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‘What is technology?’: education through museums in the mid-nineteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. G. W. Anderson
R. G. W. Anderson
Affiliation:
Director, British Museum, London.
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Abstract

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Type
Presidential Address
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 169 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1992

References

1 Wilson, George, What is Technology? An Inaugural Lecture. Delivered in the University of Edinburgh on November 7, 1855, Edinburgh and London, 1855, p. 3Google Scholar. Note that in using the term ‘English’, Wilson is not intending to differentiate the English from the Scots. He simply means those who use the English tongue.

2 Wilson, George, On the Objects of Technology and industrial Museums. Two Lectures Addressed to the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, in February 1856, Edinburgh and London, 1856, 13, 14.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Inkster, Ian and Morrell, Jack (eds.) Metropolis and Province: Science in British Culture 1780–1850, London, 1983Google Scholar, and Altick, Richard, Shows of London, Cambridge, Mass., 1978.Google Scholar

4 For much biographical detail, see Wilson, Jessie Aitken, Memoirs of George Wilson, Edinburgh, London and Cambridge, 1860, passim.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 79, 81.

6 Ibid., 99.

7 Ibid., 141.

8 Ibid., 161. The natural history collections were still housed at Bloomsbury when Wilson visited them.

9 Hays, J. N., ‘The London lecturing empire’Google Scholar, in Inkster, and Morrell, , op. cit. (3), 91–119.Google Scholar

10 Bud, Robert and Roberts, Gerrylynn K., Science Versus Practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain, Manchester, 1984, 56, 88.Google Scholar

11 Reid, Wemyss, Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Play fair, London, 1899, 93.Google Scholar

12 Wilson, , op. cit. (4), 217.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 244.

14 Shapin, Steven, ‘“Nibbling at the Teats of Science”: Edinburgh and the diffusion of science in the 1830s’Google Scholar, in Inkster, and Morrell, , op. cit. (3), 151–78.Google Scholar

15 Cockburn, H., Journal of Henry Cockburn 1831–1854, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1874, i, 73, 74.Google Scholar

16 Guthrif, Douglas, Extramural Medical Education in Edinburgh, Edinburgh and London, 1965, passim.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 19.

18 Wilson, , op. cit. (4), 263.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 307. This list of lecture courses by Wilson, is not exhaustive: see p. 327Google Scholar for a lecture series to the Young Men's Society, and for ‘occasional lectures in provincial towns’, and p. 328 for lectures on the Chemistry of a Candle (shades of Faraday) to two ragged schools.

20 But see RSSA Minutes of Council (on deposit in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh), vol. 2, fol. 206 (for 21 10 1852)Google Scholar where the Museum is referred to as being part of the new accommodation at 51 George Street. The curator was Alex Jameson at this time. Regulations concerning the museum can be found at fol. 220.

21 Calder, Jenni, Royal Scottish Museum: the Early Years, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh: nd, p. 3Google Scholar. For Adam White, see DNB. Wilson admitted to British Museum, see Wilson, , op. cit. (4), 164.Google Scholar

22 Highland Society letter book 12, letter Maxwell, to the Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T. F., 4 11 1851.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., Maxwell, to Sirde la Beche, Henry, 5 12 1851.Google Scholar

24 Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Minutes of the Council, volume 2 (1841–1858) fol. 192 (minute of meeting for 22 12 1851).Google Scholar

25 Edinburgh University Senate Minutes (volume for 1844–55), meeting of 31 01 1852.Google Scholar

26 Edinburgh University Senate Minutes (volume for 1844–55), meeting of 4 04 1854 (fol. 467).Google Scholar

27 Ibid., fol. 471.

28 West Register House, Edinburgh, File ED4/15, letter of 1 05 1854 from Lyon Playfair.Google Scholar

29 Science Museum Library, London, Playfair's letter book as Science secretary to the Department of Science and Art, copy letter to Forbes, Edward, 22 05 1854, fol. 37.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., copy letter to Wilson, George, 5 06 1854, fol. 42.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 20 February 1855 (incorrectly dated ‘54’) fol. 120.

32 West Register House, Edinburgh, File HH5/27, Memorandum by Playfair, Lyon, c. 24 07 1855.Google Scholar

33 Wilson, , op. cit. (1), 12.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 17.

35 Appendix B to the 3rd Report of the Department of Science and Art ‘Annual Report of the Director of the Industrial Museum of Scotland’ [for 1855], London, 1856, 192.Google Scholar

36 Appendix C to the 4th Report of the Department of Science and Art, ‘Annual Report of the Director of the Industrial Museum of Scotland’ [for 1886], London, 1857, 168.Google Scholar

37 Appendix F to the 5th Report of the Department of Science and Art, ‘Annual Report of the Director of the Industrial Museum of Scotland’ [for 1857], London, 1858, 154.Google Scholar

38 Impey, Oliver and MacGregor, Arthur, The Origins of Museums, Oxford, 1985, 1.Google Scholar

39 Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, Directory of the Industrial Museum of Scotland, London, 1858, 7.Google Scholar

40 Evidence of Festing, Major-General E. R.. See Second Report from the Select Committee on Museums of the Science and Art Department, London, 1898, p. Ixviii.Google Scholar

41 Edinburgh University Senate Minutes (volume for 1855–61), meeting of 9 12 1859, fol. 361.Google Scholar

42 Archer, Thomas C., ‘Report on the Condition and Progress of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art for 1857’, p. 1Google Scholar. (Annual Report published by the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education.)

43 Ibid., Report… for 1874, p. 2.