Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T11:26:05.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lilley revisited: or science and society in the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2009

VIDAR ENEBAKK
VIDAR ENEBAKK
Affiliation:
Forum for University History, University of Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the 1940s the Marxist mathematician and historian of science Samuel Lilley (1914–87) made a substantial contribution to British history of science both intellectually and institutionally. His role, however, has largely gone unnoticed. Lilley is otherwise portrayed either as exemplifying the immaturity of Marxism, most famously by Rupert Hall in ‘Merton revisited’ (1963), or as a tragic figure marginalized during the Cold War because of his communist commitment. But both themes of exclusion and victimization keep Lilley's legacy hidden. By revisiting Lilley and his long-standing commitment to developing our discipline, this essay challenges the notion of radical discontinuity with respect to Lilley's legacy and argues for a more sustained contribution by Marxist historiography of science. This, in turn, requires a more appreciative understanding of the moderate Marxist model developed by Lilley in his popular, political and professional publications on the history of the social relations of science.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 563 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 British Society for the History of Science

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hall, A. R., ‘Merton revisited – or science and society in the seventeenth century’, History of Science (1963), 2, 1–16, 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Hall, op. cit. (1), 13. Lilley is also criticized on 6 and 14.

3 A. R. Hall, ‘The first decade of the Whipple Museum’, in The Whipple Museum of the History of Science: Instruments and Interpretations, to Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of R. S. Whipple's Gift to the University of Cambridge (ed. L. Taub and F. Willmoth), Cambridge, 2006, 57–68, 57–8.

4 Joseph Needham to Charles Singer, 7 June 1948, quoted from A.-K. Mayer, ‘Setting up a discipline, II: British history of science and the “end of ideology” (1931–1948)’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (2004), 35, 41–72, 59. The letter was later reprinted in L. Taub and F. Willmoth (eds.), The Whipple Museum of the History of Science: Instruments and Interpretations, to Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of R. S. Whipple's Gift to the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2006, 33–4.

5 A. R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution, 1500–1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude, London, 1954; S. Lilley (ed.), Essays in the Social History of Science, Centaurus (1953), 3. Lilley had a separate contribution to the volume, ‘Cause and effect in the history of science’, Centaurus (1953), 3, 58–72. This paper was reprinted in 2008 in a special issue of Centaurus, celebrating the fiftieth volume of the journal, with short commentaries by H. Kragh, T. Arabatzis, H. Chang and J. Schickore, Centaurus (2008), 50, 19–20, 32–45. The other well-known publication by Lilley is ‘Social aspects of the history of science’, Archives internationales d'historie des sciences (1949), 2, 376–433.

6 My thanks to Brenda Collins (Sam's niece in Belfast) for details on the family history. Communication on 28 January 2008.

7 Stephens, M. D., ‘In memoriam: Samuel Lilley (1914–1987)’, Archives internationales d'historie des sciences (1988), 38, 291–2.Google Scholar

8 S. Lilley, ‘The function of science in modern life’, 14 September 1931, Lilley's notebook from Royal Belfast Academic Institution, possession of Lilley's family in Wilberfoss (subsequently Wilberfoss).

9 John Semple to James Wordie, 3 October 1935, St John's College Archives, Cambridge (subsequently SJC), TUF*/LILLEY, Samuel 1936.

10 S. Lilley, ‘The isolated double points of an algebraic surface. The isolated unit points of a cyclic involution of prime order of an algebraic surface’, thesis presented for the Degree of D.Phil., Cambridge University, 1938, CUL, Ph.D. dissertation 1002. Parts of the thesis were published as S. Lilley, ‘On the isolated united points of a cyclic involution on an algebraic surface’, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (1940), 46, 312–60; idem, ‘The characteristic exponents of a pair of power series’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1940), 37, 105–8; and idem, ‘On the construction of algebraic curve branches of a given composition’, Journal of the London Mathematical Society (1947), 22, 67–74.

11 Statements by William Hodge, SJC, D93, 62.

12 Sam Lilley to William Mansfield Cooper (the Registrar, University of Manchester), 20 July 1948, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen (subsequently NBA), History of Science, Correspondence Generale, History of Science 1940–51.

13 Sam Lilley to H. S. Harley (accountant, King's College London), 9 February 1940, King's College London (subsequently KCL), personnel file on Sam Lilley, ref. 1941 KA/FPA.

14 Sam Lilley to S. T. Shovelton (secretary, King's College London), 9 March 1941, KCL, op. cit. (13).

15 M. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, Oxford, 1990, 54.

16 Cf. Huxley, J., ‘Labour-saving in mathematics’, Listener (1933), 9, 711–12.Google Scholar

17 Croarken, op. cit. (15), 57–8.

18 Croarken, M., ‘The emergence of computing science research and teaching at Cambridge, 1936–1949’, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (1992), 14, 10–15, 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 There is no mention of Lilley either in Croarken, op. cit. (15) or in idem, op. cit. (18). The notebooks are kept at the Lennard-Jones Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge (subsequently CCC), LEJO 24-25.

20 S. Lilley, ‘Mathematical machines’, Nature (1942), 149, 462–5. Lennard-Jones was fully informed about this publication. CCC, LEJO 24.2 (notes on both 28 November and 28 December 1942).

21 Lilley, S., ‘Machinery in mathematics I’, Discovery (1945), 6, 150–6Google Scholar; idem, ‘Machinery in mathematics II’, Discovery (1945), 6, 182–5; idem, ‘ENIAC, ASCC and ACE: machines that solve complex mathematical problems’, Discovery (1947), 8, 23–7 (cont. 32); idem, ‘Review of Hartree (1947) Calculating Machines’, Discovery (1947), 8, 249; idem, ‘The work of a century – in a few minutes: calculating machines, and the revolution in science which they are helping to bring about’, UNESCO Courier (1952), 5, 8–10.

22 Bowler, P., ‘Experts and publishers: writing popular science in early twentieth-century Britain, writing popular history of science today’, BJHS (2006), 39, 159–87, 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For his comments on the journal Discovery see 179.

23 Mayer, A.-K., ‘Setting up a discipline, I: conflicting agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, 1936–1950’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (2000), 31, 665–89, 673.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

24 Lilley, S., ‘Science for freedom: 1543–1943, I’, Discovery (1943), 4, 113–7Google Scholar; idem, ‘Science for freedom: 1543–1943, II’, Discovery (1943), 4, 147–51; idem, ‘Review of Lyons (1944) The Royal Society’, Discovery (1945), 6, 62; idem, ‘Review of Conant (1947) On Understanding Science’, Discovery (1948), 9, 266.

25 Lilley, S., ‘History of Science Museum at Cambridge’, Discovery (1944), 5, 352Google Scholar; idem, ‘History of science’, Discovery (1947), 8, 197–8; idem, ‘International History of Science Congress’, Discovery (1947), 8, 381. It is also worth mentioning that among Lilley's first academic papers was a study of an outlet for popular science in the early nineteenth century; idem, ‘Nicholson's Journal (1797–1813)’, Annals of Science (1948), 6, 78–101.

26 The Unity series was introduced with S. Lilley, ‘Science and socialism’, Unity: The Worker's Voice, 23 February 1946, 2. The first two books in the Science in Action series were A. F. Parker-Rhodes, Fungi, Friends and Foes, London, 1950, and H. S. W. Massey, Atoms and Energy, London, 1953.

27 A. Jones, ‘Pioneers on the air: BBC radio broadcasts on computers and A.I., 1946–56’, Actes du sixième Colloque sur l'Histoire de l'Informatique et des Réseaux, Éditions ACONIT, Grenoble, 2002, 14–28 (available at http://oro.open.ac.uk/5614). See also P. Partner, Arab Voices: The BBC Arabic Service 1938–88, London, 1988, 70: ‘The first talk on computers seems to have been that on “Calculating machines” by a Cambridge don, Sam Lilley, in 1945.’

28 S. Lilley, Men, Machines and History: A Short Story of Tools and Machines in Relation to Social Progress, London, 1948, Preface. See also the related articles, idem, ‘Technology in a changing world’, World Review (1944), 32–9; idem, ‘The story of alum’, Discovery (1949), 10, 350–4; idem, ‘From sickle to combine’, Farming: The Journal of Agricultural Progress (1950), 4, 19–22.

29 Lilley, Men, Machines and History, op. cit. (28), 47: ‘This was a revolution comparable to that brought about by the introduction of iron. Iron democratized physical tools; printing did the same for the tools of thought.’

30 Lilley, Men, Machines and History, op. cit. (28), 180 ff.

31 Lilley, Men, Machines and History, op. cit. (28), 204–5. D. Segaller, ‘Review: Men, Machines and History. By S. Lilley’, Discovery (1948), 9, 385.

32 Sam Lilley to James Wordie, 9 April 1937, SJC, TUF*, LILLEY, Samuel 1936.

33 Personnel file ‘Samuel Lilley’, Papers of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester (subsequently PCP).

34 Cambridge Branch of the Communist Party, Cambridge Today and Tomorrow: The Policy of the Cambridge Communist Party, Cambridge, 1946.

35 Transcript from TASS, 15 December 1975, Wilberfoss.

36 Conversations with Pearl Lilley, 26–7 February and 13–14 September 2007.

37 There is no mention of Brammar in the official history of the company by M. J. G. Cattermole and A. F. Wolfe, Horace Darwin's Shop: A History of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company 1878 to 1968, Bristol and Boston, 1987. However, the event was reported under the heading ‘Mr. Robert Whipple Retires’, in Cambridge Standard, 24 January 1936, 9. A paper clip is to be found among the research material for the book. ‘Cambridge Scientific Instruments Co. Ltd’, CUL, Box 4, ‘Minute Book No 3: Cambridge Instrument Co's Sports and Social Club’.

38 Letter accepting the invitation from S. Lilley (‘signed by Pearl Lilley’), Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Department for the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, B I 37.

39 G. Werskey, The Visible College: A Collective Biography of British Scientists and Socialists of the 1930s, London, 1978.

40 Werskey, G., ‘The visible college revisited: Second opinions on the red scientists of the 1930s’, Minerva (2007), 45, 305–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Unpublished notes, Papers of Dr Sam Lilley (1914–87), University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and special collections, GB 159 MS 200, 189. See the section on ‘science and society’ in Nature (1942), 149, 85–102.

42 S. Lilley, Science and Progress, London, 1944, 30.

43 Lilley, op. cit. (42), 46.

44 MacLeod, R. and MacLeod, K., ‘The contradictions of professionalism: scientists, trade unionism and the First World War’, Social Studies of Science (1975), 9, 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. D. Horner, ‘The Cold War and the politics of scientific internationalism: the post-war formation and development of the World Federation of Scientific Workers 1946–1956’, in Internationalism and Science (ed. A. Elzinga and C. Landström), London, 1996, 132–61.

45 ‘History of science lectures’, Scientific Worker: Journal for the Association of Scientific Workers (1942), 14, 30.

46 Margaret Hammerton to Sam Lilley, 15 October 1942, Wilberfoss.

47 Lilley, op. cit. (42), 68.

48 S. Lilley, ‘Why study the history of science?’, in An AScW Memorandum: The Development of Science, London, 8 November 1943, 2–5, 5. For Lilley's further engagement in the ASW, see his conference reports: idem, ‘Science in peace’, Nature (1945), 155, 260–2; idem, ‘Publication and classification of scientific knowledge’, Nature (1947), 160, 649.

49 Werskey, op. cit. (39), 269.

50 Report and invitation sent to John Desmond Bernal by the secretary, Mrs Kay Cornforth, 18 March 1946, Bernal Papers (Add. 8287), CUL, I.16.1, ‘Engels Society, 1946–48’. The unpublished paper by Sam Lilley on ‘Indeterminacy and Causality’ is located in the same folder.

51 M. Cornforth, ‘Report on Engels Society, June, 1949’, unpublished manuscript, Bernal Papers (Add. 8287), CUL, I.16.2, ‘Engels Society, 1949’.

52 The Communist Party History Group, ‘The teaching of history’, Marxism Today (1959), 3, 29–31, 31. E. Hobsbawm, ‘The History Group of the Communist Party’, in Rebels and Their Causes: Essays in Honour of A. L. Morton (ed. M. Cornforth), London, 1978, 21–48. Samuel, R., ‘British Marxist Historians, 1880–1980’, New Left Review (1980), 120, 21–96.Google Scholar

53 S. Lilley, ‘The emancipation of geology – an historical essay’, unpublished draft, Wilberfoss.

54 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 29 June 1948, Leon Rosenfeld Papers, NBA, Box 1. History of Science, Correspondence Generale, Histoire des Sciences etc. 1952–58 (Manchester), Lilley (1948–59). For details on Rosenfeld in relation to both Hall and Bernal see Jacobsen, A. S., ‘The complementarity between the collective and the individual’, Minerva (2008), 46, 195–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 Lilley, op. cit. (53), 43. For a comparison see idem, ‘Attitudes to the nature of heat about the beginning of the nineteenth century’, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences (1948), 2, 630–9.

56 Mayer, op. cit. (23), 667.

57 Mayer, op. cit. (4).

58 Quoted from Mayer, op. cit. (4), 56.

59 Mayer, op. cit. (4), 55 ff.

60 ‘Lectures on the history of science’, Cambridge University Reporter (1948), 79, 171.

61 Herbert Butterfield to members of History of Science Committee (marked ‘Confidential’), 28 May 1948, Needham Papers, CUL, B.309. Later, according to Needham, ‘The general criticism of Lilley is that he is too Marxist, and of Crombie that he is too Thomist. Hall here in Cambridge has never much impressed me; he is wafted on by the Butterfield circle, to which I do not adhere.’ Joseph Needham to Frank Sherwood Taylor, 2 October 1950, Needham Research Institute, Cambridge (subsequently NRI), SSC2, 16, 96. My thanks to Anna-K. Mayer for informing me about this letter.

62 Butterfield quoted in Needham's informal notes from the meeting of the History of Science Committee held on 3 June 1948. Needham Papers, CUL, B.309. This dismissive discussion of Crombie and Lilley was not included in the transcript of this document in the celebratory volume for the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Taub and Willmoth, op. cit. (4), 33.

63 S. Lilley, ‘The development of scientific instruments in the seventeenth century’, in The History of Science: Origins and Results of the Scientific Revolution (ed. J. Lindsay), London, 1951, 65–75, 74.

64 Lilley, op. cit. (63), 74.

65 Crombie, A. C., ‘Review: The History of Science: Origins and Results of the Scientific Revolution. A Symposium’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1952), 3, 279.Google Scholar

66 Lilley, S., ‘The nature of the physical world’, Listener (1959), 62, 1065–9Google Scholar, reprinted in The Making of Modern Science (ed. A. R. Hall), Leicester, 1960, 39–46. The other contributors were G. Buchdahl, M. Hoskin, M. Boas Hall and C. Raven.

67 Ravetz, J., ‘Review: The Edge of Objectivity. By Charles Coulston Gillispie, and The Making of Modern Science. Edited by A. Rupert Hall’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1961), 12, 250–5, 254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 29 June 1948, op. cit. (54).

69 Mayer, op. cit. (4), 59.

70 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 11 May 1949, Leon Rosenfeld Papers, op. cit. (54).

71 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 4 November 1949, NBA, Box 1. History of Science, Union internationales d'historie des sciences, Commission for the History of the Social Relations of Science (1946–56).

72 Birmingham University Extra-mural Department, Annual Report 1953–54, 6. It is emphasized in the Annual Report for 1953–4 that Lilley, as the only resident tutor who was a mathematician, had indeed produced ‘something special in the way of statistics’ and that the department knew much more about these students than any others.

73 Sam Lilley to John Desmond Bernal, 26 March 1949, Bernal Papers (Add. 8287), CUL, B.3.207.

74 Lilley, S., ‘Automatic factories’, Discovery (1955), 16, 147–52Google Scholar; idem, ‘Technical aspects of automation’, Marxist Quarterly (1956) 3, 84–98; idem, ‘Soviet progress in automation’, Process Control and Automation (1956), 3, 162–9; idem, Automation and Social Progress, London, 1957.

75 Lilley, Automation and Social Progress, op. cit. (74), 13. See also Sam Lilley to Charles Singer, 27 February 1957, Charles and Dorothea Singer Collection, Wellcome Library, London (subsequently CDS), A.11 Correspondence L, 7: ‘I fear the book will do my reputation more harm than good in History of Science circles – it is very outspoken politically, but I have been feeling very strongly that this is one of those questions on which one just cannot keep neutral.’

76 Birmingham Post, 19 January 1954: ‘Revival of Lunar Society Suggested. Need Mentioned at Birmingham Dinner.’

77 Lilley, S., ‘The Lunar Society’, Chemistry and Industry (1955), 28, 787–9.Google Scholar

78 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 13 June 1959, Leon Rosenfeld Papers, op. cit. (54). S. Lilley, ‘Joseph Priestley: man of many parts’, published lecture, Saltley Grammar School, 1962.

79 S. Lilley, ‘Dr. Erasmus Darwin of Lichfield’, Transactions of the Johnson Society (1956), 32–49; idem, ‘The origin and fate of Erasmus Darwin's theory of organic evolution’, Actes du XIe Congrès International d'Historie des Sciences (1968), 5, 70–5; idem, ‘La scienza alle origini della rivoluzione industriale’, in Studi Storici, Instituto Gramsci Editore, Anno II, N. 3–4 (1961), 465–95, especially 474–80.

80 Lunar Society Anniversary Steering Committee, Report from Meeting, 25 March 1966, and the invitation folder to the ‘Lunar Society Bicentenary Celebrations’, both at Wilberfoss. See R. E. Schofield, The Lunar Society: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth-Century England, Oxford, 1963, 131, 473.

81 Charles Singer to G. T. Sheppard (provost at King's College), 12 November 1953, CDS, A.11, 2.

82 Stephens, op. cit. (7).

83 Sam Lilley to Leon Rosenfeld, 27 February 1958 and 13 June 1959, Leon Rosenfeld Papers, op. cit. (54).

84 There is no mention of Lilley's contribution to the history of science in Cambridge in Hoskin, M., ‘History and philosophy of science in Cambridge’, Cambridge: The Magazine of the Cambridge Society (1990), 26, 46–50.Google Scholar

85 Statements by Charles Singer to Holmes (registrar), 8 May 1959, Robert Oppenheimer to Holmes (registrar), 15 May 1959, Otto Neugebauer to Holmes (registrar), 15 May 1959, and finally Alexandre Koyré to Holmes (registrar), 18 May 1959, CUL, UA GB 100.

86 Derek John Price to Joseph Needham, 29 June 1959, Needham Papers, CUL, B.330.

87 Joseph Needham to Derek John Price, 14 June 1959, Needham Papers, CUL, B.330.

88 Needham, op. cit. (87).

89 Cantor, G., ‘Charles Singer and the early years of the British Society for the History of Science’ BJHS (1997), 30, 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Browne, J., ‘Officers and council members of the British Society for the History of Science, 1947–97’, BJHS (1997), 30, 77–89, 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other foundation members included Bernal, Crowther, Needham and Rosenfeld, yet on the list of members from 1948 Hall and Butterfield were absent. ‘List of members on 1st June, 1948’, Bulletin for the British Society for the History of Science (1949), 1, 19–24. In the subsequent list from 1951, Butterfield has been added, yet Hall has not. ‘List of members on 1st January, 1951’, Bulletin for the British Society for the History of Science (1951), 1, 119–25.

90 ‘Reports of meetings’, Bulletin for the British Society for the History of Science (1949), 1, 6–10.

91 ‘Union internationales d'historie des sciences’, Archives internationales d'historie des sciences (1948), 27, 317–19. At the subsequent Sixth International Congress for the History of Science in Amsterdam in 1950, Lilley and Singer were still among the official delegates, but now joined by Crombie, Dingle, Feyer and Sherwood Taylor. ‘Proceedings of meetings’, Bulletin for the British Society for the History of Science (1951), 1, 112–4, 113.

92 ‘Report from Council Meeting 26th October 1948’, CDS, A.55.

93 Both quotations from ‘Report from Council Meeting 24th October 1949’, CDS, A.55.

94 Browne, op. cit. (89), 80.

95 Eastwood, B. S., ‘On the continuity of western science from the Middle Ages: A. C. Crombie's Augustine to Galileo’, Isis (1992), 83, 84–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

96 Lilley, S., ‘Review: Augustine to Galileo: The History of Science A.D. 400–1640 by A. C. Crombie’, Discovery (1953), 14, 163, cont. 165.Google Scholar

97 Crombie, A. C., ‘Letter to the editor: a book review criticised’, Discovery (1953), 14, 195–6.Google Scholar

98 Lilley, S., ‘Letter to the editor: Dr. Lilley's reply to Dr. Crombie's criticisms’, Discovery (1953), 14, 228.Google Scholar

99 Lilley, S., ‘Review: Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science 1100–1700, Discovery (1953), 14, 229.Google Scholar

100 Lilley, S., ‘Review: The Origins of Modern Science: 1300–1800 by Herbert Butterfield’, Modern Quarterly (1952), 7, 101–11, 105, 108.Google Scholar

101 Lilley, op. cit. (100), 110.

102 Zilsel, E., ‘The sociological roots of science’, American Journal of Sociology (1942), 47, 544–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. S. Shapin, ‘Zilsel thesis’, in Dictionary of the History of Science (ed. W. F. Bynum, E. J. Browne and R. Porter), London, 1981, 450. N. Jardine, ‘Zilsel's dilemma’, Annals of Science (2003), 60, 85–94.

103 Lilley, op. cit. (100), 109, n. 1.

104 S. Lilley, ‘Leonardo da Vinci and the experimental method’, in Atti del Convegno di Studi Vinciani (ed. L. S. Olschki), Academia Toscana di Scienze e lettere La Colombaria, Florence, 1953, 401–20. See also Charles Singer to Sam Lilley, 27 February 1956, CDS, A.11, 5: ‘I like your article very much and I think you have treated the medieval enthusiasts very fairly. The situation seems to me fairly plain and I cannot understand why Crombie cannot be made to understand it. Neither in the 13th century nor in the 20th can discussion of the nature of science be equated with science. You cannot get science until you have men who devote their lives to observation and/or experiment. When the medievalists have succeeded in finding such a one in the Middle Ages, I will accept their claim. But you have put all these matters much more efficiently than I.’

105 Zilsel, E., ‘The genesis of the concept of scientific progress’, Journal for the History of Ideas (1945), 6, 325–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

106 Lilley, S., ‘Robert Recorde and the idea of progress: a hypothesis and a verification’, Renaissance and Modern Studies (1958) 2, 3–37, 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

107 For Lilley's careful modification of the Zilsel thesis see Lilley, op. cit. (106), 4–19.

108 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 15.

109 For further details on Recorde, yet with no reference to Lilley, see Williams, J., ‘Mathematics and the alloying of coinage 1202–1700: Part II’, Annals of Science (1995), 52, 213–63, 240CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and S. Johnston, ‘Recorde, Robert (c.1512–58)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004.

110 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 26.

111 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 29.

112 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 31.

113 From the introduction ‘To the gentle reader’, in Recorde's The Pathway to Knowledge, as quoted in Lilley, op. cit. (106), 28.

114 R. K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript. The Post-Italianate Edition (1965), Chicago, 1993, 25.

115 Merton, R. K., ‘A note on science and democracy’, Journal of Legal and Political Sociology (1942), 1, 115–26, 123Google Scholar; idem, op. cit. (114), 1.

116 G. Sarton, ‘Query no. 53. – “Standing on the shoulders of giants”’, Isis (1935), 24, 107–9; idem, The History of Science and the New Humanism, New York, 1931, 30. See also Sarton on the use of aphorism by Bernhard of Chartres and John of Salisbury, in Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. 2: From Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon, Baltimore, 1931, 195–6.

117 Merton, op. cit. (114), 2.

118 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 32, n. 11. Cf. R. Kilbansky, ‘Answer to Query no 53. – Standing on the shoulders of giants (Isis 24, 107–9, 1935)’, Isis (1936), 26, 147–9.

119 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 32, n. 11.

120 Lilley, S., ‘Review of Sarton (1948) Science and Learning in the Fourteenth Century’, Nature (1950), 165, 128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

121 Merton, op. cit. (114), 223–8.

122 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 8, 15.

123 I. B. Cohen, H. Woolf and P. B. Bosson, ‘Eighty-fourth critical bibliography of the history of science and its cultural influences (to 1 January 1959)’, Isis (1959), 50, 289–407, 347.

124 R. K. Merton and E. Barber, The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity, Princeton, 2004.

125 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 15.

126 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 15.

127 Merton's subtle point – contrary to Lilley's reading of Diego di Estella as introducing his own generation as ‘dwarfs’ – was the following: ‘Robert Burton quoted out of context and, in a most literal sense, actually misquoted Didactus’ version of the Aphorism.' According to Merton, ‘Didactus aligns himself on the side of the moderns’. Cf. Lilley, op. cit. (106), 33–4, n. 31; Merton, op. cit. (114), 223–8, 254, 257.

128 Lilley, op. cit. (106), 33, n. 31.

129 Quoted from Merton, op. cit. (114), 86. On Needham's genealogy see G. Werskey, ‘The visible college: a study of left-wing scientists in britain, 1918–1939’, Ph.D. in history, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (HU 90.10680.10), 1973, 74–5.

130 As quoted in Merton, op. cit. (114), 264–5.

131 R. Olwell, ‘“Condemned to Footnotes”: Marxist scholarship in the history of science’, Science and Society (1996), 60, 7–26, 10. Werskey, op. cit. (39), 138. For more recent revaluations of Hessen see Freudenthal, G., ‘The Hessen–Grossman thesis: an attempt at rehabilitation’, Perspectives on Science (2005), 13, 166–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. C. A. J. Chilvers, ‘La Signification historique de Boris Hessen’, in Le Racines sociales et économiques de Principia de Newton (ed. S. Guerout), Paris, 2006, 179–206. idem, ‘The tragedy of Comrade Hessen: biography as historical discourse’, in The History and Poetics of Scientific Biography (ed. T. Söderquist), London, 2007, 105–20.

132 Lilley, op. cit. (20), 462.

133 My thanks to Anna-K. Mayer for informing me about this important source at NRI SCC2, 347, 1, 16. Needham's notes are marked ‘chez M Dobb’ – most probably referring to Maurice Dobb, the Marxist economist at Trinity College in Cambridge whom Lilley had known since the 1930s. According to Brian Pollitt, who was the literary executor of Dobb's papers and who still possesses Dobb's diaries, there is indeed a single entry in Dobb's Cambridge University Pocket Diary, 1963–4, on 6 March 1964, stating ‘Sam Lilley’. Communication with B. Pollitt, 28 March 2007.

134 S. Lilley, as quoted in Needham's notes, op. cit. (133).

135 Cohen, R. S., ‘Alternative interpretations of the history of science’, Scientific Monthly (1955), 80, 111–16, 112.Google Scholar

136 Cohen, op. cit. (135), 115, n. 2.

137 Robert S. Cohen to Joseph Needham, 15 June 1964, NRI, SCC2, 347, 1, 15. More recently, the collection and critical commentary appeared as E. Zilsel, The Social Origins of Modern Science (ed. D. Raven, W. Krohn and R. S. Cohen), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 200, Boston, 2000. In Cohen's introduction to the volume he explains how his early and extensive knowledge of Zilsel was due to the fact that Zilsel's son Paul was Cohen's friend and fellow physics graduate student at Yale where they both received doctorates in 1948.

138 Robert S. Cohen to Joseph Needham, 3 March 1964, NRI, SCC2, 347, 1, 15.

139 Joseph Needham to Robert S. Cohen, 8 March 1964, NRI, SCC2, 347, 1, 15.

140 Robert S. Cohen to Joseph Needham, 15 June 1964, NRI, SCC2, 347, 1, 15.

141 Sam Lilley to Robert S. Cohen, 1 August 1964, NRI, SCC2, 347, 1, 24.

142 Cf. Actes du XIe Congrès International d'Historie des Sciences (1968), op. cit. (79).

143 Werskey, op. cit. (129), p. vi. Cohen wrote the letter of introduction to Needham in 1968 presenting Werskey as a doctorate in the history of ideas at Harvard, ‘interested in the development of Marxist and other related or similar interpretations and movements about the social relativity of science, which came about during the 1930's’. Robert S. Cohen to Joseph Needham, 25 March 1968, Needham Papers, CUL, A.700.

144 G. Werskey, ‘New introduction’, Science at the Cross Roads (ed. N. Bukharin et al.), London, 1931 (2nd edn 1971), pp. xi–xxix, xxiii. See also H. Sheehan, Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History. The First Hundred Years, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1993, 303: ‘Others [adding to Bernal and Haldane] who formed a part of the radical science movement of the 1930s were P. M. S. Blackett, E. H. S. Burhop, J. G. Crowther, Hyman Levy, Sam Lilley, Joseph Needham, N. W. Pirie, C. H. Waddington, W. A. Wooster, and Lancelot Hogben.’ Similarly in P. Rossi, ‘Craftsman-and-scholar thesis’, in Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution from Copernicus to Newton (ed. W. Applebaum), New York and London, 2000, 174–7, 175: ‘To J. D. Bernal, J. S. Haldane, L. Hogben, J. Needham, V. G. Childe, B. Farrington, S. Lilley, and C. Hill, the book [Science at the Crossroads] appeared as the starting point for a new interpretation of the history of science.’

145 I owe this reflexive application of the continuity thesis to Simon Schaffer.

146 This argument will be further elaborated in a separate publication on Lilley's role as secretary for the Commission for the History of the Social Relations of Science. Cf. R. MacLeod, ‘The historical context of the International Council for Science Policy Studies’, Archives internationales d'historie des sciences (1975), 25, 314–28. Also P. Petitjean, ‘The joint establishment of the World Federation of Scientific Workers and of UNESCO after World War II’, Minerva (2008), 46, 247–70.

147 S. Lilley, ‘Technological progress and the Industrial Revolution 1700–1914’, in The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol 3: The Industrial Revolution (ed. C. M. Cipolla), London, 1973, 187–254.

148 S. Lilley, Men, Machines and History, London, 1965; idem, Men, Machines and History, New York, 1966; idem, Discovering Relativity for Yourself, Cambridge, 1981.

149 S. Lilley, ‘Higher education in the nuclear age’, Marxism Today (1959), 3, 1–10; idem, ‘Galileo and the scientific method’, Marxism Today (1965), 9, 276–82; idem, ‘Science, technology and socialism’, Marxism Today (1966), 10, 230–6; idem, ‘Marxism and science’, Marxism Today (1969), 13, 347–51; idem, ‘The technological revolution that faces us’, Comment: A Communist Weekly Review (1965), 3, 599–602; idem, ‘Science, society and socialism’, Comment: A Communist Weekly Review (1972), 10, 235–8.

150 The event was reported in Science Bulletin, 3 (1972), 3–4. Lilley's talk was published in Comment (1972) 10 and discussed in subsequent volumes by R. Press, R. M. West and F. Stewart.

151 Ravetz, J., ‘Bernal's Marxist vision of history’, Isis (1981), 72, 393–402, 396, n. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

152 For a similar argument see the recent paper by H. Sheenan, ‘Marxism and science studies: a sweep through the decades’, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (2007), 21, 197–210, 201: ‘There was residual anti-communism, as well as generational rebellion in the US new left's attitude to the old left.’

153 R. Young, ‘The historiographic and ideological contexts of the nineteenth-century debate on man's place in nature’, in Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham (ed. M. Teich and R. Young), London, 1973, 344–438, 418.

154 Lilley, ‘Cause and effect’, op. cit. (5), 71.

155 R. K. Merton, ‘Foreword’, in B. Barber, Science and Social Order, Glencoe, IL, 1952, pp. xi–xxiii, xi and xxi–xxii.

156 Barber, op. cit. (155), 264–6. For further references to Lilley, cf. notes 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 23, 33, 44, 45.

157 Barber, B., ‘Sociology of science: a trend report and bibliography’, Current Sociology (1956), 5, 91–153, 99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

158 Dedijer, S., ‘The sociology of science: a program and a plea’, Minerva (1966), 4, 489–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dolby, R. G. A., ‘Sociology of knowledge in natural science’, Science Studies (1971), 1, 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

159 S. Shapin and A. Thackray, ‘Prosopography as a research tool in history of science: the British scientific community 1700–1900’, History of Science (1974), 12, 1–28, 22, n. 9.

160 Johnston, R., ‘Contextual knowledge’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology (1976), 12, 193–203, 201, n. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

161 Shapin, S., ‘Discipline and bounding: the history and sociology of science as seen through the externalism–internalism debate’, History of Science (1992), 30, 333–69, 340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

162 Werskey, G., ‘The Marxist critique of capitalist science: a history in three movements?’, Science as Culture (2007), 16, 397–461, 455, n. 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

163 Chang, H., ‘The historian of science: painter, guide, or connoisseur?’, Centaurus (2008), 50, 37–42, 37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar