Science in the Pub: Artisan Botanists in Early Nineteenth-Century Lancashire

Banks G. Linnaeus Mrs , The Manchester man (3 vols, London, 1876), ii, 147–8.

For studies that challenge the view of artisans as passive recipients of scientific knowledge, see Cooter Roger , The cultural meaning of popular science: Phrenology and the organization of consent in nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 1984); Johnson Richard , “‘Really useful knowledge’: Radical education and working-class culture, 1790–1848”, in Clarke J. Critcher C. , and Johnson R. (eds), Working-class culture: Studies in history and theory (London, 1979), 75–102; Desmond Adrian , “Artisan resistance and evolution in Britain, 1819–1848”, Osiris , 2nd ser., iii (1987), 77–110; Barrow Logie , Independent spirits: Spiritualism and English plebeians, 1850–1910 (London, 1986); Morus Iwan , “Inventing invention: London exhibitions and the cultural production of electricity, 1830–1840” (unpublished seminar paper, University of Cambridge, May 1993).

For the recommendation in the 1830s of “biographies of famous men, ‘especially such as have risen by their own efforts from obscurity’”, as reading matter for the working class, see David Vincent, “Reading in the working-class home”, in Walton John K. and Walvin James (eds), Leisure in Britain 1780–1939 (Manchester, 1983), 208–26, p. 213. The SDUK published Craik's George The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties (2 vols, London, 1830–31), a series of biographies which commended knowledge as “one of the supports of morality” (i, 418). For later works stressing the moral benefits of natural history in particular, see Smiles Samuel , Life of a Scotch naturalist: Thomas Edward (London, 1876) and Robert Dick, baker of Thurso, geologist and botanist (London, 1878); Jolly William , The life of John Duncan, Scotch weaver and botanist (London, 1883). Henry Brougham's model of the diffusion of knowledge is clearly articulated in his “Address to … the Manchester Mechanics' Institution … 1835”, quoted in Vincent David , “The decline of the oral tradition in popular culture”, in Storch Robert D. (ed.), Popular culture and custom in nineteenth-century England (London, 1982), 20–47, p. 28.

Merrill Lynn L. , The romance of natural history (Oxford, 1989), 43–47; Barber Lynn , The heyday of natural history, 1820–1870 (New York, 1980), 31–39.

For a useful brief account of the artisan naturalists of Lancashire, see Percy John , “Scientists in humble life: The artisan naturalists of South Lancashire”, Manchester region history review, v (1991), 3–10.

For a discussion of the issues involved in reconstructing the historical experiences of ordinary people, see Sharpe Jim , “History from below”, in Burke Peter (ed.), New perspectives on historical writing (Cambridge, 1991), 24–41.

Bourdieu Pierre , Outline of a theory of practice , transl. by Nice Richard (Cambridge, 1977), 72–95, and Star Susan Leigh and Griesemer James R. , “Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39”, Social studies of science, xix (1989), 387–420.

As Jenkins Richard , Pierre Bourdieu (London, 1992), 74, points out, the notion of habitus bridges the gap between explanations of practice based solely on individual decision-making and those which claim that practice is determined by cultural rules or economic structures that operate beyond the level of the individual. For the usefulness of the concept of habitus to historians, see Burke Peter , History and social theory (Cambridge, 1992), 120, and idem, “Overture: The new history, its past and its future”, in Burke (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 6), 1–23, p. 18. For its application to agrarian custom, see Thompson E. P. , Customs in common (London, 1991), 102.

Thompson E. P. , The making of the English working class (London, 1980), 322. See also Harrison J. F. C. , Learning and living 1790–1960: A study in the history of the English adult education movement (London, 1961), 48–50, and Layton David , Science for the people (London, 1973), 30–31.

Vincent David , Bread, knowledge and freedom: A study of nineteenth-century working class autobiography (London, 1981), 172–3.

Allen D. E. , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976), 160.

Cunningham Hugh , Leisure in the Industrial Revolution c. 1780–c.1880 (London, 1980), 61; Bailey Peter , Leisure and class in Victorian England: Rational recreation and the contest for control, 1830–1885 (London, 1978), 23–24.

Ophir Adi and Shapin Steven , “The place of knowledge: A methodological survey”, Science in context, iv (1991), 3–21, p. 5.

Vincent David , Literacy and popular culture, England 1750–1914 (Cambridge, 1989), 19.

Ophir and Shapin , op. cit. (ref. 13), 4.

Bamford Samuel , Walks in South Lancashire (1844; Brighton , 1972), 13–14; Gaskell Elizabeth , Mary Barton (1848; Harmondsworth , 1970), 75–76; Engels Friedrich , The condition of the working class in England (1845; Harmondsworth , 1987), 244–5. Engels associated scientific pursuits with Socialist institutes, but the natural history interests of Lancashire artisans predated the Owenite movement. Moreover, by the 1840s, the cost of joining the Manchester Hall of Science would have been prohibitive for most of the artisans I shal be discussing; see Yeo Eileen , “Culture and constraint in working-class movements, 1830–1855”, in Yeo Eileen and Yeo Stephen (eds), Popular culture and class conflict 1590–1914: Explorations in the history of labour and leisure (Brighton, 1981), 155–86, p. 167.

Grindon L. H. , Manchester walks and wild flowers: An introduction to the botany and rural beauty of the district. With biographical notices of the Lancashire botanists, and an account of their societies; select lists of the birds and other living creatures of the neighbourhood, etc. (London, [1859]), 1, 4, 8.

Cash James , Where there's a will, there's a way! or, science in the cottage: An account of the labours of naturalists in humble life (London, 1873), 90. Cash portrayed artisan botanists as unambitious in a scientific sense though not in terms of individual self-improvement. The later accounts by Vincent, op. cit. (ref. 10), and Allen , op. cit. (ref. 11), which echo this view, derive from Cash. While middle-class field clubs may have acknowledged the unambitious nature of their activities, I argue below that this description cannot be extended to artisans who practised natural history.

Cash , op. cit. (ref. 18), 76. For the social uses of Wordsworthian discourse, see Gooday Graeme , “‘Nature’ in the laboratory: Domestication and discipline with the microscope in Victorian life science”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiv (1991), 307–41, pp. 310–18.

Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), p. v; Cash, op. cit. (ref. 18), pp. v–vi. For debates about the moral problems of leisure, see Bailey, op. cit. (ref. 12), 75–83.

This was a sensitive issue in the period in which Cash and Grindon published their books. Both the prohibition party, the United Kingdom Alliance, and the Central Association for Stopping the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on a Sunday were founded in Manchester in 1853 and 1866 respectively. The 1860s and 1870s saw these campaigns at their height. See Shiman L. L. , Crusade against drink in Victorian England (Basingstoke, 1988), 75–90. Alcohol consumption also peaked in this period and although Lancashire was the home of teetotalism, in 1870 it was considered to be one of the areas where drunkenness was most prevalent. See Harrison Brian , Drink and the Victorians: The temperance question in England 1815–1872 (Pittsburgh, 1971), 363.

Cash, op. cit. (ref. 18), 12–13; Grindon, op. cit. (ref. 17), 123, 125–6. For the offices Cash held in the Presbyterian Church at Sale, see North Western naturalist , xvi (1941), 33. Grindon did not condemn drinking itself; rather he condemned those who associated the botanists with drunkenness. He used the image of the pub as “detrimental to good order and sobriety” to reinforce his message that “delight in the objects of nature … brings with it a moral … influence on the heart” by claiming that the artisan botanists “are the most likely of all in their station of life to conduct themselves in a manner becoming intelligent beings” ( Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 125–6).

Cunningham , op. cit. (ref. 12), 90–91; Davidoff Leonore and Hall Catherine , Family fortunes: Men and women of the English middle class, 1780–1850 (Chicago, 1987), 25–30; Thackray Arnold , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, The American historical review, lxxix (1974), 672–709; Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 12), 47–67; Shapin Steven , “The Pottery Philosophical Society, 1819–1835: An examination of the cultural uses of provincial science”, Science studies, ii (1972), 311–36; Shapin Steven and Barnes Barry , “Science, nature and control: Interpreting mechanics' institutes”, Social studies of science, vii (1977), 31–74.

For discussions of the role of the pub in working-class life and for various middle-class campaigns against drinking places, see Cunningham and Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 12); Golby J. M. and Purdue A. W. , The civilisation of the crowd: Popular culture in England 1750–1900 (London, 1984); Storch Robert D. , “The problem of working-class leisure. Some roots of middle-class moral reform in the industrial north: 1825–50”, in Donajgrodzki A. P. (ed.), Social control in nineteenth century Britain (London, 1977), 138–62; Harrison , op. cit. (ref. 21), and “Pubs” in Dyos H. J. and Wolff Michael (eds), The Victorian city (2 vols, London, 1973), i, 161–90; Shiman , op. cit. (ref. 21); Gosden P. H. J. H. , The friendly societies in England 1815–1875 (Manchester, 1961), 156–9. For a range of mid-century middle-class opinions of the pub, see the evidence of the witnesses to the Select Committees on Public Houses, Parliamentary papers, 1852–53, xxxvii; 1854, xiv.

Faucher Leon , Manchester in 1844; its present condition and future prospects, transl. by a member of the Manchester Athenaeum (London, 1844), 52.

Harrison , op. cit. (ref. 21), 46. Those middle- and upper-class men who continued to drink in public met only in the most respectable inns. For a hierarchy of drinking places according to respectability, see ibid., 45.

Behagg Clive , “Secrecy, ritual and folk violence: The opacity of the workplace in the first half of the nineteenth century”, in Storch (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 3), 154–79, p. 157. Behagg goes on to argue (p. 166) that the pub “was, if anything, more impenetrable to the social outsider than the workplace itself”. For an excellent account of the importance of pubs in working-class politics, see McCalman Iain , Radical underworld: Prophets, revolutionaries and pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge, 1988), ch. 6.

For the involvement of gentlemen in popular sports in pubs, see Malcolmson Robert W. , Popular recreations in English society 1700–1850 (Cambridge, 1973), 49, 68.

Many middle-class “public” places such as libraries and societies were for men only. The place of middle-class women was the private, domestic realm. See Hall Catherine , “The sweet delights of home”, in Ariès Philippe and Duby Georges (general eds), A history of private life (5 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1987–92), iv (ed. by Perrot Michelle , 1990), 47–93, p. 64. Middle-class drinking, even in the privacy of the home, was also gender-specific, with women withdrawing after dinner to leave the men to indulge more freely in drink ( Davidoff and Hall , op. cit. (ref. 23), 399–400).

Yeo , op. cit. (ref. 16).

For middle-class fears in the 1840s and 1850s of the “moral deseases” prevalent in uncontrolled and crowded working-class places, see Driver Felix , “Moral geographies: Social science and the urban environment in mid-nineteenth century England”, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers , n.s., xiii (1988), 275–87. See also Donajgrodski A. P. , “‘Social police’ and the bureaucratic elite: A vision of order in the age of reform”, in Donajgrodski (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 24), 51–76.

Yeo , op. cit. (ref. 16), 159; Storch Robert D. , “The plague of the blue locusts: Police reform and popular resistance in northern England, 1840–57”, International review of social history, xx (1975), 61–90, and “The policeman as domestic missionary: Urban discipline and popular culture in northern England, 1850–1880”, Journal of social history, ix (1976), 481–502. Bolton publicans and beersellers, for example, had been cautioned against Sunday opening and warned in the Manchester guardian (hereafter MG) that “the police have instructions to use the utmost vigilance in detecting those who do so” (MG, 28 August 1850, 7).

MG, 30 November 1850, 7.

Taylor W. Cooke , Notes of a tour of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire , 2nd edn (London, 1842), 133–4, 164–5.

Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 126. MG, 22 January 1851, 5, reported that the artisan botanists had presented Barge with half the fine and that the other half was still being collected.

Heywood Thomas , “History and origin of the Sunday botanical meetings”, MG , 7 December 1850, 9, and 14 December 1850, supplement, 5. For John Horsefield's account, see MG, 21 December 1850, 5. The two accounts share portions of text.

Loudon J. C. , An encyclopaedia of gardening (London, 1822), 821–2, 1204–5; Grindon L. H. , Lancashire: Brief historical and descriptive notes (London, 1882), 41–42; Harrop Sylvia , “Community involvement in education in north-east Cheshire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries”, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, lxxx (1979), 1–21, p. 14; Duthie Ruth , Florists' flowers and societies (Haverfordwest, 1988), 25–26.

“Lancashire and Cheshire florists”, The floricultural review; and florists' register, i (1852), 45. The Middleton Auricula Society was established around 1750 (ibid., 86). See also Slater John , The amateur florists' guide (Manchester, [1860]), 16–17. The widespread interest in gardening and horticulture is also reflected in the local poetry of this period. See, for example, Samuel Laycock's “Aw've turned mi bit o' garden o'er” and “Owd Fogey” in Hollingworth Brian (ed.), Songs of the people: Lancashire dialect poetry of the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1977), 107–8, 122–4.

The gooseberry growers' register, or an account of the different gooseberry shows held in Lancashire and Cheshire, and other parts of the kingdom, for the year 1843 (Manchester, 1843), 92. Shows were free (except for nurserymen and gentlemen) but contributions of a set amount were usually required “for liquor” and sometimes for a meal. The Gooseberry growers' register was first published in 1800, but there is evidence of widespread cultivation of gooseberries before this. A catalogue of gooseberries from 1777 lists 320 sorts from Lancashire, see Harvey John , Early gardening catalogues (London, 1972), 35, 82. See also Webber Ronald , The early horticulturists (Newton Abbot, 1968), 112.

The gooseberry growers' register … 1843 (ref. 39), 30. For similar warnings regarding the honesty of exhibitors from the 1780s on, see handbills advertising gooseberry shows in pubs in the Manchester Central Library: Local History Library, f1789/8, f1790/15, f1794/10, f1812/18. George Caley, diary entry, 9 August 1813, University College London Library: MS ADD 325; Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 37), 42.

[ Holland John ], Memoir of the history and cultivation of the gooseberry (London, 1834), 25–26.

Middleton James , The old road: A book of recollections. A historic account of the Oldham Road as it runs from Manchester, through Newton Heath and Failsworth, to the boundary of Hollinwood (Manchester, 1985), 23. “Culpeper's herbal”, originally published as The English physician: Or an astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar herbs of this nation …, continued to be reissued in new editions throughout the nineteenth century ( Poynter F. N. L. , “Nicholas Culpeper and his books”, Journal of the history of medicine, xvii (1962), 152–67, pp. 161–2). Wesley's herbal recipes also went through many editions. In the 1840s, at least six new or reprinted editions of Wesley's work appeared ( Holloway S. W. F. , “The orthodox fringe: The origins of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain”, in Bynum W. F. and Porter Roy (eds), Medical fringe and medical orthodoxy 1750–1850 (London, 1987), 129–57, p. 155).

As Vincent , “The decline of the oral tradition”, op. cit. (ref. 3), 25–28, has pointed out, from 1700 “there was a literary as well as an oral tradition in the culture of the labouring poor” and when the increased availability of print took place in the early nineteenth century “it was seen as an extension of indigenous working-class habits and tastes”. See also Laqueur Thomas , “The cultural origins of popular literacy in England 1500–1850”, Oxford review of education, ii (1976), 255–75.

Buxton Richard , A botanical guide to the flowering plants, ferns, mosses, and algae, found indigenous within sixteen miles of Manchester … together with a sketch of the author's life (London, 1849), pp. iii–v.

Letter from George Caley to William Withering, 15 June 1798, reprinted in Withering William Jr , “Further notice of the late Mr. George Caley”, Magazine of natural history, iii (1830), 228–9. It is not clear to which of William Gibson's works on farriery Caley refers; both The farrier's new guide (London, 1720) and A new treatise on the diseases of horses (London, 1751) fit Caley's description.

MG, 24 April 1850, 6.

Caley , op. cit. (ref. 45); MG, 7 December 1850, 9.

MG, 14 December 1850, supplement, 5.

MG, 24 April 1850, 6.

Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 123; Holt John , General view of the agriculture of the county of Lancaster (London, 1795), 229; Middleton , op. cit. (ref. 42), 12.

For Oldham, see Holt , op. cit. (ref. 50); for Prestwich, see MG, 31 December 1851, 3, and Fielding Joseph , Rural historical gleanings in South Lancashire (Manchester, 1852), 39–40. A list of the Royton Botanical Society's books in 1850 can be found in MG, 5 January 1850, 5. For those belonging to the Tyldesley Botanical Society in 1831, see letter from John Martin to William Wilson, 19 June 1831, Warrington Library: William Wilson correspondence, MS 53, in which Martin also referred to the “many valuable books” belonging to the Bolton Botanical Society.

Thompson , op. cit. (ref. 9), 325.

Letter from George Caley to Joseph Banks, 22 July 1798, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales: Banks papers, viii, p. 10, ref. A79–1: FM4/1749.

Buxton , op. cit. (ref. 44), p. v; MG, 24 April 1850, 6; Hassall C. H. , Memoir of Joseph Evans, medical botanist, of Boothstown, near Manchester (Farnsworth, [1890]), 7.

Letter from George Caley to Robert Brown, 13 December 1811, British Library: Add. MSS 32439, ff. 347–8.

Bamford Samuel , Passages in the life of a radical (1844; 2 vols in 1, London, 1967), i, 45. The deception was possible because artisan societies met in pubs. For a discussion of the effect of the Seditious Meetings Act on scientific societies in general, see Inkster Ian , “London science and the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817”, The British journal for the history of science, xii (1979), 192–6; Weindling Paul , “Science and sedition: How effective were the acts licensing lectures and meetings, 1795–1819?”, ibid., xiii (1980), 139–53; Inkster Ian , “Seditious science: A reply to Paul Weindling”, ibid., xiv (1981), 181–7.

For Hobson and Dewhurst, see Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 133–4; for Horsefield, see MG, 24 April 1850, 6; for Kent and Plant, see Bamford , op. cit. (ref. 56), i, 127–43; for Kent , see also MG, 15 December 1849, 3, and 21 December 1850, 7; for Evans, see Hassall , op. cit. (ref. 54), p. v.

Wearmouth R. F. , Methodism and the working-class movements of England 1800–1850 (London, 1937), 216–18; Read Donald , Peterloo: The ‘massacre’ and its background (Manchester, 1958), 49.

Lyall Robert , ‘Acc^t, of a Botanical Society at Manchester, with the places of growth of some rather uncommon British Plants”, read at the Linnean Society of London, 5 February 1811, Linnean Society of London: SP 728.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5.

Letter from Martin John to Wilson William , 19 June 1831 (ref. 51); Buxton , op. cit. (ref. 44), p. vii. The Middleton Botanical Society, for example, founded about 1780, became defunct in 1840 and was not revived until 1849 (MG, 24 March 1883, 5). The Royton Botanical Society existed from 1794 to 1834 and was reestablished in 1844 (Fielding, op. cit. (ref. 51), 127). For the numbers at the general meetings, see MG, 26 January 1858, 3; Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 127–8; MG, 18 July 1859, 2. The gatherings of over 200 were special annual meetings for botanists from Lancashire Cheshire Yorkshire and Derbyshire .

MG, 14 December 1850, supplement, 5. For rules imposed by working-class societies, see Thompson , op. cit. (ref. 9), 457–9, 788.

See Dobson C. R. , Masters and journeymen: A prehistory of industrial relations 1717–1800 (London, 1980), 39, for the publican's role in keeping the box. At least two artisan botanists became publicans: Jethro Tinker in Stalybridge ( Hill Samuel , Bygone Stalybridge (Stalybridge, 1907), 211) and William Worsley, president of the Middleton Botanical Society, who was the tenant of the Ring o' Bells pub where the society met (Heywood advertiser, 7 October 1910, 7).

Shiman , op. cit. (ref. 21), 32, and Middleton , op. cit. (ref. 42), 33. The proportion of the fee that was spent on drink varied slightly. On average, 4d. went on drink and 2d. on books. The Tyldesley Botanical Society, however, put the unusually high amount of 6d. on drink and 3d. on books, see letter from John Martin to William Wilson, 19 June 1831 (ref. 51).

Gosden , op. cit. (ref. 24), 117, 214–15.

MG, 31 December 1851, 3, gives the first verse of Horsefield's song: Then I'll sing to please myself, or my friends, I care not whether; We're a set of friendly botanists, met once again together: From classes, orders, genera, species, we derive our pleasures, And meet each month to interchange our intellectual treasures. While science circles with the glass, while sparkling ale keeps flowing, While mirth and harmony prevail, we never think of going. For Percival , see MG, 21 December 1850, 5; for Crowther , see Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 126.

Hobson's abstinence (noted in William Wilson's “Greenfield memoranda”, on the back of a letter from Mr Christy, 14 June 1832, Warrington Library: William Wilson correspondence, MS 52) may have been a reaction to his mother's drunkenness ( Moore John , “A memoir of Mr. Edward Hobson”, Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester , 2nd ser., vi (1842), 297–324, p. 299).

The names of several pubs in places around Manchester began to reflect the interest in natural history: For example, the “Railway and Naturalist” in Prestwich ( Percy , op. cit. (ref. 5), 7); the “Botanical Tavern” in Ashton, kept by an “enthusiast in the science” ( Ginswick J. (ed.), Labour and the poor in England and Wales 1849–1851 (3 vols, London, 1983), i, 92); and another “Botanical tavern” near Haughton Dale (Joseph Sidebotham's annotations in his interleaved copy of Wood J. B. (ed.), Flora Mancuniensis (Manchester, 1840), opposite p. 38, now in the Linnean Society of London Library). Publicans also cashed in on the interest in natural history with the development of “public-house museums”, see Harrison , “Pubs” (ref. 24), 175; Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 12), 43.

MG, 5 January 1850, 5.

Harrison , op. cit. (ref. 21), 336.

Letter from Astley R. to Axon W. E. A. , 8 August 1881, Manchester Central Library: Archives Department, W. E. A. Axon's loose papers on “Artisan naturalists of Lancashire”, MS f 920.04272 A1.

In 1875, W. E. A. Axon compiled a list of existing botanical societies, the majority of which met in pubs. See Manchester city news, 23 January 1875. For evidence of pub meetings in the 1920s, see Coward T. A. , Bird haunts and nature memories (London, 1922), 137. The importance of pubs in both mediating change and maintaining continuity in working-class culture is emphasized in Anthony Delves, “Popular recreation and social conflict in Derby, 1800–1850”, in Yeo and Yeo (eds), op. cit. (ref. 16), 89–127, pp. 115–16.

MG, 24 April 1850, 6.

Gosden , op. cit. (ref. 24), 19.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5.

MG, 14 December 1850, supplement, 5.

Buxton , op. cit. (ref. 44), p. vii. The same aim was stated in the printed rules of the Middleton Botanical Society, Heywood advertiser, 7 October 1910, 7.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5. For evidence of the communal method in use in 1830, see Horsefield John , “Notice of the Prestwich Botanical Society, and the Bury Botanical and Entomological Society, preceded by some critical remarks on a passage in the account of the conductor's tour in France”, The gardener's magazine, vi (1830), 392–5, p. 394. Dr David Allen has told me that in the 1950s he was present at a meeting of the Digbeth Field Club, Birmingham, where the practice of the president naming piles of plants in front of a silent audience was still followed.

Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 19. The artisan naturalist Jethro Tinker, Stalybridge's “local Linnaeus”, was reputed to have an excellent memory ( Hill , op. cit. (ref. 63), 213).

As Goody Jack , The interface between the written and the oral (Cambridge, 1987), 177–9, points out, learning by exact repetition in this way is rarely a feature of oral societies who have no texts to serve as a corrective. Rather, it is a procedure intrinsic to the literate tradition.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5; MG, 31 December 1851, 3. The Prestwich Botanical Society had also exempted Horsefield from paying into the book fund from the mid-1820s.

Lyall , op. cit. (ref. 59).

Middleton , op. cit. (ref. 42), 23.

MG, 2 March 1850, 9, and MG, 24 April 1850, 6. Repudiating the preeminence of book learning, Horsefield stated that his father, Charles Horsefield, despite his illiteracy, “possessed a considerable stock of information”.

For the sense of disempowerment of women with the increased availability of books in the early nineteenth century, see Vincent , “The decline of the oral tradition” (ref. 3), 20–21, 28, 40–41, and idem, op. cit. (ref. 14), 180. For a discussion of the problems in trying to recover the cultural struggles of working-class women, see Shiach Morag , Discourse on popular culture: Class, gender and history in cultural analysis, 1730 to the present (Cambridge, 1989), 12–13, 78–80.

MG, 16 August 1855, 4.

The record of marriages at St Mary the Virgin, Leigh, show that Betty Entwistle and Alice Hurst made a mark on 18 May 1802 and 25 September 1826 respectively, whereas Martin clearly signed his name in the register (Manchester Central Library: Local History Library, Microfilm of parish records, MF418). There are dangers in using marriage registers as indicators of female literacy, but one reason, namely that a literate bride might have feigned illiteracy if her husband was illiterate, obviously does not hold in this case. See Schofield R. S. , “The measurement of literacy in pre-industrial England”, in Goody Jack (ed.), Literacy in traditional societies (Cambridge, 1968), 311–25, p. 322; Rogers Colin D. , “Parish records in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire”, Manchester region history review, i (1987), 29–33, p. 31.

For the herbal practice of wise women, see Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 170–3; Harrison J. F. C. , The second coming: Popular millenarianism 1780–1850 (London, 1979), 45–46; Brown P. S. , “Hebalists and medical botanists in mid-nineteenth-century Britain with special reference to Bristol”, Medical history, xxvi (1982), 405–20, pp. 406–7. For the opposition of male medical botanists to women practitioners, see Barrow , op. cit. (ref. 2), 164.

Lyall , op. cit. (ref. 59).

MG, 24 April 1850, 6. According to the record of marriages at St Mary's Church, Oldham, Horsefield married Ester Eccorsley on 20 December 1812, Manchester Central Library: Local History Library, Shaw MSS, MS.942.72.S154.

Harrison , op. cit. (ref. 21), 47. For the decline in the number of female publicans in the early nineteenth century, see Davidoff and Hall , op. cit. (ref. 23), 299–301.

Thompson Dorothy , “Women and nineteenth-century radical politics: A lost dimension”, in Mitchell Juliet and Oakley Ann (eds), The rights and wrongs of women (Harmondsworth, 1976), 112–38, and The Chartists: Popular politics in the industrial revolution (Aldershot, 1986), 122–3; Clark Anna , “The rhetoric of Chartist domesticity: Gender, language, and class in the 1830s and 1840s”, Journal of British studies, xxxi (1992), 62–88; Taylor Barbara , Eve and the new Jerusalem: Socialism and feminism in the nineteenth century (London, 1983), 228–9; Bamford , op. cit. (ref. 56), i, 165.

Caley George , diary entries for 10 August 1812, 26 July 1813, 13 February 1815, op. cit. (ref. 40). For female friendly societies, see Gosden , op. cit. (ref. 24), 62. For bull-baiting in publicans' yards, see Malcolmson , op. cit. (ref. 28), 45–46.

Eclectic journal and medical free press, ii (1868–9), 115, 121–2.

Middleton , op. cit. (ref. 42), 23–24.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5. Richard Buxton also used this network to gather information for his Botanical guide, op. cit. (ref. 44), pp. x–xi, xiv.

Letter from George Caley to Robert Brown, 27 July 1815, British Library: Add. MSS 32440, ff. 85–86.

Moore , op. cit. (ref. 67), 300.

Letter from George Caley to Robert Brown, 18 September 1812, British Library: Add. MSS 32439, ff. 361–2. For Caley's attendance at botanical meetings, see the numerous entries in his diary, op. cit. (ref. 40). Caley stopped going to Sunday meetings in April 1813, but he did attend meetings of the Royton and Middleton Botanical Societies throughout the period 1811–16, before his departure for St Vincent.

This is reflected in Caley's correspondence and diary of this period. I am very grateful to Dr Joan Webb, who is preparing a biography of Caley, for sharing her views with me and also for telling me about Caley's diary.

Letter from George Caley to the Middleton Botanical Society, 12 October 1800, Museum Rochdale . This letter was reprinted in the Heywood advertiser, 15 April 1910, 3, and in The Lancashire naturalist, iii (1910), 259–60.

The challenge of Allen's work is to consider natural history as “cultural behaviour rather than a network of ideas”, see “Life sciences: Natural history”, in Corsi P. and Weindling P. (eds), Information sources in the history of science and medicine (London, 1983), 349–60, p. 356; “Naturalists in Britain: Some tasks for the historian”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History , viii (1977), 91–107, p. 94. See also Allen D. E. , op. cit. (ref. 11); The botanists: A history of the Botanical Society of the British Isles through a hundred and fifty years (Winchester, 1986); “Women members of the Botanical Society of London, 1836–1856”, The British journal for the history of science, xiii (1980), 240–54; Allen D. E. and Lousley Dorothy W. , “Some letters to Margaret Stovin (1756?–1846), botanist of Chesterfield”, Naturalist, civ (1979), 155–63.

Latour Bruno , Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Milton Keynes, 1987); idem, “Drawing things together”, in Lynch Michael and Woolgar Steve (eds), Representation in scientific practice (London, 1990), 19–68.

For an account of Joseph Banks's botanical practice in Latourian terms, see Miller David Philip , “Joseph Banks, empire and ‘centers of calculation’ in late Hanoverian London”, in Miller David Philip and Reill Peter (eds), Visions of empire: Voyages, botany and representations of nature (Cambridge, in press). The inadequacy of Latour's model is particularly apparent in the discussion of Charles Lyell and amateur collectors in Latour, Science in action (ref. 103), 146–50.

Star and Griesemer , op. cit. (ref. 7). For a useful critique of the models proposed by Latour and Star and Griesemer, see Fujimura Joan H. , “Crafting science: Standardized packages, boundary objects, and ‘translation’”, in Pickering Andrew (ed.), Science as practice and culture (Chicago, 1992), 168–211.

Star and Griesemer , op. cit. (ref. 7), 389, 393. For examples of intersecting social worlds, see Secord James A. , “Nature's fancy: Charles Darwin and the breeding of pigeons”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 163–86; idem, “Darwin and the breeders: A social history”, in Kohn David (ed.), The Darwinian heritage (Princeton, 1985), 519–42; Thomas Nicholas , Entangled objects: Exchange, material culture, and colonialisation in the Pacific (Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

MG, 21 December 1850, 5.

For Horsefield's hybrids, see Paxton's magazine of botany, and register of flowering plants , xiv (1848), 51, and Daffodil year-book 1933 (London, 1933), 24–25; for Horsefield William , see Gooseberry growers' register … 1843 (ref. 39), 93; for the Evans's, see Hassall, op. cit. (ref. 54); for Mellor , see MG, 11 October 1848, 6.

Letter from John Martin to Wilson William , 19 June 1831, op. cit. (ref. 51); MG, 16 August 1855, 4. The divergent interests of the members of the Tyldesley society also affected the contents of their library. For more specialized botanical works, Martin had to use the library of the Bolton Botanical Society.

“Medical botany and systematic botany”, Coffin's botanical journal and medical reformer, i (1849), 333.

MG , 14 December 1850, supplement, 5, and MG, 21 December 1850, 5. This was a sensitive issue as several cases of manslaughter had been brought against medical botanists, albeit over the toxicity of lobelia rather than misidentifications of plants. See Brown , op. cit. (ref. 88), 410–14. Cases of accidental death from eating fool's parsley, for example, were also reported in the local press. Withering's William A botanical arrangement of British plants, one of the most common books to be found in artisans' botanical libraries, stressed in the second edition (3 vols, Birmingham, 1787–92), i, p. xxxvii, that “it is the Linnaean botany alone which can transmit with certainty to our posterity, those discoveries which the present age has made of the powers of vegetable remedies”.

“Medical botany and systematic botany” (ref. 110).

Skelton John , “The sexual system of Linnaeus”, Eclectic journal and medical free press, ii (1868–9), 45; for the series of articles see pp. 45–46, 60–62, 83–85, 91–93, 113–15, 135–8, 152–3, 161–2, 182–5. For Coffin, Skelton, and systems of medical botany, see Pickstone John V. , “Medical botany (self-help medicine in Victorian England)”, Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, cxix (1976–7), 85–95; Pickstone J. V. and Miley Ursula , “Medical botany around 1850: American medicine in industrial Britain”, in Cooter Roger (ed.), Studies in the history of alternative medicine (London, 1988), 140–54; Harrison J. F. C. , “Early Victorian radicals and the medical fringe”, in Bynum and Porter (eds), op. cit. (ref. 42), 198–215; Brown P. S. , “Social context and medical theory in the demarcation of nineteenth-century boundaries”, in ibid., 216–23; idem, op. cit. (ref. 88); Barrow, op. cit. (ref. 2), 161–73, 182–94.

Eclectic journal and medical free press , ii (1868–9), 115, 121–2. Although the report states that the wooden hut was “much more than comfortably filled”, it seems inconceivable that it could hold thousands of people. Presumably, it was open on one side and a large part of the audience remained outside.

And quite possibly throughout this period. Although many provincial family herbals denounced astrological herbalism, the folklorists, Harland John and Wilkinson T. T. noted in their Lancashire folk-lore (Manchester, 1882), 10, that “more copies of Culpepper's Herbal and Sibley's Astrology are sold in Lancashire than all other works on the same subjects put together, and this principally on account of the planetary influence with which each disease and its antidote are connected”.

Stafleu Frans A. , Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The spreading of their ideas in systematic botany, 1735–1789 (Utrecht, 1971), 205.

Lee James , An introduction to botany. Containing an explanation of the theory of that science, and an interpretation of its technical terms. Extracted from the works of Dr. Linnaeus, and calculated to assist such as may be desirous of studying that author's method and improvements (London, 1760).

Buxton , op. cit. (ref. 44), pp. 6, vi. Grindon L. H. , The Manchester flora: A descriptive list of the plants growing wild within eighteen miles of Manchester, with notices of the plants commonly cultivated in gardens; preceded by an introduction to botany (London, 1859), 318, noted that this plant also grew in Bowden, but still gave as the first habitat, “the garden of the cottage occupied by the widow of the late John Horsefield”. For nineteenth-century views on protecting plant habitats, see Allen D. E. , “Changing attitudes to nature conservation: The botanical perspective”, Biological journal of the Linnean Society, xxxii (1987), 203–12.

Middleton , op. cit. (ref. 42), 23.

MG, 15 December 1849, 3.

Letter from John Martin to William Wilson, 18 July 1831, Manchester Central Library: Archives Department, copy in W. E. A. Axon's scrapbook on “Artisan naturalists of Lancashire”, MS f 920.04272 A1, pp. 133–41.

Caley George , diary entry for 13 April 1811, op. cit. (ref. 40); letter from Caley to James Dickson, 5 May 1813, Natural History Museum, London: Botany Library, Robert Brown correspondence, i, letter 111, Banksian collection manuscript; Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 127. For the rise of the nurseryman and the trading of plants as commodities, see Harvey John , Early nurserymen (London, 1974); Plumb J. H. , “The acceptance of modernity”, in McKendrick Neil Brewer John and Plumb J. H. , The birth of a consumer society: The commercialisation of eighteenth-century England (London, 1982), 324–6.

Letter from George Caley to Robert Brown, 27 July 1815 (ref. 97).

William Wilson bemoaned the loss of Saxifraga hirculus from Knutsford Moor, which he believed had “been extirpated by nurserymen”, in his letter to Hooker W. J. , 15 October 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, vi, letter 347. See also Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 118), 228.

Caley George , diary entry for 8 June 1812, op. cit. (ref. 40).

Rules and regulations to be observed by a society established at the house of Mr. Henry Rayner, the sign of the Woodman, George-Street, Hyde, on Monday, July 2nd, 1849, to be called Hyde Faithful Botanical Society (Hyde, [1849]), 10–11. I am grateful to William Shercliff for sending a copy of this pamphlet to me. The original is in the collections of the Tameside Local Studies Library, Stalybridge, ref. DD3/45.

Wilson William , diary entry for 12 January 1833, Warrington Library: Wilsoniana, MS 72. Smith Olivia , The politics of language 1791–1819 (Oxford, 1984), 13, points out that Samuel Johnson used the word ‘illiterate’ to signify ignorance of Latin and Greek.

Letters from William Wilson to Hooker W. J. , 23 June 1831 and 19 July 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, vi, letters 344 and 346.

In making this point, I draw on Bourdieu , op. cit. (ref. 7), 81: “when we speak of class habitus, we are insisting … that ‘interpersonal’ relations are never, except in appearance, individual-to-individual relationships and that the truth of the interaction is never entirely contained in the interaction”.

Prothero I. J. , Artisans and politics in early ninteenth-century London (Folkestone, 1979), 336. For the decline in the status of handloom weavers, see Thompson , op. cit. (ref. 9), ch. 9.

Letter from John Martin to William Wilson, 19 June 1831 (ref. 51). William Jackson Hooker was completing Smith's James Edward Sir English flora, which is why Martin knew that if his moss was rare, Wilson would tell Hooker.

Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 19.

MG, 7 December 1850, 9. As a stationer, Heywood would have been well aware of the power of the printed word. His complaint was not against “the great Ray”. Rather, his assumption was that Richard Richardson had not revealed his sources of information. There is, however, no evidence of artisan botanical societies in existence in this early period. Moreover, Pultenay Richard , Historical and biographical sketches of the progress of botany in England, from its origin to the introduction of the Linnaean system (2 vols, London, 1790), ii, 185–8, remarked that Richardson was noted as a patron of other botanists. For an excellent account of John Ray's collecting methods, see Jo Gladstone, ‘“New world of English words’: John Ray, FRS, the dialect protagonist, in the context of his times (1658–1691)”, in Burke Peter and Porter Roy (eds), Language, self, and society: A social history of language (Cambridge, 1991), 115–53.

Hooker W. J. , The English flora of Sir James Edward Smith (London, 1833), v (“or vol. ii of Dr. Hooker's British flora“), Pt i, 12. Wilson had informed Hooker of Martin's wish for Evans to be named as the discoverer of the moss in his letter of 23 June 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, vi, letter 344.

Letter from W. J. Hooker to Wilson William , 16 July 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: “Letters from W. J. Hooker”, ff. 48–49. By 1830, Hooker's herbarium was considered one of the richest in Europe and in 1841 it was declared to be “the largest and most valuable collection in the world, in possession of a private individual” ( Hooker J. D. , A sketch of the life and labours of Sir William Jackson Hooker (Oxford, 1903), p. xxxii).

The visit to Martin took place on 26 July 1831, Wilson diary, op. cit. (ref. 127). For Wilson's description of Tyldesley, see letter from Wilson to Hooker W. J. , 19 July 1831; for his impressions of Martin and his cottage, see letter to Hooker, 15 October 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, vi, letters 346, 347. Martin possibly obtained his books when the first Tydesley Botanical Society folded and the contents of the library were shared out among the members. If so, it is not surprising that they were grubby as they would have been heavily used by the members of the society. Books that belonged to the Boothstown Botanical Society, now in the author's possession, are almost black in parts.

For reasons as to why Wilson would have been surprised by the inconsistency of Martin's inward and outward order, see Shapin Steven and Barnes Barry , “Head and hand: Rhetorical resources in British pedagogical writing, 1770–1850”, Oxford review of education, ii (1976), 231–54. According to Cash, op. cit. (ref. 18), 156, Wilson's “order and neatness were very remarkable”. For the dinner, see letter from William Wilson to Hooker W. J. , 19 July 1831, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, vi, letter 346.

Letter from John Martin to William Wilson, 19 June 1831 (ref. 51).

Letter from William Wilson to Hooker W. J. , 19 July 1831 (ref. 137).

Letter from John Martin to Wilson William , 18 July 1831 (ref. 121).

From the time he expressed his initial interest in Martin, Hooker cautioned Wilson “not to mention it to him: But rather let me know more particulars about him”. Letter of 16 July 1831 (ref. 135).

As Behagg, op. cit. (ref. 27), 158, has shown, intruders in the pub “were confronted by an alternative set of values and beliefs that would intimidate them both physically and intellectually”. For cultural barriers controlling space, see Ophir and Shapin , op. cit. (ref. 13), 10–11.

Lyall , op. cit. (ref. 59).

MG, 14 December 1850, supplement, 5.

Rule John , “The property of skill in the period of manufacture”, in Joyce Patrick (ed.), The historical meanings of work (Cambridge, 1987), 99–118, and “Artisan attitudes: A comparative survey of skilled labour and proletarianization before 1848”, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History , 1 (1985), 22–31; Thompson , op. cit. (ref. 9), ch. 8; Prothero , op. cit. (ref. 130).

Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 108. The grounds for distrusting middlemen in natural history are clear from the experience of the Banff shoemaker and naturalist Thomas Edward, as related in Cash , op. cit. (ref. 18), 208–9.

Rule , “The property of skill”, op. cit. (ref. 145), 107–8. See also Alexander Sally , “Women, class and sexual differences in the 1830s and 1840s: Some reflections on the writing of a feminist history”, History workshop, xvii (1984), 125–49, pp. 135–7; Berg Maxine , The age of manufactures: Industry, innovation and work in Britain 1700–1820 (Oxford, 1985), 160; Clark , op. cit. (ref. 92).

Rule , “The property of skill” (ref. 145), 108.

MG, 21 December 1850, 5. Horsefield did not insist that everyone learned Latin names; only that you were not a botanist unless you did.

Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 163. Caley was the only artisan botanist who went to Manchester Grammar School and received lessons in Latin (Withering [Jr], op. cit. (ref. 45), 227, 229). Other artisans had only a year or two of schooling, frequently of an informal nature. Thomas Keith , Man and the natural world (Harmondsworth, 1984), 86–87, implies that the adoption of Linnaeus's Latin plant names alone excluded the ordinary people from botanical pursuits. Vincent's point presumably refers to botanical texts written in Latin, not just Latin plant names. This, however, was no more of a problem in the late than the early part of the nineteenth century as most botanical books continued to be published in English. Nonetheless, the classification of plants using the Linnaean system was not as straightforward as is often suggested. In contrast to Horsefield's experience, the self-taught poet John Clare “puzzled wasted hours over Lees Botany” before abandoning Linnaeus's “dark system”. Clare preferred “the works of Ray Parkinson and Gerrard were [sic] there is more of nature and less of Art”. See Robinson Eric (ed.), John Clare's autobiographical writings (Oxford, 1983), 49. See also Gladstone , op. cit. (ref. 133), 118, for Clare's preference for dialect plant names.

As Horsefield admitted: “Of Latin, as a language, we know very little; but this we know, that a uniform nomenclature is far preferable to a mixed one…. A Latin name is, in our opinion, as easy to learn as a mere English one” (MG, 21 December 1850, 5). In this case, the Linnaean nomenclature functioned as a “boundary object”, carrying different meanings for artisans and educated botanists.

Letter from William Bentley to Hooker W. J. , 20 February 1843, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, xix, letter 86. For the élitism of the Linnean Society, see Gage A. T. and Steam W. T. , A bicentenary history of the Linnean Society of London (London, 1988), 195. Mellor, president of the Royton Botanical Society, was not helped by the Linnean society. He did, however, receive aid from Manchester's scientific élite.

Rule , “The property of skill” (ref. 145), 108.

Horsefield , “Notice of the Prestwich Botanical Society” (ref. 78), 393. For Loudon's original remarks, see his “Notes and reflections made during a tour through parts of France and Germany, in the autumn of the year 1828”, The gardener's magazine, v (1829), 113–25, p. 123.

Vicinus Martha , “The study of Victorian popular culture”, Victorian studies, xviii (1975), 473–83, p. 474.

Shiach , op. cit. (ref. 85), 15. See also Hall Stuart , “Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular’”, in Samuel Raphael (ed.), People's history and socialist theory (London, 1981), 227–40, pp. 234–5; Anderson Patricia , The printed image and the transformation of popular culture 1790–1860 (Oxford, 1991), 1–15.

Cunningham , op. cit. (ref. 12), 102–4; Harrison , op. cit. (ref. 21), 325–6. Similarly Delves , op. cit. (ref. 72), 95, reveals the double standards used in evaluating the upper-class participation in “low” activities such as betting, racing and blood sports.

Shapin and Barnes , op. cit. (ref. 137).

Hudson J. W. , The history of adult education (London, 1851), 148, 211. Hudson's emphasis, as Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 12), 23, points out, recognized the incredulity with which such revelations would be met. Pub libraries were also described in reports in MG, 15 December 1849, 3, and 5 January 1850, 5. The existence of these independent working-class libraries made a mockery of the painstaking care with which middle-class managers had selected the contents of Mechanics' Institute libraries. See Topham Jonathan , “Science and popular education in the 1830s: The role of the Bridgewater Treatises”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 397–430, pp. 407–13.

Ludlow J. M. and Jones Lloyd , Progress of the working class 1832–1867 (London, 1867), 19.

Quoted in Vincent , op. cit. (ref. 14), 217.

Manchester translator of Faucher , op. cit. (ref. 25), 49, n. 20.

Grindon , op. cit. (ref. 17), 122; idem, op. cit. (ref. 118), p. vi.

Coward , op. cit. (ref. 72), 133.

Bamford , op. cit. (ref. 16), 13–14. An important argument about craft traditions providing women with skills appropriate to the practice of science is made in Schiebinger Londa , The mind has no sex? Women and the origins of modern science (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 66–101.

As Bailey , op. cit. (ref. 12), 182–6, has argued, respectability was not an ideology or uniform life-style for working men but rather a behavioural mode, a role which they could adopt and abandon with no inherent conflict. This was incomprehensible to the middle class who defined itself by its moral virtues and for whom respectability was a cultural absolute. Artisan botanists were always careful to stress to middle-class audiences that they met in “respectable” public houses, although this distinction had little meaning (indeed, was a contradiction in terms) to those who positioned themselves in opposition to the culture of drink. Attention should be paid, however, to the distinctions working people made between various types of drinking places. Pubs in which artisan naturalists gathered were very different from urban gin palaces, for example. See Golby and Purdue , op. cit. (ref. 24), 119–20.

I shall be exploring other aspects of artisan natural history in forthcoming work.

Belchem John , Industrialization and the working class: The English experience, 1750–1900 (Aldershot, 1990), 57.

Laqueur , op. cit. (ref. 43), 270.

McCalman , op. cit. (ref. 27), 234–5.

Desmond , op. cit. (ref. 2).

Cooter , op. cit. (ref. 2), 175.

Maidment Brian , The poorhouse fugitives: Self-taught poets and poetry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1987), 14–17.

Ibid., for examples of Chartist and Parnassian poems by Cooper, Ebenezer Elliot and Joseph Skipsey.

Horsefield's gravestone can be seen in the graveyard of St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich. Charles Swain's poem is more clearly seen on a 1918 photograph in Manchester Central Library: Reference Library Print Collection, Accession no. 13562.

This was especially true of science periodicals. See Sheets-Pyenson Susan , “Popular science periodicals in Paris and London: The emergence of a low scientific culture, 1820–1875”, Annals of science, xlii (1985), 549–72. My argument, however, cuts across Sheets-Pyenson's distinction between popular and low forms of science. For the participation of women, see D. E. Allen's work (ref. 102) and Shteir Ann B. , “Linnaeus's daughters: Women and British botany”, in Harris B. J. and McNamara J. K. (eds), Women and the structure of society: Selected research papers from the fifth Berkshire conference on the history of women (Durham, N.C., 1984), 67–73, and “Botany in the breakfast room: Women and early nineteenth-century British plant study”, in Abir-Am P. G. and Outram Dorinda (eds), Uneasy careers and intimate lives: Women in science 1789–1979 (New Brunswick, 1987), 31–43.

Shiach , op. cit. (ref. 85), 33. For an analysis of the history of changing definitions of “the popular”, see ibid., ch. 1.

For examples of the distinction between the work of scientific amateurs and professional scientists, see Star and Greisemer, op. cit. (ref. 7); Lankford John , “Amateurs versus professionals: The controversy over telescope size in late Victorian science”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 11–28; Allen D. E. , “The survival of the amateur tradition in the newly professional world of biology”, Program, papers, and abstracts for the joint BSHS–HSS Anglo-American conference (Manchester, 1988), 77–84. For overviews of professionalization and the exclusion of the people from nineteenth-century science, see Morrell J. B. , “Professionalisation”, and Shapin Steven , “Science and the public”, in Olby R. C. Cantor G. N. Christie J R. R. and Hodge M. J. S. (eds), Companion to the history of modern science (London, 1990), 980–9, 990–1007.

Withering William , A botanical arrangement of all the vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain. With descriptions of the genera and species, according to the system of the celebrated Linnaeus. Being an attempt to render them familiar to those who are unacquainted with the learned languages (2 vols, Birmingham, 1776). Withering's book was also designed to be accessible to women. For the second edition see ref. 111.

Withering William , A systematic arrangement of British plants; with an easy introduction to the study of botany , 4th edn (4 vols, London, 1801), i, p. v. The names of Lancashire artisans also appear in Hull's John The British flora, or a Linnean arrangement of British plants (Manchester, 1799) and Dawson Turner and Lewis Dillwyn's Weston The botanist's guide through England and Wales (London, 1805).

Hooker W. J. and Taylor Thomas , Muscologia Britannica; containing the mosses of Great Britain and Ireland, systematically arranged and described (London, 1818), p. viii.

Pratt M. L. , Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation (London, 1992), 24–35; Morton A. G. , History of botanical science (London, 1981), 275.

For some of the debates over botanical classification in Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century, see Allen , The botanists (ref. 102), 4–5; Mabberley D. J. , Jupiter botanicus: Robert Brown of the British Museum (London, 1985), ch. 9; Green J. Reynolds , A history of botany in the United Kingdom from the earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century (London, 1914), 309–53.

Hooker W. J. , The British flora (London, 1830). Intended for beginners, the first four editions of this work were arranged according to the Linnaean system. In the fifth edition of 1842 Hooker used the Jussieuian or natural system, but retained the Linnaean classification “as an easy introduction to a knowledge of the more important or Natural Method” (p. v). It was not until the sixth edition of 1850 (written with Arnott G. A. W. ) that Hooker completely abandoned the Linnaean system. From the 1820s, however, despite objections from some of his Glasgow students, Hooker had argued that medical men should learn the natural system because plants in the same natural order may possess analogous or more powerful medicinal properties. See Hooker J. D. , op. cit. (ref. 135), p. xxix, n. 2.

Forbes Edward , An inaugural lecture on botany, considered as a science, and as a branch of medical education (London, 1843), 18–19. Forbes may have emphasized this point as his counterpart at University College London was John Lindley, one of the foremost proponents of natural systems of classification in botany. For Lindley's low opinion of the Linnaean system, see his An introductory lecture delivered in the University of London (London, 1829). In her forthcoming book on women and botanical culture in England from 1760 to 1860 (Johns Hopkins Press), Ann Shteir argues that one of the underlying aims of Lindley's anti-Linnaean stance was the “de-feminization” of botany.

Letter from William Bentley to Hooker W. J. , 21 January 1846, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: Directors' correspondence, xxiv, letter 62; Hooker W. J. to Wilson W. , 26 November 1846, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: “Letters from W. J. Hooker”, f. 101. In a letter of 26 December 1846, ibid., ff. 104–6, Hooker suggested that at least Wilson should use the artificial system as an index to the new moss classification. Wilson's William Bryologia Britannica (London, 1855) opens with an account of his “grave deliberation” before adopting the natural system.

Shapin Steven and Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), 76–79. See also Shapin Steven , “The politics of observation: Cerebral anatomy and social interests in the Edinburgh phrenology disputes”, in Wallis Roy (ed.), On the margins of science: The social construction of rejected knowledge (Keele, 1979), 139–78.

For arguments that science should be regarded as sets of practices rather than a single conceptual network, see Pickering Andrew , “From science as knowledge to science as practice”, in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 105), 1–26.

Ginswick (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 68), i, 40.

Shiach , op. cit. (ref. 85). See also Bourdieu Pierre , “The uses of the ‘people’”, in Bourdieu , In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology, transl. by Adamson Matthew (Stanford, 1990), 150–5.

I do not intend to imply that botanists like Forbes regarded participation in the same way as artisans. In his address, op. cit. (ref. 185), 18, he made a clear distinction between field botanists who rendered good service by their “hands and energy” in contrast to the botanist in his herbarium who served by using his “head and philosophy”. Rather, my concern in this essay has been to attempt to understand the practice of botany in artisanal terms and to offer an explanation as to why some artisans felt they had the right to be acknowledged as producers of botanical knowledge.

Seed John , “Unitarianism, political economy and the antimonies of liberal culture in Manchester, 1830–50”, Social history, vii (1982), 1–25, p. 13.