Abstract
Towards the end of the eighteenth, and into the nineteenth century, subscription courses of chemistry lectures were established in Great Britain, not only for those intending to become doctors or chemists, but for a more general public. Indeed, such courses became fashionable pastimes. It is remarkable how many contemporary references there are to women not only attending these courses in Great Britain but commenting on the personal attributes of the lecturers. There are also a number of poems and cartoons which support the idea that these kinds of feelings existed.
This paper considers the comments which were recorded and speculates to what extent the lecturers could be considered to be true celebrities of their time within certain female groups.
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Notes
- 1.
Londa Schiebinger The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989). There were exceptions to the general rule that women were not involved in science, for example, a few wrote pedagogic scientific works which became highly popular. See also Gerald Dennis Meyer The Scientific Lady in England (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1955) and Patricia Phillips The Scientific Lady: A Social History of Women’s Scientific Interests 1520–1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990).
- 2.
In the case of the Royal Society of London, women could not become fellows until 1945. See Joan Mason, “The Women Fellows’ Jubilee,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 49 (1995), 125–40.
- 3.
For the emergence of science into the public domain, see Jan Golinski Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) and (for a rather earlier period) Larry Stewart The Rise of Public Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- 4.
Hope was professor of medicine and chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1795 (initially jointly with Joseph Black) then sole professor until his resignation in 1843.
- 5.
Alan Q. Morton and Jane A.Wess Public & Private Science. The King George III Collection (London: Science Museum, 1993), 64.
- 6.
Robert Spence Watson, The History of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (1793–1896) (London: Walter Scott, 1897) p.204. The course was offered by Henry Moyes.
- 7.
Robert G. W. Anderson, ‘Chemistry Beyond the Academy: Diversity in Scotland in the Early Nineteenth Century’ Ambix 57 (2010), 84–103 (at pp. 94, 95).
- 8.
First Report of the Committee of the Kelso School of Arts (Kelso: Kelso Mail Office, 1825), 14.
- 9.
Watson, Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (n.6); see facsimile syllabus opposite p.206.
- 10.
As many as 554 persons subscribed for Hope’s chemistry course in 1823–124, see Jack Morrell, ‘Practical Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, 1799–1843’ Ambix 16 (1969), 66–80 (on p.76, n. 84).
- 11.
Paul H. Barnett and R.B. Freeman (eds.) The Works of Charles Darwin Volume 29: Nora Barlow, ed., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (New York: New York University Press, 1989), 93.
- 12.
R.G.W. Anderson The Playfair Collection and the Teaching of Chemistry at Edinburgh 1713–1858 (Royal Scottish Museum: Edinburgh, 1978), 42.
- 13.
Letter, Henry Cockburn to Thomas Francis Kennedy, 27 February 1826, see Letters Chiefly Connected with the Affairs of Scotland, from Henry Cockburn to Thomas Francis Kennedy (London 1874) pp.137–38; also, Jack Morrell, “Science and Scottish University Reform: Edinburgh in 1826,” British Journal for the History of Science 6 (1972), 39–56 (at p.55).
- 14.
Edinburgh University Library, Centre for Research Collections, MS Gen 271, Bundle 124: in envelope marked: ‘Progress Popular Lect 1826/&1828’.
- 15.
See Golinski Science as Public Culture (ref. 3), 261.
- 16.
A. McCann, “A Private Laboratory at Petworth House, Sussex, in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Annals of Science 40 (1983), 635–655.
- 17.
Mary Holbrook, Science Preserved (London: HMSO, 1992), 195–96.
- 18.
John Rotheram (c.1750–1804), graduated MD at Uppsala in 1775.
- 19.
John Strachan (1778–1867) was a significant figure in the Church and education in the history of nineteenth-century Canada. See his biography by G. M. Craig in Dictionary of Canadian Biography IX (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 751–766.
- 20.
Wanda Campbell, ed., Poetry by John Strachan (London, Ontario: Canadian Poetry Press, 1996), 22 and 33–4.
- 21.
John Anthony Harrison, “Blind Henry Moyes, ‘An Excellent Lecturer in Philosophy’,” Annals of Science 13 (1957), 109–125.
- 22.
Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson… volume 8 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 50–51.
- 23.
Eva V. Armstrong and Claude K. Deischer, ‘Dr. Henry Moyes, Scotch Chemist’ Journal of Chemical Education 24 (1947), 169–74 (on p.173).
- 24.
John Pierce to Sarah Pierce, 9th April 1784, in Elizabeth C. Barney Buel, ed., Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833, compiled by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (Cambridge, Mass: [Harvard] University Press, 1903), 346–348.
- 25.
‘The Edinburgh Ladies’ Petition to Dr. Moyes, with Lord Byron’s Reply’ The New Monthly Magazine 44 (1835), 420–24. See Appendix to this paper for the Ladies’ poem in full.
- 26.
Jan Golinski, “Humphry Davy’s Sexual Chemistry,” Configurations 7 (1999), 15–41.
- 27.
Richard D Altick, The Shows of London (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1978), 367.
- 28.
For a discussion of women at the Royal Institution in its early years, see Patricia Phillips The Scientific Lady: A Social History of Women’s Scientific Interests 1520–1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990), 193–99.
- 29.
Robert Southey, Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, volume 3 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1808), 284, 285.
- 30.
David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 50.
- 31.
Plate in W. H. Pyne and William Combe The Microcosm of London (London: R. Ackermann, 1808–11).
- 32.
R. Burgess, “Humphry Davy or Friedrich Accum: A Question of Identification,” Medical History 16 (1972), 290–93.
- 33.
The Rabbi Gamaliel was one of the greatest teachers in Judaism.
- 34.
The Tour of Doctor Syntax Through London, Or, The Pleasures and Miseries of the Metropolis. A Poem (London: J Johnston, 1820), 205–206.
- 35.
Golinski, Science as Public Culture (ref. 3), 241.
- 36.
The Northern Looking Glass 1 (14 November 1825), 34. This periodical publication started life as The Glasgow Looking Glass. It stopped publication in 1826 after only 2 years; it is considered a contender to be the first periodical publication in comic strip form.
- 37.
Most easily found in the reprint, Jane Marcet Conversations on Chemistry volume1, Aileen Fyfe, ed., (London: Thoemmes Continuum and Edition Synapse, 2004), v, vi.
- 38.
The major problems in constructing the new University of Edinburgh buildings was that the original architect, Robert Adam, died soon after building work had commenced in the 1780s and the war with France was protracted, The appointment of Adam’s successor, William Playfair, and redesigning and recommencing the project was a stop-go affair. See Andrew G. Fraser The Building of Old College (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), particularly chapter 8, ‘The Playfair College: Phase Two, 1823–1840’, 243–78.
- 39.
Both men had studied at the Royal High School, followed by the University of Edinburgh, both were directors of an official state body to erect a National Monument in Scotland (the unfinished reproduction of the Parthenon which remains on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, today), and so on.
- 40.
Henry Cockburn Memorials of His Time (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1856), 50–1.
- 41.
Illustrated Times (18 April 1857), 252, see Nicolaas Rupke Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin (University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2009), 30. At this time, Richard Owen (1804–92) was Superintendent of the Natural History Department at the British Museum while it was still in Bloomsbury.
- 42.
Illustrated London News (17 April 1869), 401.
- 43.
“Chevreul in his Laboratory,” unknown periodical, volume 21 (1886), 337.
- 44.
Punch, or the London Charivari …. (1850), ‘Manners and Customs of ye Englyshe. New Series No.10. A Scientific Institution. During ye Lecture of an Eminent ‘Savan”.
- 45.
Rebekah Higgitt and Charles W. J. Withers, “Science and Sociability: Women as Audience at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831,”-1901′ Isis 99 (2008) 1–27.
- 46.
Letter, William Buckland to Roderick Impey Murchison, 27 March 1832, quoted in Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentleman of Science. The Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 150.
- 47.
The Graphic (31 August 1872), 186. The “picturesque old building” is simply described as “an old ivy-clad ruin, rich in archaeological associations”.
- 48.
[W.P. Ker, ed.] Notes and Materials for the History of University College, London (London: H K Lewis, 1898), 14, 15.
- 49.
Liba Taub and Ruth Horry, “At the Sign of the ‘Laboratory of Physical Chemistry’: Preserving and Presenting Histories of Chemistry in Cambridge,” in Marta C Lourenço and Ann Carneiro, eds., Spaces and Collections in the History of Science: The Laboratorio Chimico Overture (Lisbon: Museum of Science of the University of Lisbon, 2009), 195–205.
- 50.
Women were first examined in Cambridge in 1882. In 1890, Philippa Fawcett was ranked first in the mathematical tripos. She could not be termed ‘Senior Wrangler’, a title which up to that time only men had held. The University solved the problem by officially deeming her to be “above the Senior Wrangler”. It was not until 1948 that Cambridge admitted females as graduands, full members of the University.
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Appendix
Appendix
6.1.1 The Edinburgh Ladies’ Petition to Dr. Moyes, with Lord Byron’s Reply
Verse
Verse Dear Doctor let it not transpire How much your lectures we admire How at your eloquence we wonder, When you explain the cause of thunder; Of light’ning and electricity, With so much plainness and simplicity; The origin of rocks and mountains, The seas and rivers, lakes and fountains, Of rain and hail, of frost and snow, And all the winds and storms that blow; Besides an hundred wonders more, Of which we never heard before. But now, dear Doctor, not to flatter, There is a most important matter, A matter which you never touch on, A matter which our thoughts run much on, A subject if we right conjecture, Which well deserves a long, long lecture, Which all the ladies would approve __ The Natural History of Love. Oh! List to our unified voice, Deny us not, dear Doctor Moyes; Tell us why our poor tender hearts So willingly admit Love’s darts? Teach us the marks of love’s beginning, What is it makes a beau so winning? What is it makes a coxcomb witty, A dotard wise, a red coat pretty? Why we believe such horrid lies, That we are angels from the skies, Our teeth are pearl, our cheeks are roses, Our eyes are stars – such charming noses! Explain our dreams waking and sleeping, Explain our laughing and our weeping, Explain our hoping and our doubting, Our blushing, simpering and pouting. Teach us all the enchanted arts Of winning and of keeping hearts. Teach us, dear Doctor, if you can, To humble that proud creature man; To turn the wise ones into fools, The proud and insolent to tools; To make them all run helter-skelter Their necks into the marriage-halter; Then leave us to ourselves with these, We’ll rule and turn them as we please. Dear Doctor, if you grant our wishes, We promise you five-hundred kisses; And rather than the affair be blunder’d, We’ll give you six score to the hundred. Approved by 300 Ladies, 1807.
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Anderson, R.G.W. (2017). Facts or Fantasies in the Chemistry Lecture Theatre?. In: Buchwald, J., Stewart, L. (eds) The Romance of Science: Essays in Honour of Trevor H. Levere. Archimedes, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58436-2_6
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