Brothers in Science: Science and Fraternal Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Clark Peter , “Sociability and urbanity: Clubs and societies in the eighteenth-century city”, The H. J. Dyos Memorial Lecture (Leicester, 1986). See also Timbs John , Clubs and club life in London (London, 1872), and Besant Walter , London in the nineteenth century (London, 1909), 259–67.

By 1819, according to Thompson E. P. , the British working class was “perhaps the most ‘clubbable’ in Europe”. See Thompson E. P. , The making of the English working class (London, 1988), 676. Association among artisans with botanical interests is discussed in Secord Anne , “Science in the pub: Artisan botanists in early nineteenth-century Lancashire”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 269–315.

The late century Chemical Club was not related to the one that existed early in the century. For the early nineteenth-century Chemical Club, see Bud Robert Roberts Gerrylyn K. , Science versus practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1984), 22.

On the new history of fraternalism, see refs 7 and 8. For two somewhat different views on the theory behind calls for a new history of masculinity see Tosh John , “What should historians do with masculinity? Reflections on nineteenth-century Britain”, History workshop journal , no. 38 (1994), 179–202; and Mort Frank , “Crisis points: Masculinities in history and social theory”, Gender and history , vi/1 (April 1994), 124–30. Tosh reminds us that gender must be seen as a relational category, with studies of masculinity making clear the relations of power between men and women as well as among different masculinities. Tosh thus retains a belief in the usefulness of a reformulated idea of patriarchy, something Frank Mort seems to question in his call for a complete descent into post-structuralism. Tosh might criticize the present paper for being overly-concerned with the ideas behind the culture of scientific manliness, to the detriment of attention that might be given to the structural forces that opened the doors of science only to certain men. The two concerns are of course related and we address this in the conclusion.

The innovative social theory of James S. Coleman is a guide to these problems. Though focused on the late twentieth century, Coleman provides some possible ways in which we might conceive of the relationships among and between individual and corporate behaviours. Coleman , Foundations of social theory (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1990).

The last three of these are associated more generally with the rise of the professional and business classes. For a more general discussion of professional goals, ideals and career hierarchies of a slightly later period, see Perkin Harold , The rise of professional society: England since 1880 (London, 1989). The notion of ‘independence’ also needs some deconstruction; see, for example, Davidoff Leonore Hall Catherine , Family fortunes: Men and women of the English middle class, 1780–1850 (Chicago, 1987), Part 2, for the role of female family members in sustaining the independent man. For examples of deconstruction of independent success in science see Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1994), chap. 8; Browne Janet , Charles Darwin: Voyaging (London, 1995); and Gay Hannah , “Invisible resource: William Crookes and his circle of support, 1871–81”, The British journal for the history of science, xxix (1996), 311–36.

Carnes Mark C. , Secret ritual and manhood in Victorian America (New Haven and London, 1989), studies fraternalism in its role of providing young men with a rite of passage in their journey from the maternal and evangelical culture of childhood to the manly and worldly realm of work, politics and society beyond the home. Similar themes have been discussed generally in relation to nineteenth-century America in Rotundo E. Anthony , American manhood: Transformations in masculinity from the revolution to the modern era (New York, 1993).

Another set of themes has emerged from Mary Ann Clawson whose historical sociology shows fraternalism mediating class and career tensions. Clawson has shown how fraternalism, by utilizing often contradictory metaphors of kinship, craftsmanship, chivalry, and militarism, engendered a masculinity that gave brotherhoods ways to express social distinctions, while maintaining presumptions about appropriate roles for women. See her Constructing brotherhood: Class, gender, and fraternalism (Princeton, 1989).

The importance of freemasonry as a medium of enlightened ideas and society has been recently demonstrated in Jacob Margaret , Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century Europe (New York and Oxford, 1991). For a study of freemasonry as a secularizing force in America, see Dumenil Lynn , Freemasonry and American culture, 1880–1930 (Princeton, 1984).

Wilson G. Geikie A. (eds), Memoir of Edward Forbes (London, 1861), 188. The memoir by Wilson and Geikie can be read as a primary document. Published in 1861, shortly after the death of Forbes, the contributions of Wilson and Geikie display great empathy with Forbes's moral outlook and with his ideological position more generally. George Wilson was an original member of the Order of the Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth and the original biographer. He died before completing the memoir and the work was finished by his protégé, Alexander Geikie.

For more on Forbes see Mills Eric L. , “A view of Edward Forbes: Naturalist”, Archives of natural history, xi (1984), 365–93. For information on the memoir, see Browne E. Janet , “The making of the Memoir of Edward Forbes F.R.S.”, Archives of natural history, x (1981), 205–19.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 190–3. For more on the University Maga, see Browne Janet , “Squibs and snobs: Science in humorous British undergraduate magazines around 1830”, History of science, xxx (1992), 165–97.

It became less exclusive when Forbes moved into the world of professional naturalists. By the 1840s the membership was over one hundred. See Mills , op. cit. (ref. 8), 371.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 196–7.

(Greek: Wine, love, learning).

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 199.

The reward culture as it relates to public schools and freemasonry in nineteenth-century Britain is interestingly described in Rich P. J. , Elixir of empire: The English public schools, ritualism, freemasonry and imperialism (London, 1989). In science this cultural aspect can be seen simply by reading many of the short obituaries or biographical notes of the period. Awards and honours, especially those given by the nation, are what get listed above anything else.

Wilson, as noted above (ref. 9), was Forbes's biographer. Chap. VII of the Memoir describes student club life in which he took part.

Reid Wemyss , Memoirs and correspondence of Lyon Playfair (London, 1899), 39. Playfair left Edinburgh and, after spending some more time with Graham in London, went to Liebig in Giessen where he took a Ph.D. In 1841 he was working as a chemist in the Primrose calico printing works near Clitheroe. While there he formed a small scientific club. John Mercer from the nearby Oakenshaw works was a member. Reid , op. cit., 54.

For more on the making of careers in early nineteenth-century Britain see: Heyck T. W. , The transformation of intellectual life in Victorian England (London, 1982), chap. 3; Secord James A. , “The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a research school, 1839–55”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 223–75.

See Rehbock Philip F. , The philosophical naturalists: Themes in early nineteenth-century British biology (London, 1983), 97. Forbes also composed a “Dredging song” that was frequently sung at meetings of the Red Lions. See Gardiner Brian G. , “Edward Forbes, Richard Owen and the Red Lions”, Archives of natural history, xx (1993), 349–72, p. 350.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 242. The Rosy Band and Holly Tree (each with many allusions) were part of the Brotherhood insignia.

Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (IC) archives, Andrew Ramsay papers, 5/1.2.

IC Archives, Andrew Ramsay Papers, 5/1.2: The Constitution and Government of the Order.

For some other cases, see Hobsbawm E. J. , Primitive rebels: Studies in archaic forms of social movement in the 19th and 20th centuries (Manchester, 1959), 157–8.

On light as metaphor in masonic literature, see Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 8), 146.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 201.

See Browne Janet , The Secular Ark (New Haven, 1983), 114–23.

His father's business had failed. See Gardiner , op. cit. (ref. 19), 352.

See Huxley Leonard , Life and letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (London, 1903), i, 168–9; also, Desmond Adrian , Huxley: The devil's disciple (London, 1994), 59 and passim.

See Howarth O. J. R. , The British Association for the Advancement of Science: A retrospective, 1831–1931 (London, 1931), 91.

Howarth , op. cit. (ref. 29), 93.

Bennett John H. , quoted in Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 247. Bennett, as noted above, was a friend of Forbes and a member of the Brotherhood; an Edinburgh M.D., 1837, he made a major career.

The Red Lion, Church Street, Birmingham.

This cultural pattern was not unusual. Similar behaviour has been recorded for early nineteenth-century political clubs. Many of these had toasts to manliness and retailed pornographic materials. See McCalman Iain , Radical underworld: Prophets, revolutionaries and pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge, 1988), chap. 10.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 420.

Howarth , op. cit. (ref. 29), 91.

For example, by 1851 when the BAAS met in Ipswich, Thomas Huxley noted that among the forty Red Lions were “the most distinguished members of the association”. It was here that Huxley first met and befriended John Tyndall and Joseph Hooker, all future members of that most exclusive (only nine members) of Victorian scientific dining clubs, the X-Club, see Huxley Leonard , op. cit. (ref. 28), i, 126 and 132. Three years later John Tyndall wrote of the Red Lion dinners held during the Liverpool BAAS meeting, that “we had a specimen of the tendency of human nature to relapse into the error which it once condemned … the last dinner was almost double the expense of the President's, and the brilliancy of … eloquence … was not in proportion”. Eve A. S. Creasey C. H. , Life and work of John Tyndall (London, 1945), 55.

By ‘youngish’ is meant that membership was largely of men in their late twenties to early thirties. One or two older men also joined. By 1854, the year the club ended, most were in their late thirties or early forties. Richard Owen (1804–92) and Edwin Lankester (1814–74) were active members. Together with Forbes they were also active in the formation of the Ray Society, founded in 1844 for the purpose of publishing papers by naturalists.

The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), Thomas Archer Hirst Journal, 21 January 1854.

See Clawson Carnes , op. cit. (ref. 7). Other writings of Forbes show typical Victorian prejudice towards women. See Mills , op. cit. (ref. 9), 375 and his citation of Forbes E. , Literary papers by the late Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S. (London, 1855).

Playfair writes of his friendship with Forbes as lasting till Forbes's death. See Reid , op. cit. (ref. 17), 39–40.

Reid , op. cit. (ref. 17), 63–65 and 142. In 1853 the Geological Survey, the Museum and the School of Mines were united under the Science and Art Department of the Board of Trade and, for a while, the school was known as the Metropolitan School of Science Applied to Mining and the Arts. See Register of the Associates and Old Students of the Royal College of Chemistry, Royal School of Mines and Royal College of Science (London, 1896).

According to David Knight, Forbes earned £300 per annum when he began work with the Geological Survey in 1844: The Age of Science: The scientific world-view in the nineteenth century (Oxford, 1986), 98. According to Gardiner , op. cit. (ref. 19), 352, he was paid £100 p.a. by King's College and £150 as curator for the Geological Society (early 1840s). Forbes, and others in similar situations, also earned some money from scientific journalism, reviewing, etc. Geoffrey Best claims that in the mid-century, “£300 did not carry a family man far up the slopes of gentility”: Geoffrey Best, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–75 (London, 1979), 110.

IC archives, Andrew Ramsay papers, 5/3. Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street, where the Red Lions often met, was a popular meeting place for scientists at this time. Beef steak dinners were considered the proper fare for ‘lions’.

IC archives, see Royal School of Mines: Minutes of Council, entry for 24 June 1852 gives details of the start of the gold lectures.

Reprinted in Gardiner , op. cit. (ref. 19), 354.

An official notice of dissolution was sent by the then secretary, Arthur Henfrey, 11 December 1854. For a copy, see IC archives, Andrew Ramsay papers, 5/5.

Francis William had studied chemistry in Berlin and Giessen. He also had an interest in entomology. But, as a member of the publishing firm Taylor & Francis, he worked largely there. See Brock W. H. Meadows A. J. , Taylor and Francis and the development of science publishing (London, 1984).

Peter John Gassiot was also a member of the Royal Society's Philosophical Club and a founder member of the Chemical Society. He appears to have been very convivial. He had a private income, could afford expensive equipment, and carried out many experiments. He frequently entertained scientists at his house at Clapham Common.

At the British Association Red Lion meetings, Lankester, who was known as the Lion-Chaplain, said grace in the manner of “Brother Lions let us prey …”: Gardiner , op. cit. (ref. 19), 350.

See Timbs , op. cit. (ref. 1), “Red Lion Club”.

Members of ‘the family’ included the mineralogist Nevil Story-Maskelyne and the chemists Alexander Williamson and Henry Roscoe. Brodie and Story-Maskelyne later moved to Oxford University. For some details on ‘the family’ as remembered by an eighty-five-year-old, see Royal Society of Chemistry, Henry Roscoe correspondence: Story-Maskelyne to Roscoe, 4 November 1907.

For example, both J. Norman Lockyer and William Crookes held regular salons. See Lockyer T. Mary Lockyer Winifred with the assistance of Professor H. Dingle, The life and work of Sir Norman Lockyer (London, 1928), 33–34. Lockyer held a salon during the 1860s when he was a young married man; his wife was a scientific translator and part of the intellectual community. Crookes held a regular salon on Sunday evenings, with coffee and cigars, in his Kensington Park Road house from the 1880s on. But this was only after he had established himself as a major scientist. Invitation cards can be seen in several collections. See, for example, King's College, London, C. L. Bloxam papers, Box 1.18.

The Adelaide Gallery was initially set up by a number of wealthy men to exhibit machinery and various displays illustrating important scientific discoveries. Lectures were also given. The aim was to educate the public but by 1837 it was clear that the enterprise was not a success and the proprietors founded the Royal Polytechnic Institution to further their ends. The old Adelaide Gallery became a dance hall. See Spring Robin John , “The development of chemistry in London in the nineteenth century: Studies in the social history of chemistry”, Ph.D. thesis, King's College, London, 1978, 261–2.

IC archives, Andrew Ramsay diary, KGA/Ramsay/ 1/8, 1847; 1/10 1848.

Some X-Club socializing included wives. This group had ideals not unlike that of the Brotherhood. “Besides personal friendship, the bond that united us was devotion to science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas. Amongst ourselves there is perfect outspokenness… the first meeting was very pleasant and ‘jolly’” (RI, Hirst Journal, 6 November 1864). Hirst already had an active social life that included four other of the nine X-Club members. It appears that the excitement surrounding the so-called “Scientists' Declaration” may have precipitated the club's formation. The chemist Herbert McLeod had circulated a letter which he asked people to sign, deploring the use of science for “casting doubt upon the truth and Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures” (RI, Hirst Diary, 28 August 1864). This, Hirst and the others had refused to do, and joined in opposition to the very idea. All the X-Club members did very well in the ‘profane’ world while professing their “devotion to science, pure and free”. Most of them had major careers with all the rewards scientific society could offer. But only Frankland, as will be mentioned below, negotiated the tricky terrain of career advancement to become respected as not just a good, but a major scientist (and a noble patriarch) by his peers and by posterity. For more on the X-Club see Jensen J. Vernon , “The X-Club: Fraternity of Victorian scientists”, The British journal for the history of science, iii (1970), 63–72; MacLeod Roy M. , “The X-Club: A social network of science in late-Victorian England”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxiv (1970), 305–23; Barton Ruth , ‘“An influential set of chaps’: The X-Club and Royal Society politics, 1864–85”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 53–81. For the “Scientists' Declaration” see Brock W. H. MacLeod R. M. , “The Scientists' Declaration: Reflexions on science and belief in the wake of Essays and reviews, 1864–5”, The British journal for the history of science, ix (1976), 39–66.

Wilson Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 9), 380.

An interesting example of wealth paving the way, among London scientists of this period, is that of Warren De La Rue (1815–89), member of the metropolitan B-Club and the Royal Society Club. He had been a student at the Royal College of Chemistry while also working with the family stationery and printing business. The firm of De La Rue's later printing of bank notes and stamps owed much to his innovations (and to those of his employee, Hugo Müller, who was also a member of the B-Club). Wealth, government connections and the public display of generosity, such as allowing Faraday the use of his private laboratories, made entry into patriarchal fraternity possible while he was still a young man. See Houseman Lorna , The house that Thomas built (London, 1968).

During this period, Michael Faraday had the most saintly reputation of all. What separated him from Humphry Davy, for example, was not just his scientific achievements, but also his behaviour and demeanour. Davy's calculating ambition was clear to observers and had precluded him from attaining the status of noble patriarch. The idea of a noble patriarch will be discussed further below. When reading the letters sent to Lyon Playfair's widow after his death, we found it surprising to see how few were from his scientist contemporaries — A sign of loss of esteem in the scientific world: IC archives, Playfair papers; album of letters of condolence, uncatalogued.

Bonney T. G. , Annals of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society (London, 1919), 11.

IC archives, Henry Armstrong papers, Chemical Society documents, C 187/4. This is a typed document, probably made by Edward Frankland Armstrong from a document given to his father by William Phipson Beale. It is interesting that he used the ‘don’ terminology. Howarth , op. cit. (ref. 29), 306, saw the Red Lion Club as a “protest against dons and donnishness in science”. Note, also, that Henry Armstrong named his son after his old teacher whom he revered as a noble patriarch.

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), B-Club papers, Rules of the Club. By and large, this was a masonic pattern. Freemasonry in Britain was not completely egalitarian and owed something to aristocratic ideas of order in society. It used the language of brotherhood yet there were hierarchies within the lodges. The brothers took turns as officers (though some aristocrats were long-term office holders). The ritual expressed a hierarchical world but the brothers viewed themselves as a select group of equals. This is a modern development, not unique to masons — Hierarchy in a culture which supposes equality. It was clearly a problematic development in the world of science.

Quoted by Alexander Scott in his presidential address to the Chemical Society, Journal of the Chemical Society , 30 March 1916, 348. A Lancastrian, Edward Chambers Nicholson had been apprenticed to a druggist before attending the Royal College of Chemistry at the age of eighteen. In 1853 he founded the dye firm Simpson, Nicholson & Maule. George Maule was also one of Hofmann's students at the College. See Brock William H. , The Fontana history of chemistry (London, 1992), 301–5. See also ref. 65 below.

RSC, B-Club papers, “Rules of the Club”.

Likely coincidental in this case, but bees were a masonic symbol; see Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 8), 167 for an account of some Dutch masonic hives.

In addition to those already mentioned the Bees included: Frederick Augustus Abel (1827–1902), son of a music teacher in Woolwich, and graduate of the Royal College of Chemistry; in the early 1860s he had just become Ordnance Chemist to the War Department and was based in Woolwich. His brother Charles Abel, also a member, was “a ‘clubbable’ man of the first class” and a well known patent agent. Frederick Field (1826–85) was born in Lambeth where his father had a chandlery and soap making firm; after studies at the Royal College of Chemistry he worked in Chile at a copper-smelting works, but by the early 1860s he had returned to London and was professor of chemistry at the money-strapped London Institution. Moritz Holzmann had trained as a chemist with many of the others at the Royal College and was Secretary to the Prince of Wales. Augustus Mathiessen (1831–70), the son of a merchant, had studied chemistry at Giessen with Liebig, and with Bunsen in Heidelberg, before returning to study further with Hofmann at the Royal College; in the early 1860s he was a lecturer in chemistry at St Mary's Hospital. Henry Noad (1815–77) was the son of a cloth manufacturer in the west of England; also a student at the Royal College, he took a Ph.D. at Giessen and by the 1860s was professor of chemistry at St George's Hospital and a successful consulting chemist. William Odling (1829–1921) was a physician and the son of a physician; he had been a student both at Nesbitt's School of Chemistry and Agriculture, Kennington Road and at the Royal College of Chemistry, and he had also studied chemistry in Paris with Gerhardt; in the early 1860s he was teaching chemistry at Guy's Hospital where he had been a student of medicine and was the newly appointed Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth. Charles Tookey and Astley Price were chemists attached to the Museum of Practical Geology; Price was also much engaged as an expert witness in patent litigation. Russell William (1830–1909) was a chemist with a Ph.D from Heidelberg and who in the 1860s was professor of natural philosophy at Bedford College. John Van Voorst was a scientific publisher. Wanklyn James (1834–1906) was another Heidelberg-trained chemist who in the 1860s was a professor at the London Institution. Hugo Müller was a German chemist who was employed at De La Rue. Trenham Reeks was Registrar at the Museum of Practical Geology. Bauerman Hilary (1835–1909) was a metallurgist associated with the Geological Survey and was a professor at Woolwich. George Carey Foster, trained in chemistry, was Professor of Physics at University College, London. E. F. Best was the keeper of the Survey maps at the museum in Jermyn Street. Later members included the chemical manufacturer E. Chambers Nicholson, W. S. Dallas (Secretary of the Geological Society), W. Chandler Roberts (later Roberts-Austen, professor in the Royal School of Mines) and J. Norman Lockyer, the founder of Nature. Much of this information comes from a memoir by another of the Bees, William Phipson Beale, who had been a fellow chemistry student of some of the others, but later became a barrister. A typescript summary of this (by Edward Frankland Armstrong), from which the above quotation is taken, is in the Imperial College archives, Henry Armstrong papers C187/1. Other biographical material from Bentley Jonathan , “History of the School of Chemistry at the Royal College of Science and its predecessors during the nineteenth century”, Chemistry Part II thesis, University of Oxford, 1962 (copy in IC archives).

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”. Abel, like Lankester, was known for his irreverent performance of grace.

RSC, B-Club papers, “The chemical alphabet”. This and other verses can be found also in the personal collections of a number of chemists. For example, some can be seen in the James Dewar papers at the Royal Institution. Abel was held in high esteem also because of the dangerous nature of much of his work. He had worked with explosives and on coal dust explosions in mines. Manliness and a dangerous scientific life is yet another theme that would be interesting to pursue.

RSC, B-Club papers, “Discursive chemical notes in rhyme”.

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”.

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical alphabet”.

RSC, B-Club papers, “Discursive chemical notes in rhyme”. Graham's ‘nobility’ was widely noted. For example, “The temptations of technical chemistry, by yielding to which he soon would have secured a fortune, he disregarded. He dedicated his life to the nobler object of advancing the bounds of natural knowledge and so adding to those truths which must ever remain for the good and furtherance of humanity” (Joseph Prestwich, quoted in Bellot H. Hale , University College, London, 1826–1926 (London, 1929), 128).

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”.

Bud Roberts , op. cit. (ref. 3), 24, cite the interesting example of the chemical manufacturer Luke Howard who became a respected savant in nineteenth-century London. He did so by making contributions to meteorology, a field from which he had no material gain. He could not afford to share his chemical knowledge and, had he done so, would not have had the respect that accrued from independent discovery. Howard was a founding member of another scientific fraternity, the Askesian Society (1817). Co-founders were the pharmacist William Allen, the chemist Richard Phillips, and his brother, the mineralogist William Phillips. Allen had taught the others chemistry at his Plough Court Pharmacy. The Askesians and some other scientific clubs are discussed in Ian Inkster, “Aspects of the history of science and science culture in Britain, 1780–1850”, in Inkster Ian Morrell Jack (eds), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture, 1780–1850 (London, 1983), 11–54.

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”. The poem refers to Playfair at Edinburgh University and his 1858 inaugural lecture as professor, “A century of chemistry”. There are several contemporary references to the nineteenth century as being the century of chemistry. See, for example, the speech by W. J. Pope given at a banquet for Henry Armstrong. He speaks of “the golden age of chemistry” and of “our subject besieged, undermined and finally carried by storm” (speech printed in The central, viii, no. 25 (1911), available in Imperial College archives).

RSC, B-Club papers, “Discursive chemical notes in rhyme”. Thomas Graham had a statue in Glasgow. Clearly, Hanoverian monarchs were seen as less deserving than brilliant chemists of such public recognition.

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”.

IC archives, RCC minutes of the annual general meetings, 1846–53.

RSC, B-Club papers, “The feast of the blues”.

Forbes D. Price Astley , “The clearance of the waters”. This poem is reprinted in Scott , op. cit. (ref. 63), 345. The quote refers to attempts to make manure from sewerage by the addition of ‘phosphate of alumina’.

RSC, B-Club papers, “A chemical review”.

RI, Thomas Hirst Journal, 21 January 1854.

RCS B-Club Papers, “Discursive chemical notes in rhyme” (printed by Van Voorst J. , 1876).

Major trades and crafts traditionally had ballads that narrated their history and celebrated their heroes. For example, see Thompson , op. cit. (ref. 2), chap. 9 for poems by clothiers and weavers.

Other members included Edward Frankland (1825–99), then president of the Chemical Society (Alexander Williamson (1824–1904) joined the next year when he became president); Story-Maskelyne M. H. Nevil (1823–1911), Oxford-educated Keeper of Minerals at the British Museum; Spiller John (1833–1921), who worked in his brother's dye firm, Brooke, Simpson & Spiller; and Armstrong Henry E. (1848–1937), who, at the time, taught at both St Bartholomew's Hospital and the London Institution. Among the first additional members to be elected were Heinrich Debus (1824–1916, an old friend of Edward Frankland, who made a career in England and became Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich), Gladstone J. H. McLeod Herbert Perkin William De La Rue Warren Odling William Price Astley . Several of these people were also Bees.

IC archives, Henry Armstrong papers, C183.

See Eyre J. Vargas , Henry Edward Armstrong 1848–1917: The doyen of British chemists and pioneer of technical education (London, 1958), 79 and passim. Some scientists were able to join fraternities of the older type. For example, Silvanus Thompson who, at the age of 34, became Principal of the Finsbury Technical College, belonged to Ye Sette of Odd Volumes. This was a fraternity of bibliophiles. Thompson was known as Brother Magnetizer, because of the nature of his scientific interests and because he had translated William Gilbert's De magnete into English. See Thompson Jane Smeal Thompson Helen G. , Silvanus Thompson: His life and letters (London, 1920), 226–52.

This is no longer standing. The construction of the present Freemasons' Hall, among other things, resulted in the redevelopment of the area.

IC Archives, Henry Armstrong papers: Chemical Society papers, W. H. Perkin dinner programme, 23 April 1884.

The professors were legitimate targets on these occasions which, in this respect, echoed the ‘world turned upside down’ of the earlier clubs. For example M. O. Forster, who entered the Finsbury Technical College in 1888 recalled the annual dinners of the chemistry department and the way in which his professor, Raphael Meldola, while a target, joined in the camaraderie: Marchant James (ed.), Raphael Meldola: Reminiscences of his worth and work by those who knew him, together with a chronological list of his publications (London, 1916).

See Hobsbawm Eric Ranger Terence (eds), The invention of tradition (Cambridge, 1983).

See, for example, Clark , op. cit. (ref. 1); Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 8); and Morris R. J. , “Clubs, societies and associations”, in Thompson F. M. L. (ed.), The Cambridge social history of Britain 1750–1950 , iii (Cambridge, 1990), 395–443.

As we have suggested, this tradition changed considerably in the twentieth century, with scientific sociability becoming increasingly couple-centred and bureaucratically organized; this model is changing again at the end of the century with the increasing access of women to the professions and the increasingly specialized nature of tasks in a mature industrial economy. Specialization has led to a multiplicity of professional sub-groups, and increasing educational requirements further the social and moral distance between the established and the novice. It seems reasonable to propose that people continue to identify their position in modern professional hierarchies through identifying themselves in various groups that are often delimited by patterns of sociability.

It is perhaps not surprising that many of the men discussed above were also admirers of Thomas Carlyle and shared his belief in an aristocracy of talent governing the nation.