Search

This paper explores how three central figures in the field of British prehistory – Sir Arthur Keith, Sir Grafton Elliot Smith and Louis Leakey – deployed different disciplinary practices and narrative devices in the popular accounts of human bio-cultural evolution that they produced during the early decades of the twentieth century. It shows how they used a variety of strategies, ranging from virtual witness through personal testimony to tactile demonstration, to ground their authority to interpret the increasingly wide range of fossil material available and to answer the bewildering variety of questions that could be asked about them. It investigates the way in which they positioned their own professional expertise in relation to fossil interpretation, particularly with regard to the – sometimes controversial – use they made of concepts, evidence and practices drawn from other disciplines. In doing so, they made claims that went beyond their original disciplinary boundaries. The paper argues that while none of these writers were able, ultimately, to support the wider claims they made regarding human prehistory, the nature of these claims deserves much closer attention, particularly with respect to the public role that historians of science can and should play in relation to present-day calls for greater interdisciplinarity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The unrolling of Egyptian mummies was a popular spectacle in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. In hospitals, theatres, homes and learned institutions mummified bodies, brought from Egypt as souvenirs or curiosities, were opened and examined in front of rapt audiences. The scientific study of mummies emerged within the contexts of early nineteenth-century Egyptomania, particularly following the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822, and the changing attitudes towards medicine, anatomy and the corpse that led to the 1832 Anatomy Act. The best-known mummy unroller of this period was the surgeon and antiquary Thomas Pettigrew, author of the highly respected History of Egyptian Mummies. By examining the locations, audiences and formats of some of Pettigrew's unrollings this paper outlines a historical geography of mummy studies within the intellectual worlds of nineteenth-century Britain, illuminating the patterns of authority, respectability, place and performance that Pettigrew and his colleagues navigated with varying degrees of success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Growing interest in studying translation through a sociological lens and the relative lack of attention by translation scholars to the production of scientific translations provide impetus and rationale for this case study. Richard Taylor's editorial work for the Scientific Memoirs periodical is examined, with a particular focus on his conception of the utility of translation in the service of scientific advancement in Britain. The roles of gate-keeper and localizer of scientific material are attributed to Taylor, roles which he exercised through promotion of scientific translation, selection of texts to publish and editorial interventions in translations. The historical case study sheds light on activities of editing, translating and publishing science in mid-nineteenth-century Britain but is also illustrative of research areas where the interests of translation scholars and historians of science may converge. By centring attention on Taylor's editorial role, some of the material and social contingencies of this publishing activity are highlighted, enabling us to gain a deeper appreciation of scientific translation as sociohistorical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay introduces a special issue of the BJHS on communities of natural knowledge and artificial practice in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London. In seeking to understand the rise of a learned and technical culture within a growing and changing city, our approach has been inclusive in terms of the activities, people and places we consider worth exploring but shaped by a sense of the importance of collective activity, training, storage of information and identity. London's knowledge culture was formed by the public, pragmatic and commercial spaces of the city rather than by the academy or the court. In this introduction, we outline the types of group and institution within our view and acknowledge the many locations that might be explored further. Above all, we introduce a particular vision of London's potential as a city of knowledge and practice, arising from its commercial and mercantile activity and fostered within its range of corporations, institutions and associations. This was recognized and promoted by contemporary authors, including natural and experimental philosophers, practical mathematicians, artisans and others, who sought to establish a place for and recognition of their individual and collective skills and knowledge within the metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science writer, historian and administrator J.G. Crowther (1899–1983) had an uneasy relationship with the BBC during the 1920s and 1930s, and was regarded with suspicion by the British security services because of his left politics. Nevertheless the Second World War saw him working for ‘establishment’ institutions. He was closely associated with the BBC's Overseas Service and employed by the British Council's Science Committee. Both organizations found Crowther useful because of his wide, international knowledge of science and scientists. Crowther's political views, and his international aspirations for the British Council's Science Committee, increasingly embroiled him in an institutional conflict with the Royal Society and with its president, Sir Henry Dale, who was also chairman of the British Council's Science Committee. The conflict centred on the management of international scientific relations, a matter close Crowther's heart, and to Dale's. Dale considered that the formal conduct of international scientific relations was the Royal Society's business rather than the British Council's. Crowther disagreed, and eventually resigned from the British Council Science Committee in 1946. The article expands knowledge of Crowther by drawing on archival documents to elucidate a side of his career that is only lightly touched on in his memoirs. It shows that ‘Crowther's war’ was also an institutional war between the Science Committee of the British Council and the Royal Society. Crowther's unhappy experience of interference by the Royal Society plausibly accounts for a retreat from his pre-war view that institutional science should plan and manage BBC science broadcasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front cover of the journal is presented along with the issue's editors and information on membership and subscriptions.