The Making of Institutional Zoology in London 1822–1836: Part 2

Davy H. Sir to Peel R. Sir , 21 December 1824, BL Add. MS 40371, f. 201.

Miller , op. cit. (ref. 6), 37.

Subscription lists of the projected Zoological Society are published in Bastin, op. cit. (ref. 3). The Chairmen of the ZC were Kirby (1822, 1823), Sabine (1824), Bicheno (1825), Children (1826), Brookes (1827), Vigors (1828). Stephens was Treasurer for its duration, and Vigors Secretary until 1827, when Bennett succeeded him. The original ZC members (ref. 24) not subscribers to the ZS were Hatchett J. Hatchett J. Jnr Milne George , and Henslow J.S.

ZC LS: B. Committee Minutes, 22 January 1828.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 27 (3 July 1827), ZS. On Raffles's patronage of Horsfield in the Far East: Bastin and Moore , op. cit. (ref. 61), 79–80; MacLeay , op. cit. (ref. 43).

Often not enough members turned up to elect officers or conduct meetings: ZC LS: D. General Minutes.

Balances year-ending November were as follows: 1824, £28 4s; 1825, £23 2s 6d; 1826, £22 13s; 1827, £8 14s 8d; and in 1828 a deficit of £3 1s 9d. ZC LS: H.

Vigors , op. cit. (ref. 7), 202–3.

Sir H. Davy to Sir R. Peel, 13 and 21 December 1824, BL Add. MS 40371, ff. 96, 201.

Harrison J.F.C. , Early Victorian Britain 1832–1851 (London, 1979), 119. For another view of the relationship between gentlemen farmers and élite scientists, see Secord J.A. , “Darwin and the breeders: A social history approach”, in Kohn D. (ed.), The Darwinian heritage (Princeton, forthcoming).

Raffles Lady S. , Memoir of the life and public services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (London, 1830), 592.

Dawson W.R. , “On the history of Gray and Hardwicke's Illustrations of Indian zoology, and some biographical notes on General Hardwicke”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, ii (1946), 55–69, p. 68.

Raffles Lady , op. cit. (ref. 128), 590. For Raffles at the ZC, see ZC LS: A (28 April 1825).

“More than fifty years have passed, and British-grown armadillo has not yet appeared upon the menu-cards of our dinner table”, announced a later President: Flower W.H. , “The Zoological Society of London”, in Essays on museums (London, 1898), 171–84, p. 175. Mitchell , op. cit. (ref. 20), 95.

Reports of the auditors of the accounts of the Zoological Society for the year 1829, and of the Council, read at the Anniversary Meeting, May 3, 1830 (London, 1830) — hereafter cited in the form Reports 1830.

As it is characterized in the prospectus of the Bristol, Clifton, and West of England Zoological Society (1836): Bristol Infirmary Biographical Memoirs, xiii (1828–36), f. 695: Bristol Corporation Record Office. Discussed in Desmond A. and Neve M. , “The civic function of science: Bristol in the 1830s”, forthcoming.

The full list was: Raffles, Earls of Egremont and Darnley, Lords Auckland and Stanley, Sir E. Home, Messrs Barnard, Children, Greenough, Knight, Sabine, Vigors, Baring Wall, General Hardwicke, Dr Horsfield. Minutes of Council: I: F. 1, ZS.

Minutes of Council, ii: Ff. 147, 155, ZS. Also indicative was the fact that a list of “Particular Visitors” (i.e., titled personages) was kept to record the comings-and-goings of the socially eminent: [E. S. Johnson], “Occurrences at the Gardens”, MS ZS.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 179, ZS. Continual top-level consultation took place with Commissioners of HM's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues: E.g., i: F. 19; ii: F. 222; iii:f. 304, ZS.

Gray J. E. to Swainson W. , 5 August 1830, WSC LS. On canvassing men like Gilbert Davies, Minutes of Council, i: F. 179, ZS. Davies's anti-reformism is discussed by MacLeod, op. cit. (ref. 1), 61–62.

The number of MPs was 118 in 1829 (8.9%), 126 in 1831 (6.95%), and 202 in 1837 (6.71%). Note that a dramatic increase in Society membership occurred during these years (fellows numbered respectively 1326, 1814, 3011). The MP percentage decrease between 1829 and 1831 may reflect the Tory decimation in the 1831 General Election. The five MP Council members in 1829 were G. Agar Ellis, Earl of Mountcharles, Stanley Lord Vyvyan Richard Sir Wall C. Baring . For breakdowns of party allegiance see ref. 175. These and subsequent figures are calculated from the Lists of members of the Zoological Society. 1829–1839, ZS.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 17 (27 February 1827), ZS.

For the Windsor and Tower menageries respectively see ibid ., i: F. 462 (9 August 1830); ii: Ff. 332–3 (21 December 1831), ZS. Zoological journal, iii (1827), 309–10, and annual Reports for the nobility's presents.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 368 (21 April 1830), ZS.

Mitchell, op. cit. (ref. 20), 93; Reports 1829 and 1830; Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 151, 155, ZS. The Council spent £500 repairing the farmhouse.

Reports 1829; Mitchell, op. cit. (ref. 20), 94.

Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 313, 332 (Sabine's words), ZS.

Minutes of Meetings, i: F. 75, 97. Sabine's resignation: Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 407, 411, ZS. There was popular resentment at a house being provided for him at Kingston. He was replaced by a salaried superintendent.

Reports 1831 on the experiments; Minutes of Meetings, i: F. 137 on the fellows' new motion; the Committee's (Sabine, Stanley, Roots) reaffirmation, Minutes of Council, ii: F. 98, ZS.

Minutes of Council, ii: Ff. 412, 445, 453; iii: F. 217, ZS. Reports 1833, 1834.

Reports 1831.

Brookes , op. cit. (ref. 62), 28. Mitchell , op. cit. (ref. 20), 36, lists the official opening date of the Gardens as 27 April. But this is difficult to confirm — it was also a Sunday, when of course the public were excluded. Only ten days earlier prices were set at 2s 6d, and there were continual attempts to reintroduce this higher entrance price through May (presumably to keep out the local undesirable elements): Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 39, 52–53, 56, cf. 60, ZS.

Reports 1829; Zoological journal, iv (1829), 521. A decision to invest one-fifth of future receipts in 3 per cent ‘consols’ was made in January 1829: Minutes of Council, i: F. 119, ZS.

The following breakdown was compiled from the auditors' figures published in the yearly Reports. (Being year-ending April, they differ from the accounts y/e December in Zoological Society of London: Returns.).

Year Receipts (£) Expenses (£) Visitors (Museum) Fellows. 1828 12,358 10,044 112,226. 1829 13,994 12,414 199,576. 1830 15,352 14,615 224,745 (14,323) 1814. 1831 17,663 15,913 258,936 (11,626) 2074. 1832 15,493 13,006 218,585 (7134) 2244. 1833 15,478 13,152 211,343 (5333) 2546. 1834 16,833 12,980 208,583 (4939) 2804. 1835 16,033 13,330 210,068 (4138) 2878. 1836 19,123 19,637 263,392 (3660) 3050. 1837 13,960 14,350 173,778 (4431) 3023. 1838 14,094 12,588 181,268 3011. 1839 13,431 13,637 158,342 3059.

At the end of its first decade the Society had, besides its building and livestock assets, £10,080 invested in 3 per cents: Reports 1838.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 229 on the tunnel (which cost £1200); and ii: F. 222 on the negotiation for land extension: ZS.

On Bristol's diverging proprietorial ideology and use by the “Merchant Princes” of the gardens as a replacement for the banned working-class fairs, to wean the workforce from their “sensual” pleasures: Desmond and Neve , op. cit. (ref. 133).

Kirby , op. cit. (ref. 58), 5.

Reports 1830, 1831, 1832, 1835. Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 2, 207, 253–5; ii: Ff. 36, 198, 208–9, 259; iii: Ff. 108, 345; iv: F. 59, ZS.

Reports 1839. On the colonial connection, see Fish R. and Montagu I. , “The Zoological Society and the British overseas”, in Zuckerman S. (ed.), The Zoological Society of London 1826–1976 and beyond (London, 1976), 17–48.

Reports 1835: 1034 individuals (excluding waterfowl) — 296 mammals, 717 birds, 21 reptiles.

Minutes of Council, ii: Ff. 431–2, 485; iii: Ff. 131, 176. On Cuvier, ii: F. 120; the bear, f. 142, ZS.

Orang-utan, Reports 1838; rhinoceros, Reports 1835, Minutes of Council, iii: 413; elephant, ii: Ff. 179, 180, ZS.

Minutes of Council, ii: F. 139, 297; iii: Ff. 226, 317, 325, ZS.

Reports 1836, 1837; Minutes of Council, iii, ff. 226, 247, 278, ZS. Compare the Paris Muséum's acquisition of a giraffe in 1827 and the Muséum's role in the French “popular consumption of natural history” described in Outram Dorinda , Georges Cuvier: Vocation, science and authority in post-revolutionary France (Manchester, 1984), 184–5.

Minutes of Council, iii: F. 132, ZS. Cf. Mitchell, op. cit. (ref. 20), 67.

Minutes of Council, iv: Ff. 376, 418–19. Mitchell , op. cit. (ref. 20), 97–98, was wrong in stating that Gould was appointed Curator in 1827 and “succeeded” by Waterhouse. The chronology was this: Gould was taken on as “Animal Preserver” in April 1828, and Martin as Museum “Superintendent” in 1830 (Zoological Society of London: Returns, f. 19: ZS). Gould was promoted in 1833 (Minutes of Council, iii: F. 75). Waterhouse became Curator in 1836 with Martin now being made the “Assistant Curator” (at £80, plus £20 to return him to his original pay level). Gould at this time renegotiated his contract and settled for half pay (£50 p.a.). He remained at the Museum for only another year before departing for Australia (Minutes of Council, iv: Ff. 419, 424).

Gould had presented the specimens illustrated in his A century of birds from the Himalaya mountains (London, 1832) to the Museum (Minutes of Council, ii: F. 289). Another whose collection was donated (in December 1835) was that conchological entrepreneur Hugh Cuming; in exchange the Council agreed to install him as Curator at £200 p.a. (iv, ff. 288, 303). The negotiations evidently fell through for he shortly sailed to the Philippines: Dance S. Peter , “Hugh Cuming (1791–1865) prince of collectors”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, ix (1980), 477–501. Still, this odd pecuniary arrangement was investigated by parliamentary commissioners, see Vigors's testimony in Report from the Select Committee on the British Museum (Parliamentary Papers, 14 July 1836), x: 114–15.

Minutes of Council, iii: Ff. 138–9 (on Spooner, i: F. 199); the Council did originally consider building a hospital (ii: F. 230), ZS.

Darwin C. to Henslow J. S. , [30–31 October 1836], in Burkhardt F. and Smith S. (eds), The correspondence of Charles Darwin , in (Cambridge, 1985), 512–14. Darwin , circumnavigating on the Beagle, had missed the years of popular disturbance.

Minutes of Council, i: Ff. 7, 13, 15, 17, 21. Envisaging pre-eminently a scientific Society, Raffles underestimated its income, putting it at about £350 a year: F. 5, ZS.

Ibid ., ii: 280–1, ZS; Reports 1832.

Brookes , op. cit. (ref. 62), 27. In 1829, for example, it received specimens from the Hudson's Bay Company, East India Company, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Captains Lynn, Beechey, King, and Fayrer, as well as from numerous individuals living in the colonies.

Reports 1830; on the £1000 p.a. budget, Minutes of Council, ii: F. 349, ZS. Reports 1833 on the cramped conditions.

Minutes of Council, ii: Ff. 113, 176–7, 224: It consisted of Stanley, Sabine, Broderip, Bennett, and Vigors — to which Heron, Wall, and Children were later added (ff. 281, 357), ZS.

Minutes of Council, iii: Ff. 397–409. The Council wanted to build the museum on the north side of the canal in Regent's Park: Minutes of Council, iii: 254–5, 304, 317, ZS.

Reports 1834. The more liberal “Museum Building Committee” of 1834 consisted of: Gordon, Grant, Hamilton, Owen, Sykes, Vigors, Yarrell, Britton, Cox, Greenough, Hope, Langstaff, Ogilby, Whishaw: Iii: Ff. 353–4, ZS.

The 26 MPs on the list of subscribers (appended to the 1834 Reports) breakdown as follows: Baillie (rW), Browne (rW), Burdett (rW), Colborne (mR), Gordon (L?), Home (W), Labouchere (W), Lefevre (L), Lemon (W), Lennard (L), Littleton (W), Marryat (mR), Mullins (rW), Spring Rice (W), Sandford (rW), Stewart (rW), Tynte (rW), Vigors (L), Vivian (L), Wall (L), Warburton (rad Ref), Warre (L), Wrottesley (R). (rW = reformist Whig, W = Whig, L = Liberal, mR = moderate Reformer, R = Reformer, rad Ref = radical Reformer. These categories should not be considered hard and fast.) Of the remaining three, F. Baring was a Liberal Conservative, and Robert Palmer a Conservative who voted for reform. The only outright opponent of reform on the list was the Tory Sir James Scarlett.

For sources of political interest here and below: Stenton M. , Who's who of British Members of Parliament, i: 1832–1885 (Hassocks, 1976), and Vincent J. and Stenton M. (eds), McCalmont's parliamentary poll book, British election results 1832–1918 (Hassocks, 1971).

The 202 MPs in 1837 (cited in the List of members of the Zoological Society of London. April 29, 1837 (London, 1837), ZS) breakdown as follows: 96 Tories (47.52%), 64 Whigs/Liberals (31.68%), 6 moderate reformers (2.97%), 27 reformers (13.36%), 6 radicals (2.97%), and 3 Irish Repealers.

The President (Lord Stanley) had confered with Peel over the possibility of the Society acquiring the Royal Academy's rooms at Somerset House: Minutes of Council, iv: F. 98 (February 1835). On the eventual Leicester Square museum: Reports 1836; Minutes, iv: Ff. 396–7, ZS. It was opened on 11 July 1836.

Zoological journal, iii (1827), 309–10.

Minutes of Council, iii: Ff. 17, 230, ZS.

ibid., iv: Ff. 100, 149, 254, ZS.

The 1829 membership and 1842 fellowship break down as follows (based on the List of the members … 1829 and List of the Fellows … 1842, ZS):

Title/style Nos in 1829 % Nos in 1842 %.

Honourable 33 2.49 55 2.03.

Knight 25 1.89 67 2.47.

Baronet 51 3.85 113 4.16.

Baron 0 0.00 6 0.22.

Viscount 12 0.90 17 0.63.

Earl 40 3.02 55 2.03.

Count 0 0.00 1 0.03.

Marquis 14 1.06 21 0.77.

Lord 43 3.24 71 2.62.

Duke 14 1.06 16 0.59.

Prince 1 0.07 1 0.03.

King 0 0.00 1 0.03.

Lady 10 16.

Baroness 0 3.

Viscountess 2 1.36 3 1.14.

Countess 2 7.

Marchioness 4 0.

Duchess 0 2.

Total 251 18.94 455 16.75.

Knights and Baronets increased from 5.73% in 1829 to 6.63% in 1842, whereas the more ennobled classes (from Barons to Kings) decreased from 9.35% to 6.95%. If Barons — the ennobled industrialists and financiers — were included in the ‘new power’ category, the shift would appear slightly more significant.

The following breakdown is based on the Lists cited above.

Title/style Nos in 1829 % Nos in 1842 %.

Reverend 44 48.

Dean 2 4.

Archdeacon 0 1.

Bishop 3 6.

Archbishop 1 1.

Total 50 3.77 60 2.21.

So despite more than a doubling of membership during these years clergymen only slightly increased in absolute number. David Allen informs me that the clergy were also rare in the botanical societies of the period, becoming more prominent only later in the century. This unexpected finding deserves further study, given the traditional historiographical emphasis on Paleyism and the clerical input into science during the 1830s.

Minutes of Council, i: F. 449, ZS; Scherren H. , The Zoological Society of London: A sketch of its foundation and development, and the story of its farm, museum, gardens, menagerie and library (London, 1905), 47. Proceedings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence, Part I (1830–31), 1–2.

The managers were Bennett, Bicheno, Broderip, Children, Grant, Greenough, Horsfield, Owen, Vigors, Yarrell, Youatt: Minutes of Committee of Science and Correspondence (July 1830 - Dec. 1832), f. 15 (23 November 1830), ZS. On throwing open the Committee meetings to all members, f. 63 (8 February 1831). Darwin was a guest on 11 October 1831 (f. 193), ZS.

Minutes of Council, iii: Ff. 24, 40–44, ZS.

ibid., iii: Ff. 107, 354, 436–7, ZS; Minutes of the Committee of Publication (Jan. 1833–1837), ZS. Grant was already on the Committee (and in the Chair) on 7 January 1833 when the minute book was first opened.

ibid., ii: F. 389; iii: Ff. 89, 107, 354, ZS.

The lancet, ii (1834–35), 199.

Grant R. E. , On the present state of the medical profession in England (London, 1841) — this was his fiery 1841 bma oration. Desmond A. , “Robert E. Grant: The social predicament of a pre-Darwinian transmutationist”, Journal of the history of biology, xvii (1984), 189–223.

Outram , op. cit. (ref. 162), 109–13. Appel Toby , “The Geoffroy-Cuvier debate and the structure of nineteenth century French zoology” (Princeton University Ph.D. diss., 1975), 358.

The relationship between democratic mandating, aristocratic delegation of power, and biological structures will be dealt with in my forthcoming Politics of evolution: Social change and the structure of comparative anatomy in the 1830s.

On the full house, Lyell K. Mrs , Life letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (London, 1881), i, 397; Minutes of Council, iii: F. 17, ZS. Also Reports 1834; Zoological magazine, no. 2 (1833), 61.

Grant R. E. , Outline of a course of lectures on the structure and classification of animals, to be delivered to the members of the Zoological Society of London, in their museum, to commence on Tuesday the 15th of January, 1833, and to continue on the succeeding Tuesdays and Thursdays, at half-past seven o'clock p.m. (London, 1833), pp. v, 6–26.

Minutes of Council, iii: F. 290, ZS.

Grant , op. cit. (ref. 192), 18.

Owen R. , Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus (London, 1832), 1.

Minutes of Council, iv: F. 158, ZS.

Sprigge S. Squire , The life and times of Thomas Wakley (London, 1899), 304.

The lancet, ii (1834–35), 389.

The lancet, ii (1834–35), 199.

Minutes of Meetings, ii: F. 7, ZS. William Henry Sykes (frs 1834) had returned to England in 1831, having seen active service in India and acted as statistical adviser to the Bombay government. He retired from Company service in 1833, and was later (1847) to contest the Aberdeen seat for the Liberals.

Literary gazette, no. 954 (2 May 1835), 280. Minutes of Council, iv: Ff. 141, 145, 150; Minutes of Meetings, ii: F. 10, ZS for the crisis meetings of 29 April, and 6 and 9 May.

Statement by the President and certain members of the Council of The Zoological Society, in reply to observations and charges made by Colonel Sykes and others, at the General Meeting of the Society, on the 29th of April last, and at the monthly meeting on the 2nd of the same month (London, 1835), Appendix 13. The fellowship voted 27 to 5 on 7 May not to exempt Vice-Presidents from electoral removal, and also to ensure rotation by considering length of service. Minutes of Meetings, ii: F. 15. The Council however refused to discuss changes until after the election. Minutes of Council, iv: F. 150, ZS.

The lancet, ii (1834–35), 263, 199.

The times , 29 May 1835, 1; Literary gazette, no. 958 (30 May 1835), 344.

Minutes of Meetings, ii: F. 18, ZS.

Minutes of Council, iv: Ff. 165–8. Two councillors were to be removed on grounds of seniority, three according to their attendance.

The lancet, ii (1834–35), 390.

“Biographical sketch of Robert Edmond Grant”, The lancet, ii (1850), 686–95, p. 694. On Hall's resignation, Minutes of Council, iv: F. 254, ZS.

Colonel Sykes quoted in The lancet, ii (1834–35), 200. Bicheno withdrew on 31 December 1834: Minutes of Council, iv: F. 64, ZS.

Minutes of Council, iv: F. 253. On Sykes's and the fellows' continued agitation for electoral reform: ibid., iv: Ff. 440, 458, 459, 475; and Minutes of Meetings, ii: Ff. 62–63, ZS.

Minutes of Meetings, ii: F. 74, ZS.

Darwin , op. cit. (ref. 166). On Darwin's preference for the Geological Society: Herbert , op. cit. (ref. 3); and Rudwick , op. cit. (ref. 3).

Minutes of Meetings, ii: Ff. 81, 87–88, 95. As late as 1838 Vigors was still trying to negotiate new procedures by which removals were made: F. 210, ZS.

Broderip , op. cit. (ref. 12), 321; Rev. Owen R. , The life of Richard Owen (London, 1894), i, 96.

The lancet, i (1836–37), 766.

Desmond A. , “Interpreting the origin of mammals: New approaches to the history of palaeontology”, Zoological journal of the Linnean Society, lxxxii (1984), 7–16; idem, “Richard Owen's reaction to transmutation in the 1830s”, The British journal for the history of science, xviii (1985), 25–50.

Bennett E. T. to Owen R. , n.d. [1835], British Museum (Natural History) Owen Correspondence, iii, f. 190. By 1834 Holm H. H. was preparing the brains of all animals deceased at the Gardens for the museum: Minutes of Council, iii, f. 308. The Society was also receiving Cross's dead, sent up from the Surrey Zoological Gardens: ibid ., iii: F. 211 (28 August 1833), ZS. By the mid-1830s the Bruton Street museum was arguably the richest source of cadavers for comparative anatomists in Britain.

Owen , op. cit. (ref. 214), i, 169.

Toynbee J. to Owen R. , 8 June 1841, BL Add. MS 39,954, f. 23.

Berman , op. cit. (ref. 11), p. xxiii.

Weindling , op. cit. (ref. 2); Morrell and Thackray , op. cit. (ref. 75); Morrell , op. cit. (ref. 2).

Desmond , op. cit. (ref. 216).

Medical gazette, vii (1830–31), 117–18, 305.

Berman , op. cit. (ref. 11), 123.

Dealt with fully in my forthcoming Politics of evolution, op. cit. (ref. 190). For a related discussion of physiological theories and political context: Jacyna L. S. , “Immanence or transcendence: Theories of life and organization in Britain, 1790–1835”, Isis, lxxiv (1983), 311–29.

MacLeod , op. cit. (ref. 1), 57.

ibid., 78.