Ranking Rankine: W. J. M. Rankine (1820–72) and the Making of ‘Engineering Science’ Revisited

Channell David F. , “A unitary technology: The engineering science of W. J. M. Rankine”, PhD diss. (Case Western Reserve University, 1975); Channell David F. , “The harmony of theory and practice: The engineering science of W. J. M. Rankine”, Technology and culture, xxiii (1982), 1982–52; Channell David F. , “Engineering science as theory and practice”, Technology and culture, xxix (1988), 1988–103; Channell David F. , The history of engineering science: An annotated bibliography (New York and London, 1989); Channell David F. , “W. J. M. Rankine and the Scottish roots of engineering science”, in Gerber Elizabeth (ed.), Beyond history of science: Essays in honor of Robert E. Schofield (Bethlehem, 1990), 194–203; Marsden Ben , “Engineering science in Glasgow: Economy, efficiency and measurement as prime movers in the differentiation of an academic discipline”, British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 1992–46.

The key study is Hutchison Keith R. , “W. J. M. Rankine and the rise of thermodynamics”, British journal for the history of science, xiv (1981), 1–26; for Rankine in the context of his North British collaborators and rivals, see Smith Crosbie , The science of energy: A cultural history of energy physics in Victorian Britain (London, 1998).

Rankine W. J. M. , Songs and fables with illustrations by J. B. (Glasgow and London, 1874), 3–6 and 12–14; on science and romance, see O'Connor Ralph (ed.), Victorian science and literature: Volume 7. Science and romance (London, 2012), 361–75; Rankine W. J. M. , “The engine-driver to his engine”, Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, xcii (December 1862), 735; a lithographed copy of the accompaniment is preserved in the British Library (Music Division).

Rankine W. J. M. , Introductory lecture on the harmony of theory and practice in mechanics, delivered to the class of Civil Engineering and Mechanics in the University of Glasgow on Thursday, January 3, 1856 (London and Glasgow, 1856).

On the marginal figure in history of science, see Gieryn Thomas F. Hirsch Richard F. , “Marginality and innovation in science”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 87–106. Like Gieryn and Hirsch, I am not here claiming that marginality correlates with innovative capacity.

The key biographical sources are: Tait P. G. , “Memoir [of W. J. M. Rankine]”, in Millar W. J. (ed.), Miscellaneous scientific papers by W. J. Macquorn Rankine (London, 1881), xix–xxxvi; Barr Archibald , “W. J. Macquorn Rankine: A centenary address [read on 14 December 1921]”, Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, li (1920–22), 167–87; Henderson James B. Sir , Macquorn Rankine: Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics in the University of Glasgow, 1855 to 1872. An oration: Delivered in the University at the Commemoration of Benefactors on 15th June, 1932 (Glasgow, 1932); Southwell Richard V. Sir , “W. J. M. Rankine: A commemorative lecture delivered on 12 December, 1955, in Glasgow”, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, v (1956), 1956–93; Small James , “The Institution's first President: William John Macquorn Rankine”, Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, c (1956–57), 687–97; Sutherland Hugh B. , Rankine: His life and times. Lecture delivered before the British Geotechnical Society at the University of Glasgow on 13 December 1972 to mark the centenary of the death on 24 December 1872 of William John Macquorn Rankine (London, 1973); Channell David F. , William John Macquorn Rankine, F.R.S.E., F.R.S. (Edinburgh, 1986); and the entry in the Oxford dictionary of national biography by the present author.

Marsden , “Engineering science in Glasgow” (ref. 1).

See for example Peattie Elia W. , “Grizel Cochrane's ride”, St. Nicholas, xiv (February 1887), 271–8 which also mentions the family's preservation of related artefacts.

Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men who have died in the last thirty years (Glasgow, 1886), 58, 162, 180 and 231.

Tait , “Memoir” (ref. 6), xx (Scot of Scots); and for example Rankine to James Gourlay, 15 May 1868, MS Gen 1675/31, Glasgow University Special Collections.

Whishaw Francis , The railways of Great Britain and Ireland practically described and illustrated (London, 1840), 95–102.

Geraghty P. J. , “Sir John Macneill (1793–1880): King of the Irish railways”, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, lxxviii (2008), 207–34.

Colston James , The Edinburgh and district water supply: A historical sketch (Edinburgh, 1890), esp. ch. IX, on pp. 63–68 for Rankine's scheme.

Hutchison , “Rankine and the rise of thermodynamics” (ref. 2); Smith , Science of energy (ref. 2), 150–66.

There is no detailed study of the manuals and their reception.

Rankine , Songs and fables (ref. 3), 28–30.

Smith , Science of energy (ref. 2), 264; the volume appeared in 1881.

Maxwell James Clerk , “Tait's thermodynamics”, Nature, xvii (31 January 1878), 257–9, 278–80.

Glasgow herald, 28 December 1872, 4.

“Gordon, Lewis Dunbar Brodie”, Oxford dictionary of national biography.

Memoirs and portraits (ref. 9), 237–40.

The various attempts are recorded in: C. W. Merrifield to James Robert Napier, 17 March 1876 and Lewis D. B. Gordon to James Robert Napier, 8 December 1876, James Robert Napier Papers, Glasgow University Archive Services; Napier J. R. , List of Prof. Macquorn Rankine's papers (Glasgow, 1878); W. J. Millar to the Secretary of the Royal Society of London, 10 October 1879, MC11.424, Miscellaneous Correspondence, Royal Society of London.

Glasgow herald, 11 June 1873, 2.

She appears as executrix in Rankine's formal Inventory, 10 February 1873, SC 36/48/70, National Records of Scotland.

Caledonian mercury, 6 April 1837, 2.

Engineering, 3 January 1872, 13.

” The late professor Macquorn Rankine”, letter from Merrifield to the Editor, Glasgow herald, 31 December 1872, 7; Marsden Ben , “The administration of the ‘engineering science’ of naval architecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831–1872”, Yearbook of European administrative history, xx (2008), 67–94.

Forbes James David to Rankine , 18 March 1840 (copy), James David Forbes Papers, University of St Andrews Library; Rankine W. J. M. , An experimental inquiry into the advantages attending the use of cylindrical wheels on railways (Edinburgh, 1842).

Application for election as Ordinary Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, April—June 1849, Acc 10000/47, Papers of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland.

See Rankine W. J. M. , “Abstract of a paper on the hypothesis of molecular vortices, and its application to the mechanical theory of heat”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, ii (1844–50), 275–88 (read 4 February 1850) and numerous subsequent papers; Hutchison, “Rankine and the rise of thermodynamics” (ref. 2).

Rankine to Thomson William , 19 April 1850, R16 and Forbes to Thomson, 19 April 1850, F204, both in Add 7342, Kelvin Correspondence, Cambridge University Library.

Rankine to Stokes , 1 October 1851, R107, Add 7656, Stokes Papers, Cambridge University Library.

“Scottish Naval & Military Academy”, Caledonian mercury, 28 July 1832, 3.

Warwick Andrew , Masters of theory: Cambridge and the rise of mathematical physics (Chicago and London, 2003).

Thomson William to Stokes , 10 April 1851, K47, Add 7656, Stokes Papers, Cambridge University Library, reproduced in Wilson David B. (ed.), The correspondence between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs: Volume 1, 1846–1869 (Cambridge, 1990), letter 78, p. 116.

Certificate of a Candidate for Election as Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 23 February 1853, IX.326, Certificates of Election, Royal Society of London.

Piazzi Smyth to Forbes, 26 April 1852, msdep7 — Incoming letters 1852, no. 45, James David Forbes Papers, University of St Andrews Library.

Forbes to Thomson William , 31 March 1851, F207, Add 7342, Kelvin Correspondence, Cambridge University Library.

Rankine W. J. M. , “On the mechanical action of heat. Section VI. Subsection 4.- On the thermic phenomenon of currents of elastic fluids. Supplement.- Of a correction applicable to the results of the previous reduction of the experiments of Messrs Thomson and Joule”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, iii (1850–7), 223–4 (intent to communicate noted by Council 3 February 1854 and paper read 6 March 1854).

Report by Kelland, 14 March 1855 and Rankine to Forbes, 23 March 1855, Acc 10000/357, Papers of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland.

Lloyd's review of approaches to the science of energy, praising Rankine's variant, is in Mechanics' magazine, 19 September 1857, 273.

Rankine W. J. M. , “On the use of mechanical hypotheses in science, and especially in the theory of heat”, Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society, v (1860–64), 126–32, p. 132 (published 1862).

Report on Rankine's paper, 29 April 1854, RR.2.198, Referees' Reports, Royal Society of London.

Report on Rankine's paper, c. January — May 1854, RR.2.199, Referees' Reports, Royal Society of London.

Rankine to Michael Faraday, 13 April 1859, Institution of Electrical Engineers; Rankine W. J. M. , “On the conservation of energy”, Philosophical magazine, fourth series, xvii (1859), 250–3 and “Note to a letter ‘On the conservation of energy’”, Philosophical magazine, fourth series, xvii (1859), 1859–8; Smith, Science of energy (ref. 2), 140 (disputes over ‘actual’ and ‘kinetic’ energy terminology).

The joke related to Italian regions and dialects. See Maxwell to Thomson , 17 December 1856, reproduced in Harman P. M. (ed.), The scientific letters and papers of James Clerk Maxwell: Volume 1, 1846–1862 (Cambridge, 1990), letter 109.

The reference, from Thomson's Baltimore Lectures, is here quoted from Smith Crosbie Wise M. Norton , Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), 471.

Stokes's report on Rankine's ‘Geometrical representation’ paper, 29 April 1854, RR.2.198, Referees' Reports, Royal Society of London.

Buist James , National record of the visit of Queen Victoria to Scotland, in September, 1842, with numerous historical and descriptive, and other references and notes; addresses, lists of presentations, &c and an appendix (Perth, 1842), 18–19.

Crathorne Nancy , Tennant's Stalk: The story of the Tennants of the Glen (London, 1973), 107; Gordon Lewis Hill Lawrence , “Description of the Great Chimney at St. Rollox, Glasgow, and of the climbing machine used in examining and repairing a rent in that chimney”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, xxxviii (1845), 1845–20.

Colston , Edinburgh and district water supply (ref. 13).

East Sussex Record Office, QDP/252/1.

Rankine W. J. M. with Thomson John , On the means of improving the water-supply of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1852).

The events are outlined in Rankine to James Gourlay, 5 October 1853, MS Gen 1675/11, Glasgow University Special Collections.

Rankine W. J. M. with Thomson John , “On telegraphic communication between Great Britain and Ireland, by the Mull of Cantyre”, BAAS report, xxii (1852), 128, and also Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society, iii (1845–55), 265–6.

Anon, “Report on the construction and probable cost of a proposed electric telegraph between Hobart Town and Launceston, Van Diemen's Land; with remarks on a submarine telegraph between Van Diemen's Land and Australia — Connected with Sydney, Melbourne, and Geelong”, Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land, ii, part 3 (January 1854), 494–502.

Marsden Ben , “Blowing hot and cold: Reports and retorts on the status of the air-engine as success or failure, 1830–1855”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 373–420; idem, “Superseding steam: The Napier and Rankine hot-air engine”, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, lxxvi (2006), 2006–22.

Smith Crosbie , “‘The “crinoline” of our steam engineers’: Reinventing the marine compound engine, 1850–1885”, in Livingstone David N. Withers Charles W. J. (eds), Geographies of nineteenth-century science (Chicago, 2011), 229–54.

For example, Rankine with John Thomson, February 23 1855, patent no. 401, “Improvements in machinery for laying subaqueous electrical conductors for telegraphic communication”.

Buchanan R. A. , The engineers: A history of the engineering profession in Britain, 1750–1914 (London, 1989), 144.

Rankine W. J. M. , “Account of the effect of the storm of the 6th of December, 1847, on four sea walls or bulwarks of different forms, on the coast near Edinburgh; as illustrating the principles of the construction of sea defences”, Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vii (1848), 186–204.

For a discussion of his methods relating them to Scottish Common Sense philosophy see Channell David F. , “The role of Thomas Reid's philosophy in science and technology: The case of W. J. M. Rankine”, in Dalgarno M. Matthews E. (eds), The philosophy of Thomas Reid (Dordrecht, 1989), 447–55, and Channell, “Scottish roots of engineering science” (ref. 1).

Schaffer Simon , “The Leviathan of Parsonstown: Literary technology and scientific representation”, in Lenoir T. (ed.), Inscribing science (Stanford, CA, 1998), 182–22; William Parsons, Lord Rosse, to Stokes, 22 October 1856, RR.3.234, Referees' Reports, Royal Society of London.

Rankine to Gourlay James , 5 and 27 October 1853, MS Gen 1675/11 and 13 (including Rankine's transcriptions of Bateman's letters), Glasgow University Special Collections.

Thomson William to Thomson James , 9 November 1855, MS Gen 1752/3/1/T/55, Glasgow University Special Collections.

Rankine , Harmony of theory and practice in mechanics (ref. 4).

Rankine W. J. M. , Introductory lecture on the science of the engineer, delivered to the Class of Civil Engineering and Mechanics in the University of Glasgow, on the 4th of November, 1856 (London, 1857).

Marsden Ben , “‘A most important trespass’: Lewis Gordon and the Glasgow chair of civil engineering and mechanics 1840–1855”, in Smith Crosbie Agar Jon (eds), Making space for science: Territorial themes in the shaping of knowledge (Basingstoke, 1998), 87–117.

Sharpey William to Thomson Allen , 13 January 1856 (excerpt), MS Gen 1476A/8700, Glasgow University Special Collections.

Marsden Ben , “‘The progeny of these two “Fellows’”: Robert Willis, William Whewell and the sciences of mechanism, mechanics and machinery in early Victorian Britain”, British journal for the history of science, xxxvii (2004), 401–34; Forbes to H. Hope, 1 February 1838, msdep7 — Letterbook II, pp. 504–6, James David Forbes Papers, University of St Andrews Library.

Baker Benjamin to Unwin William Cawthorne , 30 November 1893, B/Unwin/36, Unwin Papers, Imperial College London.

Bruce A. B. , The life of William Denny, shipbuilder, Dumbarton (London, 1888). I am grateful to Crosbie Smith for this reference.

Marsden , “Progeny” (ref. 70).

See Mechanics' magazine, 18 and 25 February 1859 and 8 April 1859.

See, for example, Marsden , “The administration of the ‘engineering science’ of naval architecture” (ref. 27), on the rehabilitation of an ‘entrepreneurial’ perspective in the BAAS, as the original ‘gentlemen of science’ gradually relinquished control. For that first generation, see Morrell Jack Thackray Arnold , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981).

The first address is given, for example, in Certificates of Election (IX.326, 23 February 1853), Royal Society of London.

See Census records for 1851.

Rankine surveyed the College's lands with a view to extracting bricks for clay: See for example Rankine to Messrs. Hill, Davidson, Hill & Clark, 4 November 1852, Acc. 3848, Glasgow University Archive Services; on the ‘philosophical Whigs’ see Jacyna L. S. (ed.), A tale of three cities: The correspondence of William Sharpey and Allen Thomson (London, 1989) and Jacyna L. S. , Philosophical Whigs: Medicine, science and citizenship in Edinburgh, 1789–1848 (London and New York, 1994).

For a classic disputatious case see Morrell Jack , “The Leslie affair: Careers, kirk and politics in Edinburgh in 1805”, Scottish historical review, liv (1975), 63–82.

Rankine W. J. M. , “On the nature and objects of the Institution”, in Transactions of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland, i (1857–58), 1–12.

For details see the Proceedings Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1856).

The early papers of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland (later renamed the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland) are retained by Glasgow University Archive Services, reference UGD 168.

Smith Wise , Energy and empire (ref. 47), 655.

List of deeds and documents and excerpts from deeds and documents of foundation of bursaries, scholarships, fellowships, &c., in the University of Glasgow (Edinburgh, 1891), 104.

Marsden , “Blowing hot and cold” (ref. 57) and Marsden, “Superseding steam” (ref. 57), 1–22.

Smith , “Crinoline” (ref. 58).

Marsden , ” The administration of the ‘engineering science’ of naval architecture” (ref. 27).

Rankine W. J. M. , “On the nature and objects of the Institution”, in Transactions of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland, i (1857–58), 1–12.

“Campion and Rankine on engineering”, The Reader, 2 May 1863, 431–2.

Civil engineer and architect's journal, 1 March 1862, 90.

For the discussion by the University Commissioners, see General Report of Commissioners under Universities, Scotland, Act, 1858. Sessional Papers 1863, xvi, 335; Minutes of meeting of Commissioners at Edinburgh, 25th October 1861, on 536.

“The late professor Macquorn Rankine”, Glasgow herald, 31 December 1872, 7.

Cotterill James H. , Notes on the theory of the steam engine: Being part of a course of instruction in the subject given in the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (London, 1871) was just one of many attempts to make sense of Rankine.