Originating as a presidential address during the seventieth birthday celebrations of the British Society for the History of Science, this essay reiterates the society's long-standing commitment to academic autonomy and international cooperation. Drawing examples from my own research into female scientists and doctors during the First World War, I explore how narratives written by historians are related to their own lives, both past and present. In particular, I consider the influences on me of my childhood reading, my experiences as a (...) physics graduate who deliberately left the world of science, and my involvement in programmes to improve the position of women in science. In my opinion, being a historian implies being socially engaged: the BSHS and its members have a responsibility towards the future as well as the past.Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.Søren Kierkegaard,Journals and Papers, 1843. (shrink)

Places and anniversaries can function as ‘sites of memory’, but three major Newtonian locations – Cambridge, Grantham and London – were also sites of conflict that resonated with wider debates about the nature of genius and the conduct of science. Ritualized celebrations at appropriate times and places helped not only to establish Newton's status as a local hero, national exemplar and scientific genius, but also to promote various versions of national and scientific heritage. By examining changes in how Newton has (...) been commemorated, this paper explores ways in which different protagonists have contributed to and benefited from legendary visions of Newton. (shrink)

When customers like Samuel Pepys visited the shop of Thomas Tuttell, instrument maker to the king, they could purchase a pack of mathematical playing-cards. The seven of spades, reproduced as Figure 1, depicted the diverse connotations of magnets, or loadstones. These cards cost a shilling, and were too expensive for many of the surveyors, navigators and other practitioners shown using Tuttell's instruments. They provide an early example of the products promising both diversion and improvement which were increasingly marketed to polite (...) audiences. Tuttell's description of loadstone as ‘a treasure of hidden vertues’ encapsulated many contemporary perceptions of these naturally occurring magnets which were to endure throughout the century. This phrase, with its hints of concealed financial and epistemological benefits, resonates with major eighteenth-century analytical themes, such as commercialization, the opposition between vice and virtue, and the fascination with the occult in the face of Enlightenment rationality. This card is emblematic of the multiple interpretations and utilizations of magnetic phenomena during the eighteenth century. It thus provides a useful starting-point for exploring some of the disputes which arose as enterprising individuals concerned with natural philosophy promoted themselves, their activities and their products. (shrink)

Although many historians of science acknowledge the extent to which Greek and Roman ideals framed eighteenth-century thought, many classical references in the texts they study remain obscure. Poems played an important role not only in spreading ideas about natural philosophy, but also in changing people’s perceptions of its value; they contributed to Newton’s swelling reputation as an English hero. By writing about Latin poetry, we focus on the intersection of two literary genres that were significant for eighteenth-century natural philosophy, but (...) seem alien to modern science. We classify Augustan Latinate scientific poetry by considering the audiences for whom the poems were intended. We distinguish three broad categories. One type of poetry was circulated amongst gentlemanly scholars. A second group comprised poetry written specifically to promote or criticise Newton and his books, particularly the Principia. After Newton’s death, a third type of poetry became increasingly significant, included in collections of poems rather than in texts of natural philosophy. Overall, we show how the classical past was vital for creating the scientific future.Author Keywords: Isaac Newton; Neo-Latin; Lucretius; Oxford and Cambridge verse; Edmond Halley; Queen Caroline. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, scientific innovations permanently changed international warfare. As chemicals traveled out of laboratories into factories and military locations, war became waged at home as well as overseas. Large numbers of women were employed in munitions factories during the First World War, but their public memories have been overshadowed by men who died on battlefields abroad; they have also been ignored in traditional histories of chemistry that focus on laboratory-based research. Mostly young and poorly educated, but crucial (...) for Britain’s military success, these female workers were subjected to procedures of social regulation and consigned to carrying out dangerous chemical procedures causing chronic illness or death; in particular, when TNT died their skin yellow, they were colloquially known as 'canaries.'. (shrink)

During the long eighteenth century, boundaries between theology and natural philosophy, between imaginary and factual travel narratives, between fiction and social commentary, were far more fluid than they are today. To explore these relationships, this paper links Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—a book often hailed as the first science fiction novel—to two earlier works which are now less well known: Edmond Halley’s article about terrestrial magnetism, in which he suggested that God had created inhabited illuminated cavities inside the earth; and a satirical (...) fantasy voyage written by the Danish author Ludvig Holberg, but published anonymously as Niels Klim’s journey to the underground and immediately translated into many languages. Attention is focussed on how the ambiguous presentation of these and other texts blurs any straightforward classification of genres. The aim of examining these writers together is not to search for direct mappings from one project to another, but instead to introduce Holberg’s unfamiliar yet important book and also to cast new light on Frankenstein, one of England’s most famous works of literature.Keywords: Edmond halley; Ludvig holberg; Frankenstein; Plurality of worlds; Science fiction; Magnetism. (shrink)

English people have long been renowned for their obsession with the weather: Francis Bacon chose to write about the wind for the first installment of his natural history. Place is central to Vladimir Janković's analysis, so it is highly appropriate that he should focus on England to study the prehistory of quantitative meteorology. Janković's major innovation is to argue that local interests in recording strange weather conditions later became converted into the global concerns of nineteenth‐century scientists. Before then, he maintains, (...) reading the skies was not a science, because it meant engaging with the human rather than the physical environment. Janković demonstrates convincingly that the activities of provincial naturalists, and their concern with investigating abnormal events to strengthen regional identities, played vital roles in altering the observation and interpretation of weather conditions.Meteorology is a tricky discipline to discuss historically because the word's significance has changed dramatically. In Janković's period, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it embraced diverse celestial phenomena—meteors, comets, and the northern lights as well as rain, snow, and so forth. Rather strangely, considering his historical sensitivity, Janković uses the word “meteorology” throughout, a confusing decision. Well organized into seven distinct chapters, Reading the Skies opens by examining how traditional beliefs fashioned weather reports and includes a fine investigation of the political and religious implications of extraordinary phenomena. The central section explores the importance of regional interests in recording weather characteristics for local natural histories. Clergymen were particularly important in maintaining research traditions based on provincial pride, and the career of an erudite Cornish naturalist, Reverend William Borlase, illustrates the relationships between national and local concerns. The final two chapters concentrate on changes toward the end of the period, discussing how agricultural requirements and the demands of metropolitan chemical reformers resulted in shifts away from localized studies based on classical principles. In the early nineteenth century specialized experts and instrument makers were converting the whole world and its atmosphere into their laboratory. They sought to measure ordinary weather accurately so that they could build causal, predictive models.As in many good books, a third is taken up with notes and bibliographies. This type of research involves retrieving fleeting references from a wide range of texts, and the succinct, scholarly prose relies on an impressive breadth of reading. The intriguing illustrations are supplemented by text boxes—framed lists of articles, peoples, and episodes that would normally be relegated to an appendix but that here provide valuable visual evidence to support an argument. Nevertheless, since Reading the Skies claims to be “a cultural history,” it is disconcerting to find that artistic and literary sources have been deliberately excluded. This is very much a gentlemanly account. Little attention is paid to the farmers, laundresses, and other workers for whom weather vagaries were not just diary items but held a very real and practical significance. Women are also absent, even though many men held witches responsible for the unpredictable and freakish behavior of unruly female nature.This is a learned study that engages with historiographical issues yet also provides a wealth of detailed primary information. It empathetically reconstructs the preoccupations of English provincial gentlemen who then, as now, were convinced that England's weather was deteriorating. (shrink)