The Shifting Ground of Nature : Establishing an Organ of Scientific Communication in Britain,1869–1900

On Lockyer, see Lockyer Thomazine Mary Browne Lockyer Winifred Lucas Dingle Herbert , Life and work of Sir Norman Lockyer (London, 1928), and Meadows A. J. , Science and controversy: A biography of Sir Norman Lockyer (London, 1972).

Joseph Hooker to Alexander Macmillan, 27 July 1869, Exeter, University of Exeter Library (hereafter UEL), Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 236.

Chadwick J. , “Possible existence of a neutron”, Nature, cxxix (1932), 312; Meitner Lise Frisch Otto , “Disintegration of uranium by neutrons: A new type of nuclear reaction”, Nature, cxliii (1939), 239; Watson J. D. Crick F. H. C. , “A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid”, Nature, clxxi (1953), 737–8.

On popular science writing in Victorian Britain, see Barton Ruth , “Just before Nature: The purposes of science and the purposes of popularization in some English popular science journals of the 1860s”, Annals of science, lv (1998), 1–33; Dawson Gowan , Darwin, literature and Victorian respectability (Cambridge, 2007); Fyfe Aileen , Science and salvation: Evangelical popular science publishing in Victorian Britain (Chicago, 2004); Lightman Bernard , “Ideology, evolution, and late-Victorian agnostic popularizers”, in Moore James R. (ed.), History, humanity, and evolution: Essays for John C. Greene (Cambridge, 1989), 285–309; Lightman Bernard , “Marketing knowledge for the general reader: Victorian popularizers of science”, Endeavour, xxiv (2000), 2000–6; Lightman Bernard , “The visual theology of Victorian popularizers of science: From reverent eye to chemical retina”, Isis, xci (2000), 2000–80; Lightman Bernard , Victorian popularizers of science: Designing nature for new audiences (Chicago, 2007); Lightman Bernard (eds), Victorian science in context (Chicago, 1997); Mussell James , Science, time and space in the late nineteenth-century periodical press (Aldershot, 2007); Secord James A. , Victorian sensation: The extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the natural history of creation (Chicago, 2000); Cantor G. N. (ed.), Science in the nineteenth-century periodical: Reading the magazine of nature (Cambridge, 2004); Cantor G. N. Shuttleworth Sally (eds), Science serialized: Representations of the sciences in nineteenth-century periodicals (Cambridge, MA, 2004); Henson Louise , Culture and science in the nineteenth-century media (Aldershot, 2004). On the twentieth century, see Bowler Peter , Science for all: The popularization of science in early twentieth-century Britain (Chicago, 2009).

On the history of the scientific journal, see Meadows A. J. , Communication in science (London, 1974), chap. 3; Meadows A. J. (ed.), Development of science publishing in Europe (New York, 1980); Broman Thomas , “Periodical literature”, in Frasca-Spada Marina Jardine Nicholas (eds), Books and the sciences in history (Cambridge, 2000), 225–38; Johns Adrian , The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making (Chicago, 1998), chap. 3; Johns Adrian , “Miscellaneous methods: Authors, societies and journals in early modern England”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxiii (2000), 2000–86; Secord Jim , “Science, technology and mathematics”, in McKitterick David (ed.), The Cambridge history of the book in Britain, vi: 1830–1914 (Cambridge, 2009), 443–74. Aside from these authors, few scholars have analysed why men of science adopted journals as a means of publishing their research.

See, for example, Crane Diana , Invisible colleges: Diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities (Chicago, 1972); Hagstrom Warren O. , The scientific community (Carbondale, 1975); de Solla Price Derek , Science since Babylon (New Haven, 1961); de Solla Price Derek , “Networks of scientific papers”, Science, cxlix (1965), 510–15.

Atkinson Dwight , Scientific discourse in sociohistorical context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975 (Mahwah, NJ, 1999); Dear Peter (ed.), The literary structure of scientific argument (Philadelphia, 1994); Gross Alan G. Harmon Joseph E. Reidy Michael , Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th century to the present (Oxford, 2002).

See, for example, Jungnickel Christa McCormmach Russell , Intellectual mastery of nature: Theoretical physics from Ohm to Einstein (2 vols, Chicago, 1986), which draws heavily on the Annalen der Physik und Chemie; Servos John W. , Physical chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling: The making of a science in America (Princeton, NJ, 1990), which analyses the contents of the Journal of physical chemistry; and Kaiser David , American physics and the Cold War bubble (Chicago, forthcoming), a project that will explore the history of the Physical review in the second half of the twentieth century.

For a thorough discussion of this assumption, see Csiszar Alex , “Broken pieces of fact: The scientific periodical and the politics of search in nineteenth-century France and Britain”, Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 2010, 13–22.

Csiszar , op. cit. (ref. 9), 7.

Csiszar , op. cit. (ref. 9), 6.

MacLeod R. M. , various articles, Nature, ccxxiv (1969), 417–61; Werskey Gary , “Nature and politics between the wars”, Nature, ccxxiv (1969), 1969–72; Maddox John , “Introduction”, in Nature 1869–1879 (London, 2002), 1–19; Roos David A. , “The ‘aims and intentions’ of Nature”, in Paradis James Postlewait Thomas (eds), Victorian science and Victorian values: Literary perspectives (New Brunswick, 1981), 159–80. For comment on the Roos article, see ref. 39. One likely reason that Nature has not been the subject of an in-depth study is that such a study presents some archival challenges. The Macmillan Company and the Nature offices did not preserve much official correspondence prior to 1990, and there are no archives devoted specifically to Nature. Alysoun Sanders, archivist for the Macmillan Publishing Group, personal communication, 2007.

Lockyer was incensed over this turn of events and wrote several letters to his superiors at the War Office attempting to have his old title and salary reinstated. See Lockyer Norman , “Private and confidential”, 16 November 1868, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110 ZP.

On the Reader, see Meadows , Science and controversy (ref. 1), 17–24; Barton Ruth , “The X Club: Science, religion, and social change in Victorian England”, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1976, 223–6.

On Huxley, see Desmond Adrian , Huxley (2 vols, London, 1994); Huxley Leonard (ed.), Life & letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (London, 1900); White Paul , Thomas Huxley: Making the “man of science” (Cambridge, 2002).

For more on the Macmillan family and Macmillan Publishing, see Van Arsdel Rosemary T. , “Macmillan family (per. c. 1840–1986)”, in Matthew H. C. G. Harrison Brian (eds), Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford, 2004); online edn, ed. by Goldman Lawrence , May 2007, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/63220 (accessed 24 August 2011); Graves Charles , Life and letters of Alexander Macmillan (London, 1910); Morgan Charles , The house of Macmillan (New York, 1944); and James Elizabeth (ed.), Macmillan: A publishing tradition from 1843 (London, 2002).

MacMillan Alexander , qtd. in Life and letters of Alexander Macmillan (ref. 16), 262.

See, for example, G. J. Allman to Norman Lockyer, 2 December 1863, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110; Thomas Hirst to Norman Lockyer, 2 October 1864, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110; W. H. Flower to J. Norman Lockyer, 27 January 1864, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110.

“Advertisement: Nature, an Illustrated Journal of Science”, The Athenæum, no. 2191 (1869), 538.

“Forthcoming Publications: Nature”, Journal of the Society of Arts, xvii (1869), 860; “Advertisement: ‘NATURE’, A Weekly Illustrated JOURNAL of SCIENCE”, Cambridge University gazette, 10 November 1869, 231; “Advertisement: NATURE: An illustrated journal of science”, The academy i (1869), 11.

Clay's was not necessarily popular among Macmillan & Co.'s scientific authors, some of whom complained strenuously about the allegedly poor quality of Clay's printing and particularly Clay's handling of scientific illustrations. See Alfred Russel Wallace to George Lillie Craik, 2 February 1876, London, British Library (hereafter BL), Macmillan Papers, MSS 55221.5; Archibald Geikie to “Jack”, 29 December 1878, BL, Macmillan Papers, MSS 55212.43. Such complaints appear to have had little effect on Macmillan's business relationship with the printer. Clay's would continue to print Nature well into the twentieth century.

On Lockyer's views about German Naturphilosophie, see Meadows , Science and controversy (ref. 1), 28. On Romanticism's influence on nineteenth-century science, see Cunningham Andrew Jardine Nicholas (eds), Romanticism and the sciences (Cambridge, 1990); Richards Robert J. , The Romantic conception of life: Science and philosophy in the age of Goethe (Chicago, 2002); Tennyson G. B. , “The sacramental imagination”, in Knoepflmacher U. C. Tennyson G. B. (eds), Nature and the Victorian imagination (Berkeley, 1977), 370–90. On the British Association's efforts to employ ‘Nature’ to suggest a normative moral agenda to their scientific work, see Morrell Jack Thackray Arnold , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 29–34.

In Wordsworth's original poem, “Mind” was capitalized and “nature” was not. Lockyer altered the verse to emphasize the preferred word.

On Victorian popular science publishing, see the works cited in ref. 4.

See Broman , “Periodical literature” (ref. 5), 225–38; Feltes N. N. , Modes of production of Victorian novels (Chicago, 1986); Hughes Linda K. Lund Michael , The Victorian serial (Charlottesville, 1991); Jordan John O. Patten Robert L. , Literature in the marketplace: Nineteenth-century British publishing and reading practices (Cambridge, 1995).

Dawson Gowan , “The Cornhill Magazine and shilling monthlies in mid-Victorian Britain”, in Cantor Geoffrey (eds), Science in the nineteenth-century periodical (Cambridge, 2004), 123–50.

For more on Nature's rivals, see Barton , “Just before Nature” (ref. 4).

See Lightman , Victorian popularizers of science (ref. 4), 356–69; Lightman , “Marketing knowledge for the general reader” (ref. 4), 100–6; Lightman , “The visual theology of Victorian popularizers of science” (ref. 4), 650–80. Lockyer and Huxley's alarm was likely related to science journalism's popularity among the working classes. Science journalists' influence with the working classes became especially noteworthy after the 1867 Representation of the People Act (more commonly known as the Second Reform Act) enfranchised working-class adult males, potentially giving them power over issues like government funding of science.

The gendered language here is not accidental. Many of Nature's contributors did not consider women capable of producing original scientific work. Huxley in particular was well-known for his belief that women were too susceptible to religion and superstition to make good researchers. See Lightman , “Marketing knowledge for the general reader” (ref. 4), 102. Lockyer was an exception. In 1902, when the Royal Society considered nominating the astronomer Hertha Ayrton for Fellowship, he was a vocal supporter of her candidacy. However, the Fellows eventually decided that Ayrton's status as a married woman made her ineligible for Fellowship. See Mason Joan , “Hertha Ayrton (1854–1923) and the admission of women to the Royal Society of London”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xlv (1991), 201–20.

Crookes , like Lockyer, had previous editorial experience before founding his journal; Crookes had been the editor of several London and Liverpool photography journals in the 1850s. Crookes also edited the Quarterly journal of science, a popular science magazine, from 1864 to 1879. On the Chemical news, Crookes and his publishing interests, see Brock William H. , “The Chemical News, 1859–1932”, Bulletin for the history of chemistry, xii (1992), 30–5; Brock William H. , William Crookes (1832–1919) and the commercialization of science (Aldershot, 2008); Knight David , “Science and culture in mid-Victorian Britain: The reviews, and William Crookes' Quarterly journal of science”, Nuncius, xi (1996), 43–54.

E.g., Gray John E. , “The culture of salmon”, The Athenæum, no. 213 (15 February 1868), 243.

The 10% figure is based on an analysis of the number of pages devoted to scientific articles in the British quarterly review, the Fortnightly review, and the Nineteenth century in the 1860s and 1870s. For more information on these publications, see The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals, ed. by Houghton Walter E. (New York, 1999).

See James Frank A. J. L. , “Reporting Royal Institution lectures, 1826–1967”, in Cantor Geoffrey Shuttleworth Sally (eds), Science serialized: Representations of the sciences in nineteenth-century periodicals (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 67–80. James suggests that newspapers like the Times might have surrendered coverage of the sciences to the popular shilling monthlies, and that the decline of science coverage might not actually have reflected a loss of interest as men like Lockyer claimed.

Nature, i (1869–70), 323.

Tait Peter Guthrie , “Tyndall and Forbes”, Nature, xviii (1873), 381–2. For more on the social status of nineteenth-century science journalists, see Fyfe Aileen , “Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? The professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century”, Isis, xcvi (2005), 192–223.

For more on Kingsley, see Chadwick Owen , “Charles Kingsley at Cambridge”, Historical journal, xviii (1975), 303–25; Chitty Susan , The beast and the monk: A life of Charles Kingsley (London, 1974); Hawley John C. , Charles Kingsley, rhetorical fiction, and the Victorian periodical press (Philadelphia, 1985); Straley Jessica , ” of beasts and boys: Kingsley, Spencer, and the theory of recapitulation”, Victorian studies, xlix (2007), 583–609.

Charles Kingsley to Norman Lockyer, 8 November 1869, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110.

Kingsley Charles , “The world of the sea: Review of The world of the sea by Tandon Moquin Hunt H. Martyn , Nature, i (1869–70), 78–80.

Charles Kingsley to Norman Lockyer, 8 November 1872, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MS 110. Kingsley's letter casts serious doubt on David Roos's argument that during Lockyer's tenure “Nature was neither written for nor by ‘scientists’” and the journal continued to be accessible “to all interested readers” well into the 1880s. Roos, ” The ‘aims and intentions’ of Nature” (ref. 12), 171–3. Both the journal's contents and the correspondence of the journal's readers clearly indicate otherwise. Roos cites the participation of ‘amateurs’ in an 1884 debate over the significance of solar phenomena as evidence that Nature was accessible to a wide cross-section of British society; however, this argument hinges on a modern conception of scientific ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ and reflects an incomplete understanding of the structure of Victorian science. For a more accurate picture, see Barton Ruth , “‘Huxley, Lubbock, and half a dozen others’: Professionals and gentlemen in the formation of the X Club, 1851–1864”, Isis, lxxxix (1998), 410–44; Barton Ruth , “‘Men of science’: Language, identity and professionalization in the mid-Victorian scientific community”, History of science, xli (2003), 73–119.

For more on Lockyer and his fondness for scientific controversies, see his aptly titled biography: Meadows , Science and controversy (ref. 1), 314–16.

On the X Club, see Barton , ” The X Club” (ref. 14); Barton , “‘Huxley, Lubbock, and half a dozen others’” (ref. 39), 410–44; Jenson J. V. , “The X Club: Fraternity of Victorian scientists”, The British journal for the history of science, v (1970), 1970–72; MacLeod R. M. , “The X-Club, a social network of science in late-Victorian England”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxiv (1970), 1970–22. Between 1869 and 1887, at least one member of the X Club was always on the Council of the Royal Society, and Joseph Hooker, William Spottiswoode, and Thomas Huxley held consecutive Presidencies of the Royal Society between 1873 and 1884. In addition, between 1869 and 1881, Hooker, Huxley, Tyndall, Spottiswoode and Lubbock all served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), and many other X Club members served as BAAS trustees, Council members, and Section presidents. See Barton Ruth , “‘An influential set of chaps’: The X-Club and Royal Society politics 1864–85”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 53–81; Barton Ruth , “The X Club” (ref. 14), 116–91.

Turner Frank M. , “The Victorian conflict between science and religion: A professional dimension”, Isis, lxix (1978), 356–76, p. 362; Turner Frank M. , Contesting cultural authority: Essays in Victorian intellectual life (Cambridge, 1993), 180. The word ‘professionalize’ is placed in quotation marks because it is a problematic and not entirely appropriate term in the context of Victorian science. On the ‘professionalization’ of nineteenth-century British science, see Desmond Adrian , “Redefining the X axis: ‘Professionals,’ ‘amateurs’ and the making of mid-Victorian biology”, Journal of the history of biology, xxxiv (2001), 2001–50; Meadows Jack , Victorian scientist: The growth of a profession (London, 2005); Morrell Jack , “Professionalisation”, in Olby Robert (eds), Companion to the history of modern science (London, 1990), 980–9; Porter Roy , “Gentlemen and geology: The emergence of a scientific career, 1660–1920”, Historical journal, xxi (1978), 1978–36; Secord James A. , “The geological survey of Great Britain as a research school, 1839–1855”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 1986–75. For challenges to the concept of professionalization, see Barton , “‘Men of science’” (ref. 39), 73–119; Endersby Jim , Imperial nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science (Chicago, 2008), 7, 21–7; Lucier Paul , “The professional and the scientist in nineteenth-century America”, Isis, c (2009), 699–732.

Barton Ruth , “Scientific authority and scientific controversy in Nature: North Britain against the X Club”, in Henson Louise (eds), Culture and science in the nineteenth-century media (Aldershot, 2004), 223–35. For more on the conflict between North British men of science and their London counterparts, see Smith Crosbie , The science of energy: A cultural history of energy physics in Victorian Britain (Chicago, 1998), 170–91.

On the decline of the X Club, see MacLeod R. M. , ” The X-Club, a social network of science in late-Victorian England” (ref. 41), 314–16.

On Haeckel, see Richards Robert J. , The tragic sense of life: Ernst Haeckel and the struggle over evolutionary thought (Chicago, 2008).

E. Ray Lankester to T. H. Huxley, 18 December 1872, London, Imperial College Special Collections, Thomas Henry Huxley Collection, 21.39.

On Lankester, see Lester Joseph , E. Ray Lankester and the making of British biology (Oxford, 1995); Milner Richard , “Huxley's bulldog: The battles of E. Ray Lankester (1846–1929)”, The anatomical record, cclvii (1999), 90–5.

On Romanes, see England Richard (ed.), Design after Darwin, 1860–1900 (Bristol, 2003); Forsdyke Donald , The Origin of Species, revisited: A Victorian who anticipated modern developments in Darwin's theory (Kingston, Ontario, 2001); Lesch John E. , “The role of isolation in evolution: George J. Romanes and John T. Gulik”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 1975–503; Schwartz Joel S. , “George John Romanes's defense of Darwinism: The correspondence of Charles Darwin with his chief disciple”, Journal of the history of biology, xxviii (1995), 1995–316; Schwartz Joel S. , “Out from Darwin's shadow: George John Romanes's efforts to popularize science in Nineteenth century and other Victorian periodicals”, Victorian periodicals review, xxxv (2002), 2002–59; Turner Frank M. , Between science and religion: The reaction to scientific naturalism in late Victorian England (New Haven, 1974), 134–63.

There is very little scholarly literature on Thiselton-Dyer. See Thomason Bernard , “Dyer, Sir William Turner Thiselton (1843–1928)”, in Matthew H. C. G. Harrison Brian (eds), Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford, 2004); online edn, ed. by Goldman Lawrence , May 2009, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36467 (accessed 1 June 2009).

On Meldola, see Eyre J. V. Rodd E. H. , “Raphael Meldola”, in Findlay A. Mills W. H. (eds), British chemists (London, 1947), 96–125; Marchant J. (ed.), Raphael Meldola: Reminiscences of his worth and work by those who knew him, together with a chronological list of his publications, 1869–1915 (London, 1916); Webb K. R. , “Raphael Meldola, 1849–1915”, Chemistry in Britain, xiii (1977), 345–8.

See Hunt Bruce , The Maxwellians (Ithaca, 2005).

On Lodge, see Clow Nani N. , ” The laboratory of Victorian culture: Experimental physics, industry, and pedagogy in the Liverpool laboratory of Oliver Lodge, 1881–1900”, Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1999; Hunt Bruce , “Experimenting on the ether: Oliver J. Lodge and the great whirling machine”, Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences, xvi (1986), 1986–34; Jolly William P. , Sir Oliver Lodge (London, 1974); Powlands Peter , Oliver Lodge and the Liverpool Physical Society (Cambridge, 1990); Raia Courtenay Grean , “From ether theory to ether theology: Oliver Lodge and the physics of immortality”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, xliii (2007), 2007–43; Root John D. , “Science, religion, and psychical research: The monistic thought of Sir Oliver Lodge”, Harvard theological review, lxxi (1978), 1978–63; Rowlands Peter Wilson J. Patrick (eds), Oliver Lodge and the invention of radio (Liverpool, 1994); Wilson David B. , “The thought of the late Victorian physicists: Oliver Lodge's ethereal body”, Victorian studies, xv (1971), 29–48.

On Perry, see England Philip C. Moinar Peter Richter Frank M. , “Kelvin, Perry and the age of the Earth”, American scientist, xcv (2007), 342–9; Burchfield J. D. , Lord Kelvin and the age of the Earth (Chicago, 1975); Gooday Graeme , “The morals of energy metering”, in Wise M. Norton (ed.), The values of precision (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 239–82.

There is an enormous amount of secondary literature on these six men. Helpful biographies include Wilson David , “P. G. Tait and Edinburgh natural philosophy, 1860–1901”, Annals of science, xlviii (1991), 267–87; Taylor M. W. , Men versus the state: Herbert Spencer and late Victorian individualism (Oxford, 1992); Rylance Rick , Victorian psychology and British culture, 1850–1880 (Oxford, 2000); Endersby Jim , Imperial nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science (Chicago, 2008); Desmond Adrian , Huxley (2 vols, London, 1994); White Paul , Thomas Huxley: Making the “man of science” (Cambridge, 2002); Raby Peter , Alfred Russel Wallace: A life (Princeton, NJ, 2001); Slotten Ross A. , The heretic in Darwin's court: The life of Alfred Russel Wallace (New York, 2004); Browne E. Janet , Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Princeton, NJ, 1996); Browne E. Janet , Charles Darwin: The power of place (Princeton, NJ, 2003).

Kjærgaard Peter C. , “‘Within the bounds of science’: Redirecting controversies to Nature”, in Henson Louise (eds.), Culture and science in the nineteenth-century media (Aldershot, 2004), 211–21.

On Romanes , see the works cited in ref. 48.

Romanes George J. , “Permanent variation of colour in fish”, Nature, viii (1873), 101.

For a complete account of Romanes's correspondence with Darwin, see Schwartz , “George John Romanes's defense of Darwinism” (ref. 48).

Romanes George J. , “Physiological selection: An additional suggestion on the origin of species [I]”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 314–16; Romanes George J. , “Physiological selection: An additional suggestion on the origin of species [II]”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 1886–40; Romanes George J. , “Physiological selection: An additional suggestion on the origin of species [III]”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 1886–5. For the full paper, see Romanes George J. , “Physiological selection: An additional suggestion on the origin of species”, Journal of the Linnean Society, xix (1886), 337–411.

Romanes , “Physiological selection … [I]” (ref. 59), 316.

Alfred Russel Wallace to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 26 September 1893, BL, Alfred Russel Wallace Papers, MSS 46435.300.

In his reply to Wallace's letter of 26 September 1893, Thiselton-Dyer wrote, “Romanes is an old acquaintance of mine of many years standing. Personally I like him very much; but for his writings I confess I have a great admiration. … I must confess I was in total ignorance of what you tell me. I don't see how under the circumstance you can do anything. I was never more surprised in my life, in fact, than when I read your letter. The whole thing is too incredibly preposterous. Romanes laments over me because he says I willfully misunderstood his theory. The fact is poor fellow that I do not think he understands it himself.” W. T. Thiselton-Dyer to Alfred Russel Wallace, 27 September 1893, BL, Alfred Russel Wallace Papers, MSS 46435.301.

W. T. Thiselton-Dyer to Alfred Russel Wallace, 29 October 1889, BL, Alfred Russel Wallace Papers, MSS 46435.213. The controversy to which Thiselton-Dyer was referring took place largely in Nature. See Thiselton-Dyer W. T. , “Mr. Romanes's paradox”, Nature, xxxix (1888–89), 7–9; Romanes George J. , “Mr. Dyer on physiological selection”, Nature, xxxix (1888–89), 103–4; Thiselton-Dyer W. T. , “Mr. Romanes on the origin of species”, Nature, xxxix (1888–89), 126–7; Romanes George J. , “Natural selection and the origin of species”, Nature, xxxix (1888–89), 173–5.

E. Ray Lankester to J. Norman Lockyer, 25 September [1886], UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MSS 110.

Following the death of Lockyer's wife Winifred in 1879, Lockyer became quite close to George and Ethel Romanes, and carried on a warm personal correspondence with them. See George J. Romanes to J. Norman Lockyer, various letters, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MSS 110.

George J. Romanes to J. Norman Lockyer, 30 October 1886, UEL, Norman Lockyer Papers, MSS 110.

Wallace A. R. , “Romanes versus Darwin: An episode in the history of evolution theory”, Fortnightly review, lx (1886), 300–16. For more information about the Fortnightly review, see ” The Fortnightly Review”, in The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals (ref. 32).

Wallace Alfred Russel , “Physiological selection and the origin of species”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 467–8.

E.g. Meldola R. , “Physiological selection and the origin of species”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 384–5; Darwin Francis , “Physiological selection and the origin of species”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 407. Lankester's letter about Romanes, as previously noted, was not published due to its inflammatory personal content.

Romanes George J. , “Physiological selection and the origin of species”, Nature, xxxiv (1886), 439.

Thomson was made Lord Kelvin in 1892; for consistency's sake, we shall refer to him as Thomson throughout this article.

Thomson William , “On compass adjustment in iron ships”, Nature, xvii (1877–78), 352–4; Thomson William , “Approximate photometric measurements of Sun, Moon, cloudy sky, and electric and other artificial lights”, Nature, xxvii (1882–83), 277–9; Thomson William Reynolds Osborne , “Storage of electric energy”, Nature, xxiv (1881), 156–7.

See Smith Crosbie Wise M. Norton , Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 552–611. See also Burchfield , Lord Kelvin and the age of the Earth (ref. 53).

Perry John , “The age of the Earth”, Nature, li (1894–95), 224–7.

Perry John , “On the age of the Earth”, Nature, li (1894–95), 341–2.

Perry John , “The age of the Earth”, Nature, li (1894–95), 582–5.

Thomson William , “The age of the Earth”, Nature, li (1894–95), 438–40.

On Romanes's writings in literary publications, see Schwartz Joel S. , “Out from Darwin's shadow” (ref. 48). As we will discuss later, Romanes's work for these publications focused largely on popularization and self-promotion, and he did not use them as a means of making his research known to other men of science.

Maddox , “Introduction”, op. cit. (ref. 12), 3.

As James Secord has observed, scientific conversations and lectures were another important form of scientific communication in the early nineteenth century, and like monographs, lectures and conversations had become far less central by the end of the nineteenth century. Secord James A. , “How scientific conversation became shop talk”, in Fyfe Aileen Lightman Bernard (eds), Science in the marketplace: Nineteenth-century sites and experiences (Chicago, 2007), 23–59.

I would like to thank Gowan Dawson for suggesting this point.

“Nature (1869–),” in Brake Lauren Demoor Marysa (eds), Dictionary of nineteenth-century journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 2009), 441–2.

Kjærgaard , op. cit. (ref. 55), 212–17.

William Crookes to Norman Lockyer, 20 August 1895, NLP, MS 110. Crookes's helium paper was published shortly after he wrote the letter. See Crookes William , “The spectrum of helium”, Nature, lii (1895), 428–30. A note on the article indicates that Crookes's paper also appeared in that week's edition of the Chemical news.

On the relationship between priority and publication, see Csiszar , op. cit. (ref. 9), chap. 2.

I thank Michael Taylor and James Elwick for drawing my attention to this point. On the importance of publication in general periodicals to Huxley's career and finances, see White Paul , Thomas Huxley: Making the “man of science” (Cambridge, 2003), chap. 3.

See, for example, Darwin Charles , “Pangenesis”, Nature, iii (1870–71), 502–3; Darwin Charles , “Perception in the lower animals”, Nature, vii (1872–73), 360; Darwin Charles , “On the males and complemental males of certain cirripedes, and on rudimentary structures”, Nature, viii (1873), 1873–2; Darwin Charles , “Recent researches on termites and honey-bees”, Nature, ix (1873–74), 308–9; Darwin Charles , “Sexual selection in relation to monkeys”, Nature, xv (1876–77), 18–19; Darwin Charles , “Fertility of hybrids from the common and Chinese goose”, Nature, xxi (1879–80), 207; Darwin Charles , “Inheritance”, Nature, xxiv (1881), 257; Darwin Charles , “On the dispersal of freshwater bivalves”, Nature, xxv (1881–82), 529–30. After they began working together, Romanes aided Darwin in the preparation of his abstracts for Nature. See Schwartz , “George John Romanes's defense of Darwinism” (ref. 18), 299. Darwin's fondness for using Nature to publicize his research and discuss current theories may be related to his distaste for travelling to meetings. See Browne E. Janet , “I could have retched all night: Charles Darwin and his body”, in Lawrence Christopher Shapin Steven (eds), Science incarnate: Historical embodiments of natural knowledge (Chicago, 1998), 240–87.

I owe this observation to Dr Michele Aldrich and I am extremely grateful for her willingness to share her research on Darwin's publishing patterns with me.

Brock William H. , “Advancing science: The British Association and the professional practice of science”, in MacLeod R. M. Collins P. M. (eds), Parliament of science (London, 1981), 89–117, p. 116.

The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals indexes the contents and authors in forty-five Victorian publications, including: British quarterly review, Contemporary review, Cornhill magazine, Edinburgh review, Fortnightly review, Macmillan's magazine, Nineteenth century, and Westminster review. The Index does not include any scientific periodicals aimed at an audience of men of science.

“Index of Authors”, The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals (ref. 32).

Schwartz , “Out from Darwin's shadow” (ref. 48), 133–59.

On the respectability and intellectual status of British men of science in the nineteenth century, see the works cited in ref. 41.

Lodge Oliver J. , “Thoughts on the bifurcation of the sciences suggested by the Nottingham meeting of the British Association”, Nature, xlviii (1893), 565.

Financially, Nature was not a profitable magazine until 1890, the first year in which the income from advertisements and subscriptions exceeded the expense of printing the journal. The Macmillans continued supporting the magazine in spite of its finances, likely because of the access it gave them to men of science, both as potential authors and as potential customers. Frederick Macmillan indicated in a letter to his cousin George that the Macmillans saw Nature as a convenient way to advertise their scientific publications. Frederick Macmillan to George Macmillan, 25 December 1886, BL, Macmillan Papers, MSS 54788.66.

Historians of early modern and Enlightenment intellectual life have observed a similar community-building aspect to the communication between members of the Republic of Letters. On the Republic of Letters and pre-1800 scientific communication more generally, see Daston Lorraine , “The ideal and reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment”, Science in context, iv (1991), 367–86; Feingold Mordechai (ed.), Jesuit science and the Republic of Letters (Cambridge, MA, 2002); Goldgar Anne , Impolite learning: Conduct and community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 (New Haven, 1995); Goodman Dena , The Republic of Letters: A cultural history of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca, 1996); Johns Adrian , The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making (Chicago, 2000); Lux David Cook Harold , “Closed circles or open networks?: Communicating at a distance during the scientific revolution”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 1998–211; Mayhew Robert , “Mapping science's imagined community: Geography as a Republic of Letters, 1600–1800”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxviii (2005), 2005–92; Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1995), chap. 5; Shelford April , Transforming the Republic of Letters: Pierre-Daniel Huet and European intellectual life, 1650–1720 (Rochester, 2007); Sibum H. Otto , “Experimentalists in the Republic of Letters”, Science in context, xvi (2003), 89–120.