career, 1660-1920

The Historical Journal

Volumn 21, Issue 4, 1978, Pages 809-836

  Porter, Roy ^a  

^a CHURCHILL COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84971947671     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X78000024     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. D. M. Knight, ‘Science and professionalism in England, 1770-1830’, Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of the History of Science (Tokyo, (1971), 1, 53-67: nevertheless, this discussion is stimulating, and should be consulted.
2. Roy Porter, ‘The industrial revolution and the rise of the science of geology’, in M. Teich and R. M. Young (eds.), New perspectives in the history of science (London, (1973), pp. 320-43.
3. Roy Porter, ‘William Hobbs of Weymouth and his The earth generated and anatomized (? 1715)’, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, vii (1976), 333-41.
4. Porter, Making of geology, p. 23.
5. Porter, Making of geology, pp. 32 f.; and M. Neve and R. Porter, ‘Alexander Catcott, glory and geology’, The British Journal for the History of Science, x (1977), 37-60.
6. Thus for Burnet see M. C. Jacob and W. A. Lockwood, ‘Political millenarianism and Burnet's Sacred theory’, Science Studies, II (1972), 265-79; and, more generally, for theories, K. B. Collier, Cosmogonies of our fathers (New York, (1934).
7. The one exception is John Hutchinson who did produce a chain of disciples to popularize his Moses's Principia (London, 1724-7). The reason here is because he was also founding a semi-schismatic sect within the Church of England. See A. Kuhn, ‘Glory or gravity: Hutchinson vs Newton’, Journal of the History of Ideas, xxii (1961), 303-22.
8. Cf. Porter, Making of geology, ch. 4.
9. Cf. Porter, Making of geology, p. 115.
10. See Steven Shapin, ‘The Royal Society of Edinburgh: A Study of the social context of Hanoverian science’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, (1971), chs. 2, 5, and 8; M. Berman, ‘The early years of the Royal Institution, 1799-1810: a re-evaluation’, Science Studies, 11 (1972), 205-40.
11. Porter, Making of geology, ch. 5.
12. S. P. Dance, Shell collecting: an illustrated history (London, (1966); Allen, The naturalist, pp. 33, 54, 69, 155.
13. James Hutton, A dissertation upon the philosophy of light, heat and fire (Edinburgh, 1794), p. v.
14. Edward Daniel Clarke's tart comment in William Otter, The life and remains of the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke LI.D. (London, (1824), p. 134: ‘Sir William does nothing towards the work except publishing it, and putting his name to it when it is finished. How easy it is for a man of fortune to be numbered with the literati!’
15. Sir A. Geikie, Memoir of John Michell (Cambridge, (1918).
16. R. A. Harvey, ‘The life of Henry Cavendish, 1731-1810’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield, (1971).
17. Porter, Making of geology, chs. 6-8.
18. For Martin see J. R. Millburn, Benjamin Martin, author, instrument-maker and ‘country-showman’ (Leyden, (1976).
19. Porter, ‘The industrial revolution’.
20. Ian Inkster, ‘Science and society in the metropolis: a preliminary examination of the social and institutional context of the Askesian Society of London, 1796-1807’, Annals of Science, xxxiv (1977), 1-32
21. J. Secord, ‘John Macculloch: geology and the appreciation of landscape’ (unpublished paper delivered to the conference of the British Society for the History of Science, Southampton, (1976).
22. Some were complicit - willy-nilly - in the snobberies of gentlemanly advancement. Thus the peppery De La Beche came from a family which had been plain Beach two generations back. George Poulett Thompson's name mutated to Scrope on his marrying the heiress, Emma Phipps Scrope.
23. J. M. Edmonds, ‘The first geological lecture course at the University of London (1831)’, Annals of Science, xxxii (1975), 257-75. p- 260. A man had to be moderately affluent to accept such a chair, its remuneration being slight.
24. For such snobberies, see Leroy E. Page, ‘The rivalry between Charles Lyell and Roderick Murchison’, The British Journal for the History of Science, ix (1976), 156-65; W. F. Bynum, ‘Charles Lyell and the antiquity of man’ (unpublished paper given to the Lyell Centenary Conference, London, (1975); A. Geikie, Life of Sir Roderick I. Murchison (2 vols., London, (1875), 11, 179.
25. See Porter, Making of geology, pp. 131 f. The quoted phrase is De La Beche's, cited in A. Geikie, Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay (London, (1895), p. 141.
26. William Fitton, ‘Review of Transactions of the Geological Society of London, vol. iii’, Edinburgh Review, xxix (1818), 70-94, at p. 70.
27. William Buckland, Vindiciae geologicae, or the connexion of geology with religion explained (Oxford, (1820), pp. 2-3.
28. For Sedgwick's style of teaching, see Porter, ‘The Natural Sciences Tripos’, pp. 13-14. 46 For elaboration of the points to be made in the succeeding paragraphs, see Porter, ‘The Natural Sciences Tripos’, pp. 5 f.
29. D. Page, Chips and chapters (Edinburgh, (1869), pp. 183-4. Page himself was chiefly a general scientific writer, who undertook little original fieldwork of his own. He was here in effect mediating hegemonic gentlemanly values.
30. Buckland expounded a similar pedagogics in his Vindiciae geologicae, arguing that the real utility of the science lay not in economic advantage but in broadening the mind towards knowledge of God.
31. Weindling, ‘Pre-history’. See also Rudwick, ‘Founding’, and Porter, The making of geology, ch. 8.
32. See Porter, ‘The Industrial revolution’.
33. Sedgwick was one who maintained the gentlemanly trait of never writing a complete geological book: though in his case complex temperamental problems were also responsible.
34. Porter, The making of geology, pp. 146 f.
35. Allen, The naturalist, ch. 3; C. Babbage, Reflections on the decline of science in England and on some of its causes (London, (1830), p. 45.
36. Babbage, Reflections, pp. 10-11, wrote that ‘the pursuit of science does not in England constitute a distinct profession, as it does in many other countries. It is therefore, on that ground alone, deprived of many of the advantages which attach to professions’. I do not think these remarks apply to geology.
37. Roy Porter, ‘Charles Lyell and the principles of the history of geology’, The British Journal for the History of Science, ix (1976), 91-103.
38. Geikie, Life of Murchison, i, 386-387.
39. Morrell, ‘London institutions’, is illuminating here. See also Geikie, Memoir of Ramsay, quoting Ramsay (25 February (1852): p. 197): ‘Good scrimmage between Sedgwick and Murchison on the Lower Silurian and Cambrian question. It was not an enlivening
40. J. S. Flett, The first hundred years of the Geological Survey of Great Britain (London, (1937); Sir E. B. Bailey, Geological Survey of Great Britain (London, (1952), pp. 21 f.
41. W. Topley, ‘Report upon National Geological Surveys’, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Montreal, (1884) (London, (1885), 221-37.
42. Edward Hull, Reminiscences of a strenuous life (London, (1910), p. 9.
43. Geikie, A long life's work, p. 142.
44. M. Beryl Hamilton, ‘A case study in field investigation: the chronological and conceptual development of nineteenth century geological knowledge of the North West Highlands of Scotland’ (paper given to the conference, New Perspectives in the History of Geology, New Hall, Cambridge, (1977).
45. James Geikie had gentlemanly qualms before accepting. See M. I. Newbigin and J. S. Flett, James Geikie: the man and the geologist (Edinburgh, (1917), pp. 938. Geikie's biographers stress his’ fundamental repugnance to all the weighing of questions of worldly advantage’ (p. 96).
46. Edward Greenly, A hand through time (2 vols., London, (1938), i, 123.
47. ‘Geology seems to breed stories': Greenly, A hand through time, 11, 479.
48. For Jukes's songs see Letters, pp. 377 f.; for James Geikie's, see Newbigin and Flett, James Geikie, pp. 105 ff.; for Murchison's songs see Geikie, A long life's work, p. 113.
49. For this trait in Ramsay, see Geikie, Memoir of Ramsay, pp. 291 f.; for Geikie himself see A long life's work, pp. 30 f.; for ‘the poetry of geology’ see Greenly, A hand through time, 11, 470.
50. Obituary of Peach in Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, xii (1924-31), 1-11, at pp. 7-8.
51. For Peach's inarticulacy see Geikie, A long life's work, p. 245. Of course, there was nothing ‘unprofessional’ in Peach's skill as a mapper. For Greenly ‘falling in love with’ Peach on the spot, see A hand through time, 1, 122.
52. For Survey work as an enviable life see Geikie, Memoir of Ramsay, p. 45; Greenly, A hand through time, 1, 121.
53. T. Rupert Jones, ‘Address at the opening of the session (1880)-81’, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, vii (1881-2), 1-46, at pp. 2-3; G. S. Sweeting (ed.), The Geologists’ Association, (1858)-1958 (Colchester, (1958).
54. Henry Woodward, ‘ Presidential address’, Report of The Fifty-seventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London, (1888), pp. 673-84, at p. 676, where he also writes of the growing ‘confusion of tongues’.
55. F. W. Rudler, ‘Fifty years’ progress in British geology’, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, x (1887-8), 234-72. For a parallel in natural history and biology see Allen, The naturalist, ch. 9.
56. D. Stoddart, ‘The attitudes of geologists to geographers in late Victorian Britain’ (paper for the conference New Perspectives in the History of Geology, New Hall, Cambridge, (1977).
57. O'Connor and Meadows, ‘Specialization and professionalization’.
58. For more extensive discussion, see Porter, ‘The Natural Sciences Tripos’.
59. Possible evidence of the continued social security of late Victorian geologists in their public role is the absence of any discussion of the matter in Presidential Addresses to the Geological Society of London or in Section C of the British Association.
60. See O'Connor and Meadows, ‘Specialization and professionalization'; Bailey, Geological Survey, p. 100 ff.
61. Thus Newbigin and Flett, James Geikie, p. 93 pointed out that James Geikie's difficulties arose because he was a man of no private wealth, whose books brought him little income. Not all Survey posts were pensionable.
62. L. C. Miall, Thirty years of teaching (London, (1897).
63. Typescript history of the department of geology (Imperial College, London, archives), p. 10. Cf. the discussion of dress in R. Sennett, The fall of public man (Cambridge, (1977). PP- 64 ff.
64. H. G. Wells, Experiment in autobiography (2 vols, London, (1934), 1, 227.
65. A.H. Green, ‘Presidential address’, Report of the Sixtieth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, (London, (1891), 789-93, at p. 789.
66. Thus Frank Rudler's obituarist noted that he did little original research. Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, lxxi (1915), 256-268.
67. Porter, ‘Natural Sciences Tripos’, p. 14 ff.