John Gascoigne

Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment : useful knowledge and polite culture

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Joseph Banks - a biographical sketch 2. The limits of enlightenment 3. From virtuoso to botanist 4. Antiquarian to anthropologist 5. The principles and practice of improvement 6. The waning of the English Enlightenment Abbreviations Bibliography Index.

Mathematics and Meritocracy: The Emergence of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos

The object of this paper is to examine possible reasons for the emergence of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, an institution which was to serve as a model for the introduction of competitive examinations throughout nineteenth-century Britain. After tracing the evolution of the Tripos, the links between this examination and the changing pattern of teaching within the University are investigated and the possible influence of the threatened parliamentary visitation of 1749 on the formation of the Tripos is also discussed. The degree to which the early Tripos served meritocratic ideals is investigated through an analysis of the pattern of appointment to fellowships and college livings. Lastly, the reasons why mathematics loomed so large in Cambridges early examination system are explored and the situation there contrasted with that at Oxford where logic, rather than mathematics, remained pre-eminent.

The Royal Society, natural history and the peoples of the 'New World(s)', 1660-1800

This paper focuses on the response of the Royal Society to the increasing contact with parts of the globe beyond Europe. Such contact was in accord with the programme of Baconian natural history that the early Royal Society espoused, but it also raised basic questions about the extent and nature of the pursuit of natural history. In particular, the paper is concerned with the attention paid to one particular branch of natural history, the study of other peoples and their customs. Such scrutiny of other peoples in distant lands raised basic questions about what methods natural history should employ and the extent to which it could serve as a foundation for more general and theoretical claims. By taking a wide sweep from the beginnings of the Royal Society until the end of the eighteenth century it is hoped light will be shed on the changing understanding of natural history over this period.

THE EXPANDING HISTORIOGRAPHY OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM

This historiographical review considers recent developments in the writing of imperial history, paying particular attention to the growing emphasis on cultural history. Such an emphasis reflects a close engagement with issues such as the formation of national identity in an imperial context and the ways in which systems of knowledge – including religion, science, and notions of gender – were linked with structures of empire. The extent to which cultural history intersects with concerns of literary scholars and anthropologists – in its engagement with travel literature, for example – further indicates the increasingly interdisciplinary character of imperial history. In conclusion, the review raises the issue of the limits, as well as the strengths, that flow from the expanding scope of cultural history, as well as offering suggestions as to why imperial history is likely to become increasingly important in a globalized world.

From Bentley to the Victorians: The Rise and Fall of British Newtonian Natural Theology

The article explores the reasons for the rise to prominence of Newtonian natural theology in the period following the publication of the Principia in 1687, its continued importance throughout the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, and possible explanations for its rapid decline in the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the career of Newtonian natural theology cannot be explained solely in terms of internal intellectual developments such as the theology of Newtons clerical admirers or the impact of the work of Hume or of Charles Darwin. While such intellectual movements are undoubtedly of considerable importance in accounting for the rise and fall of Newtonian natural theology, they do not of themselves explain why British society was more receptive to particular bodies of thought in some periods rather than in others. Hence this article – in common with a number of recent studies – attempts to draw some connections between the growth of Newtonian natural theology and the character of Augustan society and politics; it also attempts to link the decline of this tradition with such nineteenth-century developments as the growing separation between church and state and the secularization of the universities and of scientific and intellectual life more generally.

From Science to Religion: Justifying French Pacific Voyaging and Expansion in the Period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy

Abstract What explains the generous state sponsorship of the French Pacific voyages of scientific exploration in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy, and what links did these voyages have with the beginnings of a French Pacific empire from 1842? While it is argued that the early voyages owed much to state advancement of science, this goal receded as a reviving France became increasingly imperial minded. In justifying imperial expansion into the Pacific, the French monarchy turned increasingly to another source of national identity and global influence: the activities of French missionaries. Though the promotion of French missions did not constitute a primary goal of French Pacific expeditions, their reports helped to strengthen the alliance between French missions and an increasingly expansionist state. Ironically it was the voyagers’ attention to religion rather than science that was to be more directly linked with the foundations of a French Pacific empire.

Science, politics, and universities in Europe, 1600-1800

Contents: Isaac Barrows academic milieu: Interregnum and Restoration Cambridge The universities and the Scientific Revolution: the case of Newton and Restoration Cambridge The Cambridge curriculum in the age of Newton as revealed through the accounts of Samuel Blithe Politics, patronage and Newtonianism: the Cambridge example Mathematics and meritocracy: the emergence of the Cambridge mathematical tripos Church and state allied:the failure of parliamentary reform of the English universities, 1688-1800 A reappraisal of the role of the universities in the Scientific Revolution The 18th-century scientific community: a prosopographical study The universities and the Enlightenment Index.

Global Intersections: US Whalers and Voyagers and Australasia

ABSTRACT The focus of this article is the way in which United States (US) whalers, and other Pacific voyagers, helped to consolidate an increasingly globalized understanding of the world ‒ with implications for both the US itself and Australasia. The US globalizing enterprises also resulted in greater contact between Europeans and a diverse range of peoples within the Pacific, which encompassed Australian Aborigines and Polynesians. Linking the US and Australia and their globalizing enterprises was a sense of a common culture and origins, along with a shared justification for Pacific expansionism based on Enlightenment conceptions of the promotion of progress.

Cross-cultural knowledge exchange in the age of the Enlightenment

One of the most characteristic features of European exploration of the Pacific was the extent to which it was linked with the Enlightenment-linked goals of promoting the acquisition of knowledge. This was often closely associated with the quest for imperial advantage or the search for wealth since knowledge brought with it the possibility of finding new sources of wealth. As the extent of trade around the world increased so, too, were habits of mind stimulated which formed a natural parallel with those required to accumulate the systematic bodies of knowledge on which science was based. The keeping of ledgers, the insistence on accuracy and the building up of networks which spanned more and more of the globe created a culture which was congruent with the values of science.2 The habits of mind promoted by the accumulation of wealth also

Navigating the Pacific from Bougainville to Dumont d’Urville: French Approaches to Determining Longitude, 1766–1840

Defeated in the Atlantic during the Seven Years’ War, the French turned to the Pacific with the hope of finding new lands and markets that would redress the balance of power so grievously disturbed by the expansionist energies of perfidious Albion. France, however, faced the same problem as its rival in venturing into what was, from a European perspective, largely a new quarter of the globe. Navigating the Pacific magnified across a third of the Earth’s surface the problem of locating one’s position with exactitude; in particular, it required determining longitude at sea. The means to do so had been an increasing preoccupation of both the British and French states and their associated scientific establishments. As Danielle Fauque and Guy Boistel show in this volume, various French techniques for solving this problem had been recorded before the deployment of John Harrison’s epochal invention, his sea watch ‘H4’, in 1761. The conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 was, however, to lead to a fruitful interaction between both nations’ attempts to solve ‘the longitude problem’.