Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution

Singer C. , eds., A history of technology (5 vols., Oxford, 1954–58), iv, 214.

See the remarks in Gillispie's C. C. “The natural history of industry”, I sis, xlviii (1957) 398–407. This pioneering exploration draws attention to another important and neglected aspect in its insistence that “the eighteenth-century application of science to industry was little more and nothing less than the attempt to develop a natural history of industry”.

For the quoted statements and a more extended discussion of the historiography of science, see my “Science: Has its present past a future?” in Steuwer R. , ed., Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science, v (in press).

For fragmentary but suggestive statistics on the changing class basis of the scientificenterprise, see Nans H. , New trends in education in the eighteenth century (London, 1951), 31–36 and Lyons H. , The Royal Society, 1660–1940. A history of its administration under its charters (Cambridge, 1944), 341–342.

See Disraeli B. , Coningsby, or the new generation (London, 1844: The quotation is taken from the 1948 edition with an Introduction by Allen W. , p. 148) and Engels F. , The condition of the working class in England (original German edition, 1845: The quotation is taken from pp. 16–17 of the 1958 English edition by Henderson W. O. Chaloner W. H. ). On Manchester see Briggs A. , Victorian cities (London, 1963) and Thomson W. H. , History of Manchester to 1852 (Altrincham, 1967).

On which see my ‘“In praise of famous men’—the John Dalton Bicentenary Celebration”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxii (1967) 40–44.

Greenaway F. , “The biographical approach to John Dalton”, Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, c (1958–59); Guerlac H. , “Some Daltonian doubts”, Isis, Iii (1961) 544–554; Partington J. R. , A history of chemistry (London, 1962-), iii, 749–822; Thackray A. , “The origin of Dalton's chemical atomic theory: Daltonian doubts resolved”, Isis, lvii (1966) 35–55.

See my “Documents relating to the origins of Dalton's chemical atomic theory”, Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, cviii (1965–66) 21–42 and “Fragmentary remains of John Dalton”, Annals of science, xxii (1967) 145–174. See also notes 15, 17, 19, and 20 below.

The chronology of Dalton's developing thought over the period 1803–07, and his relationship to Thomas Thomson, continue to present many unanswered questions. Consider for instance the disturbing implications for our present understanding posed by this November 1804 report (kindly bought to my attention by Morrell J. B. Mr ): “Mr Dalton seems to be of opinion that bodies always combine in the same degree of intimacy, if they combine at all, and that the nature of combination varies only when the proportions of the constituents vary. The very curious theory of atoms, which this philosopher explained last winter in his lectures in the Royal Institution, seems indeed, to lead irresistibly to this conclusion. Into this theory we do not at present enter; nor, indeed, would it be decorous to do so, as Mr Dalton has not yet thought proper to give it to the world”, The literary journal, iv (1804) 515–516.

Thackray A. , Atoms and powers: An essay on Newtonian matter-theory and the development of chemistry (Cambridge, Mass., 1970); Brock W. H. , ed., The atomic debates. Brodie and the rejection of the atomic theory (Leicester, 1967); Knight D. M. , Atoms and elements: A study of theories of matter in England in the nineteenth century (London, 1967); Williams L. P. , Michael Faraday. A biography (London, 1964). Mention should be also made of Kedrou's B. M. Tri aspekta atomistiki. ii Uchenie Daltona: Istoricheskii aspekt (Moscow, 1969). I am grateful to my colleague Mr M. Adams for drawing this work to my attention, and translating certain passages.

Freund I. , The study of chemical composition. An account of its method and historical development (Cambridge, 1904); Muir M. M. P. , A history of chemical theories and laws (London, 1906); Partington J. R. , A history of chemistry, iv.

The earlier biographies are all listed in Smyth's A. L. extremely useful John Dalton, 1766–1844. A bibliography of works by and about him (Manchester, 1966), and discussed in Greenaway's exploratory essay (see n. 7).

Henry W. C. , Memoirs of the life and scientific researches of John Dalton (London, 1854), 2, 236.

For Dalton's books in 1800 see footnote 28 of my “The emergence of Dalton's chemical atomic theory”, British journal for the history of science, iii (1966) 1–23; for his librarianship see Greenaway , op. cit., 19–21; for his complete library see The Late Dr Dalton's Effects … Catalogue of Elegant Household Furniture … Books. &c., which will be Sold by Auction … Oct 10 & 11, 1844 (Manchester Central Library, Historical Tracts, H 93); for his letter to Robinson, see Lonsdale H. , The worthies of Cumberland. John Dalton (London, 1874), 97–98.

The school, which enjoyed a continuous existence from 1698 to 1932, moved into new quarters in 1773. The subscription for the new buildings and library totalled £701 7s. 1 1/2d. The buildings cost £524 10s. 3 1/2d., and £52 4s. was spent on philosophical apparatus. The remaining money purchased a “choice collection of books, in the most serviceable branches of science purposely prepared for the benefit and utility of the school”. A complete list of the books is given in Ms. Packet 98, Strong Room, Friends Meeting House, Kendal. These hitherto unknown manuscripts reveal and document the extremely high calibre of the school. They thus make possible a revision of the important but totally neglected account available on pp. 402–405 of Curwen's J. F. Kirbie-Kendall (Kendall, 1900).

See Henry , op. cit., 3; Winstanley D. A. , Unreformed Cambridge (Cambridge, 1935), 55; an important discussion of the schooling of the period is available in chapter 4 of Pollard S. , The genesis of modern management (London, 1965).

Robinson's interests and importance are revealed in 33 letters from Thomas Collinson, running from 1759–1806, now preserved in the Library of the Society of Friends. London. The very first letter deals with a microscope Collinson is sending, while later ones often discuss scientific books and events. Robinson's diaries, and 44 letters to him from Richard Reynolds the Quaker manufacturer, are in the same library, while Carlisle Public Library possesses two volumes of correspondence between Robinson and Thomas Wilkinson, another Lake District Quaker. Typical of this latter correspondence is Robinson's November 1789 query “What is doing in the literary world? What hope of improvement in religion, morals and humanity? How goes the slave trade? Does thy intellectual eye see as far as London?” Of particular interest is Robinson's January 1790 statement that “My cousin John Dalton of Kendal who seems an adept in the science of meteorology hath favoured me with a very curious table setting forth the state of the barometer, thermometer, quantity of rain, number of wet days etc. for every month last year” (Jackson Collection, Ms. 1 F Wil, i, 100, 102).

For details of John Gough's life and work see Wilkinson T. T. , “Biographical notices of some Liverpool mathematicians”, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, xiv (1862) 29–40, and Westmorland Gazette, 7 June 1884. Some of Gough's papers, including six 1805 letters extending his mixed gases controversy with Dalton, are in the Luke Howard papers of Thomas Hodgkin of Balliol College, Oxford. Other manuscripts are in Kendal Public Library and the County Record Office, The Castle, Carlisle. From the latter it appears that Gough was also a close friend of William Withering, of Lunar Society fame.

Further aspects of the purely Quaker network of the late-eighteenth century, and of its manufacturing, medical and scientific interests, may be seen in the list of subscribers to the rebuilding of the Kendal school. The 105 names include the Midland manufacturer Abraham Darby, the East Anglian banker Gurney John , and the London physician John Fothergill. How well integrated into a national and international community the Kendal Friends were, may also be seen in the notices they received of vacancies for masters in Quaker schools: These include New York (1782), Ipswich (1799), London (1802), and Ackworth (1804). There is even an 1803 letter from London seriously requesting “a clever north country genius” (Ms. Packet 70, Strong Room, Kendal Meeting House).

Sir Hartley Harold , “John Dalton, F.R.S. (1766–1844) and the atomic theory. A lecture to commemorate his Bicentenary”, Proceedings of the Royal Society, series A, ccc (1967) 291–315.

See Dalton (Eaglesfield) Mss, ref. D/Da, County Record Office, The Castle, Carlisle. This series of 40 separate packets was deposited in 1965 by Mr John Dalton of Newcastle upon Tyne. It contains considerable information on Dalton property-holdings in Eaglesfield, wills, family pedigrees, the Eaglesfield school, village population etc. Also included are 51 letters of Jonathan Dalton, John's elder brother, and no less than 25 letters by John Dalton himself, covering the period 1834–42.

For instance, the story of the “fecklessness” of Joseph Dalton, John's father, would appear correct. He was disowned by the Pardshaw Hall Meeting in November 1772 “for irregularities and misconduct and not paying his just debts” (Pardshaw Hall Monthly Meeting Book, 30–32, in County Record Office, The Castle, Carlisle, Ref. DFC/F/1, Item 87). It is also possible to trace Dalton's own progress in, and the difficulties of, the local school—e.g. in a September 1780 note that “As Friends have no School Master teaching at Pardshaw Hall at present: This meeting orders John Wilson to divide three pounds now in his hand (as part of the interest received for the school stock) equally between two School Masters teaching at Eaglesfield and Greysouthen John Dalton and John Wilson … Done”. A further note of July 1781 records “5/3 given to John Dalton who has now given up school for the present” (Minutes of Pardshaw Hall Preparative Meeting, 1756–1801, 109, 113, in County Record Office, the Castle, Carlisle, Ref. DFC/F/1. Item 68. For considerable further important information on Dalton and the Kendal Friends' School, see the items cited in 15 above). It would also seem that, contrary to what every subsequent biographer has asserted following W. C. Henry's lead, John Dalton removed to the Kendal school in 1781 not to join but to replace his brother Jonathan, who went off to Ackworth and Tamworth until 1785 (Removal Certificates, pp. 103, 141. Ms. Packet 106, Strong Room, Kendal Meeting House).

For instance the Cumberland pacquet and Ware's Whitehaven advertiser of the 1780s not only contains advertisements for scientific publications, news reports on William Herschel's telescopic discoveries, and occasional meteorological items from Dalton and Gough, but also extensive information on the activities of itinerant lecturers. Consider the case of John Banks. First he advertised: “Lectures in philosophy. Kendal , October 28, 1782. Mr Banks, Lecturer in Philosophy, respectfully informs his friends who have so often solicited his return into Cumberland, that he intends to be at Penrith in November, and to wait upon his friends at the other towns in their order. The course consists of twelve lectures, which include the most useful, interesting and popular parts of philosophy. The apparatus is extensive, and he doubts not but that the ladies and gentlemen who may please to honour him with their company will find it equal to their expectation, and he hopes that the lectures will give that satisfaction which they have done in some of the first towns in the Kingdom” (Cumberland pacquet, 28 October 1782). On 17 December a news item reported from Kendal “that last week Mr Banks finished his course of lectures on experimental philosophy and astronomy to a numerous and very respectable company of subscribers, who all expressed their highest satisfaction in … [the] very elegant and extensive apparatus”. The following March a further advertisement promised courses in Whitehaven, Workington, Cockermouth and Keswick. On 20 May Banks was apparently launched into his third course (1) in Workington, and by 15 July he was advertising a second course in Whitehaven. The evident demand for his lectures meant that his Cockermouth course (announced in June) finally took place in late September, earning a repeat performance even in that small community. Banks could thus apparently support a full twelve months of paid philosophical activity in Cumberland, at a time when at least two other lecturers (Mr Weavor, with an “eiduranion or transparent orrery” and Mr Walker, Junior) were also active in the area. The implications for the general scientific knowledge and sophistication of this provincial middle class culture are apparent.

Letter to Peter Crosthwaite, 18 April 1793. Now preserved at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Henry , op. cit., 179.

Apparatus and laboratory space were crucial, and obtaining them called for consider able ingenuity by the new men of science, with their limited means. Dalton first exploited the Kendal school (also using its apparatus for his own public lecture courses in 1787 and 1791: See Ms. Packet 98, the Strong Room, Kendal Meeting House), then the New College in Manchester and—from 1799—the Literary and Philosophical Society itself, whose rooms Dalton quietly converted from social club to rent-free research laboratory (as did Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution). Such private enterprise in the creation of research laboratories was characteristic of both the style and vitality of British science at this time, despite the lack of more formal and ponderous institutional provisions on the French or German model. Note also how Dalton's itinerant lecturing not only supplemented his income (his gross receipts varied between £65 and £130 per annum for the years 1805 to 1818) but enabled him vastly to extend his research apparatus (he spent £200 on new equipment on one London trip in 1805).

Geikie A. , The life of Roderick Murchison (London, 1875), i, 188.

Indeed the stated aim of Roscoe's 1895 biography was to show the chief points of interest in Dalton's life “as a man and as a chemist”. On the Manchester chemists and their influence on Dalton historiography, see my Introduction to the new edition of Roscoe H. E. Harden's A. New view of the origins of Dalton's atomic theory (New York, 1970).

To obtain some insight into the inter-relation of Dalton's abstract and applied concerns one should note (a) that his important theoretical work on steam and heat theory was at least in part prompted by immediate technical questions: Witness his 18 April 1800 paper “Experimental essays, to determine the expansion of gases by heat, and the maximum of steam or aqueous vapour, which any gas of a given temperature can admit of; with observations on the common and improved steam engines”. Note also that R. Armstrong's 1839 Essay on the boilers of steam engines was dedicated to Dalton; (b) that his first introduction to chemistry was as a teacher in an obviously technological context, and that direct technical questions lay behind such papers as his 1823 “On the nature and properties of indigo; with directions for the valuation of different samples”, his 1830 “Observations on the causes of colouring matter”, or his 1833 “Observations on certain liquids obtained from caoutchouc by distillation”; (c) that his—and all other chemists'—work on the nature and properties of chlorine was at this period no purely abstract and academic matter: Witness his 1809 paper “On muriatic acid” and his 1812 paper “On the oxymuriate of lime”; (d) that a great deal of the work that led to the chemical atomic theory (work on the composition of hydrocarbons) also had direct relevance to the new and rapidly expanding gas industry, and that an 1820 paper was directed to “Oil, and the gases obtained from it by heat”. Dalton also served as consultant to Manchester's gas works, and testified before a Parliamentary committee on the gas industry in 1825; (e) that Dalton devoted considerable effort (papers in 1814 and 1819) to the question of the chemical analysis of different waters—a matter of direct concern to manufacturers—and acted as consultant on this question; (f) that Dalton was actively involved in the analysis of mine “damps” and research on explosive mixtures; (g) that Dalton lectured for several years on the “applied” subject of pharmaceutical chemistry. Altogether this is a not unimpressive list of technical concerns and involvements for one whose “mental tendencies were thus exclusively to meditation and abstract reasoning” ( Henry , op. cit., 235).