Second paragraph of third chapter:
When [James] Watt was born on 19 January 1736, his father was a substantial figure, a general merchant, builder, shipwright, carpenter and cabinet-maker, and part owner of several vessels. He made the first crane in Greenock for unloading the heavy, scented bales of tobacco, and into his workshop the captains brought their instruments for repair. This was the trade Watt set his heart on. Instrument-makers were the unsung heroes of the scientific revolution. The sixteenth-century burst of exploration had fostered the mathematics of navigation and the improvement of astrolabes, quadrants and compasses, while on land surveying instruments were vital to map new territories.¹ Meanwhile the clock- and watchmakers were developing their craft, and the spectacle-makers and glass-grinders were working on new optical instruments, telescopes and microscopes. Yet the theoretical aspects of their work had little status: in Cambridge in the 163os, ‘Mathematicks … were scarce looked upon as Academical Studies, but rather mechanical, as the business of Traders, Seamen, Carpenters, Surveyors of Land, or the like.’²
¹ For a survey see Gerard L’E. Turner, ‘Scientific Instruments’, in Pietro Corsi and Paul Weidling (eds), Information Sources in the History of Science and Medicine (1983) 243-58.
² John Wallis, in Heilbron, 10; see her careful introductory survey.
A lovely in-depth look at the men behind the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment in the mid-19th century West Midlands of England, focussing especially on Erasmus Darwin as the key figure, but also looking at Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, James Watt, Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Samuel Galton, and a number of others whose names I was less familiar with. They were all members of the Lunar Society, which met monthly in Birmingham from the 1760s to around the end of the century.
There is a lot of loving detail about their lives, with common threads including Methodism and other minority Protestant traditions (especially Quakers); pottery; lots of children (Darwin had fourteen with his two wives, and maybe more besides); investments; the abolition of slavery; and of course engineering. It could have been overwhelming, but it’s broken up with black-and-white illustrations and some lovely plates. I was particularly struck by Joseph Wright’s paintings of the orrery and the air pump.
I learned a lot from this; in particular I realised how well the author had managed to gain my sympathy when I found myself horrified by the 1791 Priestley Riots, where a right-wing mob targeted the local religious minorities in Birmingham, including especially the vulnerable and visible Joseph Priestley; the local authorities appear to have colluded in the outbreak of violence and then (as usual) blamed the victims for bringing it on themselves. Some things never change.
Anyway, this is a tremendously engaging book about a part of history that I should have known more about; and now I do. You can get it here.
