David Brewster and the Culture of Science in Scotland, 1793–1843
How did Scottish scientific culture change from the Enlightenment to the Victorian period?
- Sheds light on a key aspect of Scottish intellectual culture in a rich but previously neglected period
- Based on original archival research and a wide range of published and unpublished sources
- Bridges the gap between Scottish Enlightenment natural philosophy and Victorian ‘North British’ physics, giving a new appreciation of the importance and influence of Scottish scientific culture in this period
The decades between the French Revolution and the mid-nineteenth century were a period of radical transformation in Scottish society and culture on many levels. The Scottish Enlightenment had seen a striking blossoming of the natural sciences, with the development of a distinctive and influential national scientific culture.
The natural philosopher David Brewster was educated in Edinburgh amidst the intellectual ferment of the late Enlightenment but lived to end his days as a grand old man of Victorian science. This book uses the long and eventful career of Brewster as a lens through which to explore themes of rupture and continuity in Scottish scientific culture in a period of dramatic social and political change.
Chapter 1. Introduction
PART I: SCIENCE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCOTLAND
Chapter 2. Politics and patronage: Science in an age of revolution, reaction and reform
Chapter 3. Science and religion between Enlightenment and Disruption
Chapter 4. The philosophy of science
PART II: BUILDING A LIFE IN SCOTTISH SCIENCE
Chapter 5. Scientific book and periodical publishing in Scotland
Chapter 6. Scientific societies and associations
Chapter 7. Scientific education in Scotland: Natural philosophy and the ‘democratic intellect’
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Archival sources
Online sources
Published primary sources
Secondary sources
Bill Jenkins’ deft portrait of David Brewster’s multifaceted scientific career illuminates a long-neglected period in the history of Scottish science. No other book tells us as much about the intersections of Evangelicalism, Whig politics, patronage and the cultivation of natural knowledge in post-Enlightenment Scotland as this one.
Carefully researched and well written, Jenkins pieces together facets of patronage that were so important to scientific progress in the early 19th century and explores the influence of politics and religion, often neglected in histories of the. period. This history is a valuable addition to understanding 19th century science and Scotland.
