Scientific Identity and Authority in the Victorian Periodical Press

Abstract

The Victorian period was one of great transformation in science. New discoveries and revolutionary theories transformed contemporaries’ understanding of the natural world and their place in it, while the methods and parameters of science were widely debated. With no standard training or accreditation, there was uncertainty over who could claim scientific authority. Historians have characterised the period as one of increasing specialisation and elitism within science but this was an uneven and contested process. The world of print, too, was undergoing a revolution. Technological and regulatory changes led to an exponential growth of newspapers, journals, and books. Increasing literacy and economic prosperity created new, more diverse reading publics. The worlds of science and print came together in the periodical press where an array of writers, from anonymous hacks to scientific luminaries, sought to amuse and inform readers. For scientific men, the periodical press offered a source of income and the possibility, perhaps, of building or enhancing their scientific reputations. It was in public forums that claims to individual and collective authority were made and contested. This thesis examines the nexus between popularisation and scientific authority through a comparative study of two men: John Tyndall, an eminent physicist and renowned lecturer, and George Henry Lewes, a journalist by profession and respected physiologist and psychologist. Both men were prolific popularisers and both men used popular forums to fashion their identities as scientific workers and to promote their research and ideas. This thesis examines the personas they constructed in their popular exposition; their notions of science and scientific authority; their objectives, ideals, and practices as popular lecturers and writers; and the terms on which their claims to authority were endorsed and challenged by other writers in the periodical press. It finds widespread agreement regarding the bases of scientific authority but diverging conceptions of popularisation and of the relationship between science and its publics. More broadly, it demonstrates the porosity of the literature-science divide, and the varied ways it was constructed in the contest for scientific authority.