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The X Club: Fraternity of Victorian Scientists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. Vernon Jensen
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Extract

In 1864 nine eminent scientists, who had long been intimate friends, formed a dining club in order to prevent their drifting apart due to their various duties, and in order to further the cause of science. The club, which acquired the title of “X Club”, held monthly meetings from October to June, and was extremely active for two decades, but then gradually lessened in vitality. It served as a highly significant fraternity of scientists, and the regular communication which it afforded helped the members to marshall their efforts on behalf of science against what they felt to be the obstructionist activities and ideas of conservative scientists, certain theologians, and non-scientific society figures.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 1970 , pp. 63 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1970

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References

1 Royal Institution, Journals of Thomas Archer Hirst (hereafter cited as Hirst Journals), vol. iv, fol. 1702. I wish to express my thanks to the authorities of the Royal Institution for permission to consult and quote from materials in their possession, and to the Librarian, Mr. Stallybrass, for his helpful co-operation. See also Hirst's minutes of the meeting, as quoted in SirFrankland, Edward, Sketches from the Life of Edward Frankland (London, 1902), 150.Google Scholar Research for this study of the X Club was greatly facilitated by financial assistance from the Graduate School and the McMillan Fund of the University of Minnesota.

2 Royal Institution, Journals of John Tyndall, vol. iii, fol. 1260.Google Scholar

3 Spencer, Herbert, An Autobiography (New York. 1904), ii, 133.Google Scholar See also: Imperial College of Science and Technology, South Kensington, The Huxley Papers, vol. lxxGoogle Scholar, item 7. I am grateful to the Governors of the Imperial College of Science and Technology for permission to consult and quote materials in the Huxley collection, and to Mrs. Jeanne Pingree, Archivist of The Huxley Papers, for her very kind co-operation.

4 “Professor Tyndall”, The Nineteenth Century, xxxv (1894), 10.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.

6 For insight into the nature and activities of the Lazzaroni, consult the following biographies: Dupree, A. Hunter, Asa Gray (Cambridge, Mass., 1959)Google Scholar, and Lurie, Edward, Louis Agassiz (Chicago, 1960).Google Scholar Understandably, the latter is more full in its discussion of the Lazzaroni, since Agassiz was one of its leading members, whereas Gray was excluded from the group. See also Dupree, A. Hunter, “The Founding of the National Academy of Sciences—a Reinterpretation”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, ci (1957), 434–440.Google Scholar

7 See the comprehensive work by Crosland, Maurice, The Society of Arcueil: A View of French Science at the Time of Napoleon I (London, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 The eight were elected Fellows in the following years: Hooker, (1847)Google Scholar, Busk, (1850)Google Scholar, Huxley, (1851)Google Scholar, Tyndall, (1852)Google Scholar, Frankland, (1853)Google Scholar, Spottiswoode, (1853)Google Scholar, Lubbock, (1857)Google Scholar, and Hirst, (1861).Google Scholar

9 Spencer to Hooker, , 28 03 1874Google Scholar, Duncan, David, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer (New York, 1908), i, 223.Google Scholar

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11 Minutes, as quoted in Frankland, op. cit. (1), 160.Google Scholar

12 Hirst Journals, vol. iv, fol. 1963.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., fol. 914.

14 Ibid., fol. 2130. See also Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, xxxvi, 74Google Scholar; Huxley to Tyndall, 9 Nov. 1883, Huxley, Leonard, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (New York, 1916), ii, 66.Google Scholar

15 Hooker was one of the original 47 members; Busk, Huxley and Tyndall were elected in 1855, Frankland, in 1859Google Scholar, Lubbock, in 1860Google Scholar, Spottiswoode, in 1861Google Scholar, and Hirst, in 1865Google Scholar (Bonney, T. G., Annals of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society (London, 1919)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim).

16 Laurie, , op. cit. (6), 183.Google Scholar

17 Tyndall to Hooker, undated 1867, Huxley Papers, vol. viii, fol. 344Google Scholar; Life and Letters of Hooker, i, 542; ii, 108Google Scholar; Frankland, , op. cit. (1), 155.Google Scholar

18 Life and Letters of Huxley, i, 432.Google Scholar

19 As quoted in Frankland, , op. cit. (1), 157.Google Scholar

20 Vol. iv, fol. 2116.

21 Life and Letters of Hooker, i, 541.Google ScholarSpencer, (op. cit. (3), ii, 139)Google Scholar more fully described The Reader as a “weekly paper (of The Spectator form) predominantly literary, and in a smaller degree scientific, which had been founded a year or two before by Mr. T. Hughes, Q.C., Mr. Ludlow, and others who, dissatisfied with existing papers of the class, were desirous of having one which should be candid and impartial in its criticisms, and liberal in its views of affairs—not political affairs so much as social affairs”.

22 Vol. iv, fol. 1702. See also Hirst's minutes, as quoted in Frankland, , op. cit. (1), 150.Google Scholar

23 Spencer, Autobiography, ii, 137.Google Scholar

24 Duncan, , op. cit. (9), i, 153.Google Scholar

25 Spencer, Autobiography, ii, 140.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 138.

28 Minutes, as quoted in Life and Letters of Hooker, i, 543.Google Scholar

29 Crosland, op. cit. (7), passim.

30 As quoted in Life and Letters of Hooker, i, 542.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 543.

32 Ibid.

33 Hirst Journals, vol. iv, fol. 1840.

34 Huxley Papers, vol. viii, fol. 176.

35 Supra, 1. For a discussion of the attitudes of the members of the Society of Arcueil to religion, see Crosland, op. cit. (7), 91–94.Google Scholar

36 Frankland, op. cit. (1), 51.Google Scholar

37 As quoted in Life and Letters of Hooker, i, 542.Google Scholar

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., 543.

40 For a discussion of this “Ayrton Affair”, see ibid., ii, 159–177; Turrill, William Bertram, J. D. Hooker, Botanist, Explorer, and Administrator (London, 1963), 123–125Google Scholar; Eve, A. S. and Creasey, C. H., Life and Work of John Tyndall (London, 1945), 160–166.Google Scholar

41 Some of Tyndall's vigorous writings on the subject were published in 1887 by William Blackwood and Sons in a one-penny pamphlet entitled, “Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule”. In Tyndall's urgent language, one can almost sense the memory of his martyred distant relative, William Tyndale, playing a contributory role. For some discussion of Tyndall's Unionist views, see Eve, and Creasey, , op. cit. (40), 17, 248, 264–267, 277–278.Google Scholar

42 Huxley Papers, vol. xvi, fol. 273. For a discussion of the Unionist views of men of science in general, see Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London, 1938), 540–553.Google Scholar For Huxley's opposition to Home Rule, see Life and Letters of Huxley, ii, 132–134, 144–145, 179, 187–188.Google Scholar

43 1 January 1888, Huxley Papers, vol. viii, fol. 262.

44 4 January 1888, ibid., fol. 263.

45 Spencer, , Autobiography, ii, 134.Google Scholar

46 Life and Letters of Huxley, ii, 120.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., i, 281. Hirst (supra, 2) certainly suspected it!

48 Life and Letters of Huxley, i, 282.Google Scholar

49 “Tyndall”, The Nineteenth Century, xxxv (1894), 11.Google Scholar

50 Ibid.

51 Spencer, Autobiography, ii, 135.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.