Aileen Fyfe

Conscientious Workmen or Booksellers’ Hacks? The Professional Identities of Science Writers in the Mid‐Nineteenth Century

Existing scholarship on the debates over expertise in mid‐nineteenth‐century Britain has demonstrated the importance of popular writings on the sciences to definitions of scientific authority. Yet while men of science might position themselves in opposition to the stereotype of the merely popular writer, the self‐identity of the popular writer remained ambiguous. This essay examines the careers of William Charles Linnaeus Martin (1798–1864) and Thomas Milner (1808–ca. 1882) and places them in the context of others who made their living by writing works on the sciences for the general reader. Martin wrote on zoology and Milner moved between astronomy, geology, and geography. The essay unravels the close but ambivalent relationship between the professions of authorship and of science and highlights writing as another aspect of scientific practice. Both writers were moderately financially successful, but Martin’s sense of failure and Milner’s satisfaction reflect their contrasting images of their professional identity.

Journals, learned societies and money : Philosophical Transactions ca. 1750–1900

This paper investigates the finances of the Royal Society and its Philosophical Transactions, showing that in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries journal publishing was a drain on funds rather than a source of income. Even without any expectation of profit, the costs of producing Transactions nevertheless had to be covered, and the way in which this was done reflected the changing financial situation of the Society. An examination of the Societys financial accounts and minute books reveals the tensions between the Societys desire to promote the widespread communication of natural knowledge, and the ever-increasing cost of doing so, particularly by the late nineteenth century.

Publishing and the classics : Paley's Natural theology and the nineteenth-century scientific canon

Abstract This article seeks a new way to conceptualise the ‘classic’ work in the history of science, and suggests that the use of publishing history might help avoid the antagonism which surrounded the literary canon wars. It concentrates on the widely acknowledged concept that the key to the classic work is the fact of its being read over a prolonged period of time. Continued reading implies that a work is able to remain relevant to later generations of readers, and, although some of this depends upon the openness of the original text, much more depends on the actions of subsequent publishers and editors in repackaging the work for later audiences. This is illustrated through an examination of the long publishing history of William Paley’s Natural theology (1802). Over the course of the century, Natural theology was read as a work of gentlemanly natural theology, as a work which could be used in a formal or informal education in science, and as a work of Christian apologetic. These transformations occurred because of the actions of the later publishers and editors who had to make the work suit the current interests of the literary marketplace. Comparisons are made to Constitution of man, Vestiges of the natural history of creation and Origin of species.

350 years of scientific periodicals

If all the books in the world, except the Philosophical Transactions , were destroyed, it is safe to say that the foundations of physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though incompletely, recorded.[1][1] Thus,

Making public ahead of print: Meetings and publications at the Royal Society, 1752–1892

This essay examines the interplay between the meetings and publications of learned scientific societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when journals were an established but not yet dominant form of scholarly communication. The ‘making public’ of research at meetings, long before actual ‘publication’ in society periodicals, enabled a complex of more or less formal sites of communication and discussion ahead of print. Using two case studies from the Royal Society of London—Jan Ingen-Housz in 1782 and John Tyndall in 1857 to 1858—we reveal how different individuals navigated and exploited the power structures, social activities and seasonal rhythms of learned societies, all necessary precursors to gaining admission to the editorial processes of society journals, and trace the shifting significance of meetings in the increasingly competitive and diverse realm of Victorian scientific publishing. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these historical perspectives for current discussions of the ‘ends’ of the scientific journal.

The Royal Society and the prehistory of peer review, 1665-1965

The research for this paper was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, grant AH/K001841/1

Uncomfortable departments: British historians of science and the importance of disciplinary communities

This paper explores issues around disciplinary belonging and academic identity. Historians of science learn to think and practise like historians in terms of research practice, but this paper shows that British historians of science do not think of themselves as belonging to the disciplinary community of historians. They may be confident that they do history, but they insist that there is a distinction between historians and historians of science. That distinction is marked by an exaggeration of their differences with general historians, and a strong emphasis on the social value of the contacts and friendships offered by the national and international disciplinary community. In this vision, university departments are no longer seen as the congenial, safe intellectual homes described by previous scholars but are potentially uncomfortable places where academics with different training, experiences and expectations must mix. The comparatively static structures of universities, despite burgeoning new sub-fields of study, make this case study applicable to a far wider range of disciplines.

How female fellows fared at the Royal Society

Archive study shows that formal inclusion of women does not automatically lead to their full participation, say Aileen Fyfe and Camilla Mørk Røstvik. Archive study shows that formal inclusion of women does not automatically lead to their full participation, say Aileen Fyfe and Camilla Mørk Røstvik.