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The Foundation of the Geological Society of London: Its Scheme for Co-operative Research and its Struggle for Independence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

M. J. S. Rudwick
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Synopsis

The Geological Society of London was the first learned society to be devoted solely to geology, and its members were responsible for much of the spectacular progress of the science in the nineteenth century. Its distinctive character as a centre of geological discussion and research was established within the first five years from its foundation in 1807. During this period its activities were directed, and its policies largely shaped, by its President, George Bellas Greenough, on whose unpublished papers this account is chiefly based.

The Society began as a small scientific dining club in London, but it developed rapidly into a learned society with a nation-wide membership. It became so independent in outlook and so active in research that it was felt to threaten the esteem of the Royal Society; and little more than a year after its foundation it clashed with the Royal Society (and especially with its President Sir Joseph Banks) so violently that its continued existence was for a time uncertain.

Its development into a large independent society was the outcome of its ‘Baconian’ view of the importance of collecting geological facts as a surer basis for geological theories. For this purpose it initiated an ambitious scheme for co-operative research, which would unite the efforts of ‘philosophers’ with those of ‘practical men’. Only personal reasons seem to have kept the most prominent of the practical men—William Smith—from co-operating with the Society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 1963 , pp. 325 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1963

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References

1 Woodward, H. B., The History of the Geological Society of London, London, 1907Google Scholar. This is referred to hereafter as ‘Woodward’.

2 This, and all further narrative quotations, are taken from Greenough's History of the Geological Society. This incomplete MS.—some of it only in note form—is undated, but was almost certainly written many years after the events it describes.

3 Woodward, , pp. 69.Google Scholar

4 This, according to Greenough, accounts for the fact that several of the founder-members of the Society were not among the subscribers. This was a discrepancy that Lames Laird pointed out when, after Babington's death many years later, Greenough publicly attributed the foundation of the Society to the meetings of the subscribers at Babington's house (Proc. Geol. Soc., 1834, ii, 42). Laird may have been remembering the later form of the meetings when he suggested that the Society had had ‘another but nearly contemporaneous formative nisus’ (Laird, to Greenough, , 3 07 1934).Google Scholar

5 Davy, to Greenough, , [11 1807]Google Scholar. The ‘new facts’ were probably those that Davy reported on 19 November in his Bakerian lecture ‘On some new Phenomena of chemical Changes produced by Electricity …’ (Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 1808, 1–44). At the end of this lecture, Davy noted that his chemical work might have implications for other sciences, and he singled out geology for special comment: ‘they [his results] may lead to the solution of many problems in geology, and shew that agents may have operated in the formation of rocks and earths which have not hitherto been suspected to exist.’

6 Woodward, , pp. 10, 15.Google Scholar

7 In the preface to his Traité (pp. xi–xiii), de Bournon crsiticized the failure of most works on ‘mineralogy’ to go beyond ‘oryctognosy’—the description of mineral specimens—to ‘geology’—the study of mineral objects in their wider setting. Greenough's interest in ‘nature on the great scale’ had been aroused as early as 1803 while travelling through the volcanic areas of Italy and Sicily. In 1805 he travelled through Scotland in search of critical evidence for the Neptunist-Plutonist controversy (see my ‘Hutton and Werner compared: George Greenough's geological tour of Scotland in 1805’, Brit. Journ. Hist. Sci., 1963, i, 117–135). He and Davy continued the search in Ireland in 1806; and in the summer of 1807, while Greenough was detained in London on parliamentary business, Davy travelled in Cornwall with the saine purpose in mind (Greenough, MS. Journals; Davy, to Greenough, , 1 08 1807, etc.)Google Scholar

8 Woodward, , pp. 10–14Google Scholar, gives brief biographical details of the thirteen.

9 Minutes, 13 November 1807; Woodward, , p. 15f.Google Scholar

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11 Gage, A. T., A History of the Linnean Society of London, London, 1938.Google Scholar

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13 Martin, T., ‘Origins ofthe Royal Institution’, Brit. Journ. Hist. Sci., 1963, i, 49–63.Google Scholar

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17 Although papers appear to have been read informally even before the official foundation, this seems to mark an increasing formality. Details of the papers read are first recorded in the Minutes of the following meeting (5 February 1808; Woodward, , p. 18).Google Scholar

18 Minutes, 1 January, 5 February, 4, 18 March 1808. A committee of five was nominally responsable for the Inquiries; but Greenough states that the questions were compiled by Aikin and himself, and certainly the published version bears the marks of his distinctive prose style. Woodward, (p. 24)Google Scholar believed that no copy of the Inquiries had survived; but several copies have since been found (Hawkes, L., Proc. Geol. Soc., 1942, xcviii, 13–15Google Scholar), and it was reprinted more than once in the early nineteenth century (Eyles, J. M., Nature, 1942, cxlix, 442CrossRefGoogle Scholar)—an indication of its usefulness as a guide to geological observers. For example, Archibald Bruce of New York, who had met Greenough in Rome in 1802, later wrote to him, ‘I was so pleased with your Geological Inquiries that I took the liberty of inserting them in a little periodical work [Amer. Min. J.] I have set on foot with a view of collecting such remarks and observns as may serve to elucidate the Mineralogy of this Country.’ (Bruce, to Greenough, , 25 02 1811.)Google Scholar

19 While the Inquiries were still under consideration, de Bournon submitted a lengthy memorandum on them, in which he wrote approvingly that ‘le mode qui a été pris par la Societé Geologique, pour rediger ces questions, est bien certainement celui qui supporte le plus de Baconisme’. (Lib. Geol. Soc., MS. Memoire par le comte de Bournon.)

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23 Giddy, to Greenough, , 30 11 1808Google Scholar. Giddy, Davies (1767–1839)Google Scholar, President of the Royal Society 1827–1830, changed his surname to Gilbert, in 1817.Google Scholar

24 Horner, to Greenough, , 4[–6] 04 1809Google Scholar. The mineralogist Allan, Thomas (1777–1833)Google Scholar was one of the most prominent of the members in Edinburgh.

25 The need to provide the members with geological training was recognized somewhat later, in one of the last projects initiated by Greenough before he resigned from the presidency. Late in 1812 he sounded a number of members on the possibility of a series of elementary lectures on geology. This scheme was adopted by the Council, and seven members gave lectures to the Society during the following year. Their names—Aikin, de Bournon, Carlisle, Englefield, Greenough, Parkinson and Tennant—suggest that all the main branches of geology were covered (Annual Report of Council, 4 February 1814). The MS. text of Greenough's, on Stratification, is preserved among his papers.

26 A detailed study of the honorary members might well reveal a larger number of practical men. But in any case, there is no doubt that many such men were reached indirectly by the Society, through employers, landlords or neighbours who were themselves members.

27 Farey, J., ‘Observations on the priority of Mr. Smith's investigations of the strata of England.’ Phil. Mag., 1815, xlv, 333–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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32 That this transformation involved some loss as well as obvious gains was recognized later. In 1810, ‘Several Members of the Geological Society having exporessed a wish to have continued to them the opportunity of occasionally dining together’, a ‘Club’ was formed within the Society for this purpose (Circular, 28 November 1810). References to the Club in Greenough's correspondence show that it certainly existed for several years (at least until 1818); but it may have fallen into abeyance later, since the present ‘Geological Society Club’ dates only from 1824 (Woodward, , p. 65Google Scholar).

33 For example, after visiting the honorary member James Kier at Dudley, Horner wrote to Greenough, ‘He published some time ago in Shaw's Nat. Hist. of Staffordsh. a short account of the mineralogy of that county—but whether he means to print it separately or send it to the Geological Society, to be published by them, I could not make out.’ (Horner, to Greenough, , 29 07 1808.)Google Scholar

34 Greenough, to Allen, (copy) [12 1808]Google Scholar. The ‘Committees’ were to apply themselves intensively to the study of specialised aspects of geology. That of Nomenclature had already been appointed; that of Maps was appointed in April 1809; and committees for chemical Analysis and for Extraneous Fossils were added later (Minutes, 6 May 1808, 3 March, 7 April 1809; Report of Council 10 July 1810).

35 Minutes, 2 December 1808; Giddy, to Greenough, 30 11, 6 12 1808Google Scholar. The expense of premises proved indeed to be considerable. The subscription voted in June 1808 brought in only £43, of which only £27 remained after the Treasurer had been reimbursed. But the accounts presented a year later show that no less than £132 had been spent in preparing the rooms for the Society, and the recurrent expenses for only a few months' occupancy amounted to a further £40. To meet this deficit, a subscription of four guineas had to be levied (Minutes and Accounts, 2 June 1809).

36 Greville, to Greenough, [01 1809].Google Scholar

37 Horner, to Greenough, [9 01 1809].Google Scholar

38 Horner, to Greenough, [12 01 1809].Google Scholar

39 Greville, to Greenough, [01 1809].Google Scholar

40 Greville's ‘Plan’ is reprinted in full by Woodward, , p. 27 ff.Google Scholar

41 Laird, to Greenough, , 25, [24] 01, 1809.Google Scholar

42 Banks, to Greenough, , 3 03 1809 (twice)Google Scholar; Greenough, to Banks, , [3] 03 1809 (copy).Google Scholar

43 Minutes and Circular, 3 March 1809.

44 Laird, to Greenough, , 6 03 1809.Google Scholar

45 Hall, to Greenough, , 8 03 1809Google Scholar. Hall explained his viewpoint further three years later, when Marcel wrote to ask whether he would rejoin the Society. Hall admitted that he had forgotten the incident until reminded of it, and that he did not know whether ‘the warfare is actually kept up’. He remembered the crisis as having been a matter of jealousy between the societies. ‘A jealousy had arisen between the Royal and Geological Societies, this last then beginning to rise into consequence. I conceived that I was so situated that I must join one side or another; and being an old member of the Royal society, and seeing nobody in the other whose opinions did not seem hostile to mine, I took the step of resigning, which I now fairly think had better been left alone.’ (Hall, to Marcet, , 7 02 1812: Nat. Lib. Scotland, MS. 3813, f. 49Google Scholar. I am indebted lo Dr. V. A. Eyles for drawings my attention to this letter.)

46 Davy, to Greenough, , 9 03 1809Google Scholar. Davy rejoined the Geological Society in 1851.

47 Minutes and Circular, 10 March 1809.

48 Laird, to Greenough, , 6 03 1809.Google Scholar

49 Banks, to Greville, , 5 04 [1809]Google Scholar, Nat. Lib. Scotland, MS. 581, no. 451.

50 Horner, to Greenough, , 4[–6] 04 1809.Google Scholar

51 They were Charles Hatchett and John Walker (Minutes, 7 April 1809). Greville died shortly afterwards, and left his mineral collection to the British Museum.

52 Horner, to Greenough, , 4[–6] 04 1809.Google Scholar

53 Minutes, 2 February 1801; Minutes of Trustees, 7 February 1810.

54 Greenough, to Banks, , 8 02 1810Google Scholar; Minutes of Trustees, 10 February 1810.

55 Banks, to Greenough, , 9 02 1810.Google Scholar

56 Circular, March 1810.

57 Minutes, 16 March 1810, 1 February 1811.

58 Annual Report of Council, 7 02 1812.Google Scholar