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A World-Wide Scientific Network and Patronage System

Australian and Other ‘Colonial’ Fellows of the Royal Society of London

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International Science and National Scientific Identity

Part of the book series: Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 9))

Abstract

In recent years, several studies have focussed on the contribution of Britain’s scientific institutions to the expansion of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. In particular, Lucile Brockway has stressed the importance of Kew Gardens in the establishment under Imperial control of important new cash crops such as cinchona, rubber and sisal, while Robert A. Stafford has emphasized the role of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and the Royal Geographical Society in promoting the discovery and exploitation of colonial natural resources.1 As yet, however, no systematic analysis has been undertaken of the role of the nation’s premier scientific society, the Royal Society of London, in the British imperial system.

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Notes

  1. Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens (New York, 1979); Robert A. Stafford, ‘Geological Surveys, Mineral Discoveries, and British Expansion, 1835–71’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 12(1984), 5–32; idem, ‘The Long Arm of London: Sir Roderick Murchison and Imperial Science in Australia’, pp. 69–101 in R.W. Home, ed., Australian Science in the Making (Sydney, 1988); idem, The Empire of Science: Sir Roderick Murchison, Scientific Exploration, and Victorian Imperialism (Cambridge, 1989).

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  2. Marie Boas Hall, All Scientists Now: The Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1984), especially pp. 166–74, 199–215.

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  3. R.P. Stearns, ‘Colonial Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661–1788’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 8(1951), 178–246.

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  4. Henry Lyons, The Royal Society, 1660–1940: A History of its Administration under its Charters (Cambridge, 1944), p. 53.

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  5. The Record of the Royal Society of London, 4th ed. (London, 1940), p. 95.

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  6. Lyons, op. cit. (n. 4), pp. 126, 343–4.

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  7. Record, op. cit. (n. 5), p. 100.

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  8. Ibid., p. 95. Foreigners resident in Britain thus continued to be eligible for ordinary membership, without restriction.

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  9. Ibid., p. 96.

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  10. Lyons, op. cit. (n. 4), chapters 7 and 8; Hall, op. cit. (n. 2), passim.

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  11. Record, pp. 301–3.

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  12. Royal Society, Certificates of Candidature, 1848–1940–.

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  13. Royal Society, ‘Certificates’.

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  14. Record, p. 75.

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  15. Record, p. 60; Royal Society, Year Book, 1940.

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  16. Royal Society, ‘Certificates 1840–1860’, f.173. On Kay and the Hobart magnetic observatory, see A. Savours and A. McConnell, ‘The History of the Rossbank Observatory, Tasmania’, Annals of Science, 39(1982), 527–64. Friend, whose signature might also have been expected to appear on Kay’s nomination, for some reason did not sign it.

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  17. Royal Society, ‘Certificates’, IX.57.

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  18. Dictionary of Scientific Biography, XI, 267–9.

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  19. Lewis Pyenson, Cultural Imperialism and Exact Sciences: German Expansion Overseas, 1900–1930 (New York, 1985).

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  20. Record, p. 301.

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  21. A.M. Lucas, ‘Ferdinand von Mueller, Protégé turned Patron’, pp. 133–152 in Home, op. cit. (n. 1). Ruddall’s nomination did not proceed.

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  22. Ibid.

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  23. Another Sydney professor, Richard Threlfall, was nominated in 1898 but resigned unexpectedly and returned to England before his election in the following year (R.W. Home, ‘First Physicist of Australia: Richard Threlfall at the University of Sydney, 1886–1898’, Historical Records of Australian Science, 6(3) (1986), 333–57).

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  24. Carslaw to Young, 15 August 1915; University of Liverpool Archives, Young papers, D. 140/9/7.

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  25. Thomson to Threlfall, 7 May 1898; Archives Department, Birmingham Reference Library, MS 347А/234 (quoted in Home, op. cit. [n. 28], p. 348).

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  26. L.N.G. Filon to L.R. Thomas, 1 December 1923; University of Tasmania Archives, UT 40/373.

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  27. Masson to Thomas, 15 October 1924; University of Tasmania Archives, loc. cit.

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  28. Ramsay to W.M. Hicks, 17 March 1901; Ramsay papers, University College London (my emphasis); quoted by L.W. Weickhardt, Masson of Melbourne (Melbourne, 1989), p. 57.

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  29. Royal Society, Council Minutes, 15 March 1888.

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  30. Quoted by Hall, op. cit. (п. 2), p. 123.

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  31. Royal Society, Year Book, 1949, p. 84.

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  32. Ibid., 1952, p. 84.

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  33. L. Badash, Kapitza, Rutherford,and the Kremlin (New Haven, 1985), p. 36.

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  34. Frank Fenner, ‘Frank Macfarlane Burnet, 1899–1985’, Historical Records of Australian Science, 7(1) (1987), 39–77; p. 59. A.L.G. Rees, personal communication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, Australia

    R. W. Home

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  1. R. W. Home
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Melbourne, Australia

    R. W. Home

  2. University of Minnesota, USA

    Sally Gregory Hohlstedt

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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Home, R.W. (1991). A World-Wide Scientific Network and Patronage System. In: Home, R.W., Hohlstedt, S.G. (eds) International Science and National Scientific Identity. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3786-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3786-7_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5686-1

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