Diarmid A. Finnegan

Natural history societies, fieldwork and local knowledge in nineteenth-century Scotland: towards a historical geography of civic science

This paper examines the role of fieldwork in the activities of natural history societies in Victorian Scotland. Fieldwork, it is argued, was an important constituent in the making of local natural knowledge. Being and doing ‘in the field’ was a means to establish through fieldwork given scientific fields and, in turn, to promote civic identity through scientific conduct.

The work of ice: glacial theory and scientific culture in early Victorian Edinburgh

Edinburgh has long been recognized as one important place where early glacial theory was promoted and debated. This paper, rather than attend to the longer-term development of glacial theory, focuses on the ways in which the theory was assessed, disseminated and received in and through the scientific culture of early Victorian Edinburgh. Edinburghs scientific and educational societies, science journals, newpapers and field sites are brought to view through examining their engagement with, and use of, early glacial theory. Tracking the theorys passage across a range of spaces bound up with the promotion of geology in mid-nineteenth-century Edinburgh signals relations between local geological endeavour and other sorts of scientific and cultural work. Particular, though not exclusive, attention is given to practices more readily defined as popular

Exeter-Hall Science and Evangelical Rhetoric in Mid-Victorian Britain

In the early and mid-Victorian period public pronouncements by evangelicals were often described as the antithesis of rational speech. The voice of science, by contrast, was routinely equated with the voice of reason. This disparity was particularly clear in satirical and critical commentary about the platform rhetoric associated with Londons Exeter Hall, a key meeting place for evangelicals and a metonym for evangelical expressions of Christian belief. It was against this backdrop that the fledgling Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) inaugurated a popular series of lectures in 1845. Held in Exeter Hall from 1848, the series ran until 1865 and proved to be immensely popular. By investigating the ways in which the promotion of science was combined with religious exhortation in the YMCA lectures, this paper examines how evangelicals positioned themselves with respect to the growing cultural authority of science. The paper also argues that these efforts were indelibly marked by the Hall and the commun...

Catholics, Science and Civic Culture in Victorian Belfast

The connections between science and civic culture in the Victorian period have been extensively, and intensively, investigated over the past several decades. Limited attention, however, has been paid to Irish urban contexts. Roman Catholic attitudes towards science in the nineteenth century have also been neglected beyond a rather restricted set of thinkers and topics. This paper is offered as a contribution to addressing these lacunae, and examines in detail the complexities involved in Catholic engagement with science in Victorian Belfast. The political and civic geographies of Catholic involvement in scientific discussions in a divided town are uncovered through an examination of five episodes in the unfolding history of Belfasts intellectual culture. The paper stresses the importance of attending to the particularities of local politics and scientific debate for understanding the complex realities of Catholic appropriations of science in a period and urban context profoundly shaped by competing political and religious factions. It also reflects more generally on how the Belfast story supplements and challenges scholarship on the historical relations between Catholicism and science.

Eve and Evolution: Christian Responses to the First Woman Question, 1860–1900

Historians of encounters between evolutionary science and Christianity have long been aware of the significance placed upon debates about the applicability of evolution to Adam. It has not been widely noticed, however, that in more conservative circles the creation of Eve was frequently thought to be a more difficult problem to solve. This essay examines how, in distinctive ways, the creation of Eve became a point of contention among three communities of conservative Christian thinkers grappling with the implications of evolutionary theory in the period 1860–1900.

James Croll, metaphysical geologist

James Croll (1821–90) occupies a prominent position in the history of physical geology, and his pioneering work on the causes of long-term climate change has been widely discussed. During his life he benefited from the patronage of leading men of science; his participation in scientific debates was widely acknowledged, not least through his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876. For all that, the intellectual contribution that Croll himself considered to be of most significance—his articles and two books on metaphysics—has attracted very little attention. In addressing this neglect, it is argued here that Crolls interest in metaphysics, grounded in his commitment to a Calvinist form of Christianity, was central to his life and thought. Examining together Crolls geophysical and metaphysical writings offers a different and fruitful way of understanding his scientific career and points to the wider significance of metaphysics in late-Victorian scientific culture.

Rocks, skulls and materialism: geology and phrenology in late-Georgian Belfast

Recent years have seen the development of a more nuanced understanding of the emergence of scientific naturalism in the nineteenth century. It has become apparent that scientific naturalism did not emerge sui generis in the years following the publication of Charles Darwins On the origin of species (1859), but was present, if only in incipient form, much earlier in the century. Building on recent scholarship, this article adopts a geographically focused approach and explores debates about geology and phrenology—two of the diverse forms of knowledge that contributed to scientific naturalism—in late-Georgian Belfast. Having provided the venue for John Tyndalls infamous 1874 address as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Belfast occupies a central place in the story of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism. However, in uncovering the intricate and surprising ways in which scientific knowledge gained, or was denied, epistemic and civic credibility in Belfast, this discussion will demonstrate that naturalism, materialism and the relationship between science and religion were matters of public debate in the town long before Tyndalls intervention.

Review of M. Collie and J. Diemer (eds.), Murchison’s Wanderings in Russia: His Geological Exploration of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains 1840 and 1841.

New works in geography Scotland after the Ice Ages: Environment, Archaeology and History 8000 BC‐1000 AD. Kevin Edwards & Ian B.M. Ralston. Pp. 331. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Price £25.00 (pbk). ISBN 0 7486 1736 1 (pbk). New Directions in Rural Tourism. Edited by Derek Hall, Lesley Roberts & Morag Mitchell. Pp. xvii + 237. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003. Price £47.50 (hbk). ISBN 075463633X (hbk). Making Space: Property Development and Urban Planning. Edited by Andrew MacLaran. Pp. 259. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd, 2003. Price £55.00 (hbk), £19.99 (pbk). ISBN 0 340 80826 8 (hbk), 0 340 80827 6 (pbk). Murchisons wanderings in Russia: his geological exploration of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains 1840 and 1841. Edited by Michael Collie & John Diemer. Pp. xv + 474. Nottingham: British Geological Survey, 2004. Price £40.00 (hbk), ISBN 085272 467 2. Geography, gender and the workaday world. Hettner‐Lecture No. 6. Susan Hanson. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Price 19 Euros. ISBN 3–515–08369–3. Physical Geography. A human perspective. Richard Hugget, Sarah Lindley, Helen Gavin & Kate Richardson. London: Hodder Arnold, 2004. Pp. xiv + 515. ISBN 0 340 80962 0 (pbk). Price £24.99 (pbk). Managing Water Resources Past and Present. Julie Trottier & Paul Slack. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 185. ISBN 0 19 926764 2 (hbk). Price £45.00 (hbk). Transportation. A Geographical Analysis. W.A. Black. Pp. xxii + 375. New York: The Guilford Press, 2003. ISBN 1–57230–848–6 (hbk). Price £49.95 (hbk). The Geography of Urban Transportation. Susan Hanson & Genevieve Giuliano (eds). New York: The Guildford Press, 2005. Pp. xii + 419. ISBN 1 59385 055 7 (hbk). Price £45.00 (hbk). Focus on Scotland Volcanoes and the Making of Scotland. Brian Upton. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2004. Pp. viii + 247. ISBN 1 903765 40 4 (hbk). Price £16.95 (pbk).