2. Philosophers, patrons and slaves: the components of society fossil collecting

If geology was to be the central recreation of the new philosophising societies in Yorkshire and elsewhere, then fossil collecting was to become its material realisation. The collections so formed would be an encapsulation of knowledge, not the idle curiosities of avarice so frequently observed in the possession of contemporary private collectors. Whilst the cabinet had, theoretically, been long established as an educational tool and cultural symbol, many private collections showed little sign of any intellectual process.^[1] So often the obsession was with collecting, not with science: ‘The best way, perhaps, to become thoroughly familiar with an object is to possess it, and the desire to possess is likely to develop into a collecting mania’.^[2]

The Yorkshire Philosophical Society made frequent reference to the value of collections, distancing itself from those collections which coloured contemporary opinion:

The value of such collections is not perhaps in general sufficiently understood; and the naturalist by whom they are formed, is sometimes suspected of claiming the dignity of a science, for pursuits little higher than the amusements of children. If the object of a collector be no more than to accumulate and to display, he is indeed very idly employed; but if his object be to acquire or to diffuse a more perfect knowledge of the works of creation, there cannot be a more rational or a more noble pursuit. To investigate the wisdom of Nature, is an employment worthy of the most exalted understanding whether that wisdom be displayed in the configuration of a planet, or in the structure of a butterfly’s wing. There are some, however, who imagine that nothing is to be learned from a Museum except a catalogue of names; but this, even were the statement true, is surely an unreasonable complaint. If the volume of Nature is worthy of being read, its vocabulary must deserve to be studied. No one can learn the names of these objects, without first acquiring, at the same time, some knowledge of their properties; and no one can discuss the properties without possessing some knowledge of the names.^[3]

The collection was to become the medium for the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge; a three dimensional encyclopaedia of hard evidence from which philosophers could derive the principles and language for scientific discourse. And by combined efforts they could collect on a much larger scale than had previously been attempted locally:

the advantages of Institutions like this, in preserving for the benefit of science those large fossil specimens, which being too bulky for cabinets or private collections, would be in danger of being altogether lost or destroyed.^[4]

But how were the societies to acquire this material? Without it they could not function and there were limits to the number of ready-made collections which could be purchased.

The York society, so well placed for travel to the four corners of Yorkshire, was, however, some distance from the major natural repositories of fossils. It had soon determined that it would need to rely upon a Bucklandian network;^[5] ‘the combined observation of many individuals’. Such observations might provide intelligence but few provincial observers were sufficiently well-versed in geology to produce information of any reliability. Anyone, however, could collect fossils and send them to the central museum for scientific interpretation. Such specimens became the principal means of data collection; literally hard facts! At Whitby and Scarborough, science rarely progressed further than this simple accumulation of facts; in York such collections would be fed into the inductive machine to be regurgitated as interpretations of geological phenomena.

For the Yorkshire Philosophical Society to achieve its holistic understanding of the geology of the county, it would need collectors on the spot as new material became available, and before it could be acquired by rivals or sold on. For the coastal societies, this was not a problem as their ambitions would be met from their own small hinterland, over which they might attempt to hold dominion.

The philosophical societies intended to utilise that same spirit of mutual co-operation which was also to fund their buildings; co-operation built on rank, honour and patronage. This was reflected in the social structure of these societies, each being composed of groups which had a set function in the collecting process. The most vital component was leadership, whether this be from a president, secretary or a management team; the most successful societies were dominated by the ambitions of one man. A stamp of credibility was given by the association of a group of noblemen who acted as largely non-participatory patrons. Depending on its size, a society would also acquire a complement of scientific literati. A further group of individuals would establish themselves as parish representatives or outpost observers both inside and outside the main collecting region. Existing collectors would also be brought into the fold or patronised, this depending on sex and social status. Professional men and the more affluent sectors of local society would make up the bulk of the membership and exploit their own personal networks for society ends. Finally, there were the curators, servants of the society whose primary duty it was to give the museum an intellectual basis.

Social interactions between these groups reflected society as a whole; honour, rather than sterling, became the currency with which to win or buy favours. A society was built from the top down, a powerbase of the social and scientific elite giving the society the status necessary to attract lowlier members. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society, with its difficult and complex collecting objective, provides a useful model for further investigation.

Commanders, strategists, diplomats and patrons

The Rev. William Vernon, later aided by his scientific advisor, John Phillips, provided the leadership and management which took the Yorkshire Philosophical Society from a paper idea to the peak of philosophical achievement. He had returned to York from the University of Oxford in 1814 indoctrinated with the new fascination for geology, and retaining strong links with his geological mentors Buckland and Conybeare. The combination of youthful vigour, intelligence and rank had made him a natural choice for the Society’s first President but Vernon was no collector and had, at an early stage, to canvass opinion as to the best way to proceed. Here his close tie with Buckland paid dividends; Buckland knew Yorkshire geology well, including the potential sources of specimens. Within a very short time Vernon became a master of acquisition, promoting donation, acquiring funds for purchase, bribing collectors with honorary memberships and flattery, patronising fledgling scientists, encouraging and undertaking fieldwork, exploiting his extensive network of family and friends, and ruthlessly excluding his competitors from the spoils of excavation. Whilst Phillips’ advice would give the Society’s collecting programme a scientific complexion, it was only by Vernon’s zealousness, diplomacy and strategic thinking that these collections would become a reality. In 1830, when he became Vernon Harcourt, he resigned as president to be replaced by Viscount Milton.^[6]

The president was supported by a team of up to 13 vice presidents who in the beginning were some of the county’s most eminent men, ranking just below those designated as patrons. They consisted of members of the gentry, including baronets and the younger sons of peers.^[7] And men such as Sir George Cayley,^[8] a Whig politician, inventor and man of the people who, with Johnstone, would also assist the formation of the Scarborough society. They, like many others in the Society’s elite, such as Richard Bethell,^[9] a major Yorkshire landowner, and George Strickland, were, or would become, parliamentary representatives. Many would acquire titles, such as James Wortley^[10] who became Baron Wharncliffe in 1826 and Paul Beilby Thompson,^[11] later Baron Wenlock. Others became High Sheriff of Yorkshire.

This elite included members of some of the oldest families in the county, families which had held a position of wealth and privilege for centuries; the Cholmleys and the Thompsons were long standing MPs for Scarborough in the 16th Century.^[12] These families were also the major employers, magistrates, MPs, and so on, and held their rural populations in a position of subservience. Members of this class would mix socially with others of the same stratum. They often shared similar educational backgrounds – most had been to Oxford or Cambridge and by marriage formed a very close network. Johnstone, for example, married the sister of William Vernon;^[13] the Stricklands became heirs to the fortunes of the Cholmleys. In time the vice presidents would more closely represent the more ardent of the general membership.

Patrons were relatively few in number. In the case of the York society these were Vernon’s father, Edward, the Archbishop of York;^[14] the Earls of Carlisle^[15] and Tyrconnel^[16] and the Lords Stourton,^[17] Wharncliffe and Macdonald.^[18]

Patrons gave the Society an air of respectability; an affirmation of the accepted social order which provided benefits for both parties. The Society by this means established a lobbying force within parliament and government; provincial scientific interests were, potentially, to influence national support for science.^[19] By association, the philosophers’ pursuits would be given a cultured and sophisticated complexion, and in a country indoctrinated with the importance and validity of rank such associations would attract social climbers into the membership. By this means the Society had gained a most useful marketing tool; the majority of Britons wished to rise above their current station.

Patrons would also acquire benefits from this relationship. At the most primitive level, the philosophers were doffing their caps to the great, underpinning their rank and conferring on them a mantle of benevolence and intellectualism. This was a manifestation of the social glue which had held, and in part continues to hold, British society together. During this period many in Britain feared revolution; elsewhere in Europe social unrest was threatening or had overturned the accepted social order. The aristocracy and landed classes remained in power but increasingly men such as Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir George Cayley aligned themselves with the cause of the working man, attempting to show that they shared common interests.

In the first months of its existence, then, the Yorkshire Philosophical Society had established a powerbase which would act as a magnet to men of science, collectors and others interested in this new social phenomenon.

Patronising the scientific literati

The York society, having aspirations so much greater than its neighbours in Leeds, Whitby, Hull and Scarborough, sought to connect itself directly with the literati of science, and in particular geology. The most noted geologists of the day were added to its list of honorary members, placing York in the minds and networks of the scientific establishment. Such connections would provide local philosophers with up-to-date scientific intelligence and associated specimens, which they could then incorporate into their own researches.^[20] York intended to participate in pioneering geology and bask in the reflected glory of the science’s major successes.

Whilst the country’s leading geologists might be flattered by the honour given, they too had much to gain from such relationships. Geology was not without its controversies, it is not just an artifice of historical method that the period seems wrought with rival theories and concepts.^[21] At very least, by giving copies of their works and collections of specimens they could gain the allegiance of a society amongst whose patrons were individuals of power and influence. Their scientific merits would be broadcast to all who took an interest in such intellectual goings on. These men also saw the societies as invaluable networking tools capable of giving them direct access to discoveries made in the field, or museum, in distant parts of Britain. These they could take up and mould to their own uses, as Buckland had done with Kirkdale. Indeed it was often outsiders who would derive scientific kudos from society collections; the society would be satisfied with the role of supplier and publicist. For the touring geologist, as were all the science’s leading exponents, museum collections provided a useful index to what was in the field, and could save countless hours trying to discern what was worthy of investigation. By these means the York society created a link into science which would be the envy of its neighbours, a link later strengthened by the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in York in September 1831,^[22] and further still by Phillips’ developing career.

Collectors, rivals and distant friends

The York society’s list of honorary members also included a host of other individuals who might contribute specimens or labour. The Whitby society, like its contemporaries, bestowed honorary membership on those ‘gentlemen who have rendered important services to the Society’.^[23] The fossil collector in a small way attempted to emulate and even upstage the discoveries of the likes of Buckland, Sedgwick, Lyell and Murchison. To be ranked alongside them in a list of those honoured would do a great deal for their social and scientific credibility.^[24] Such lists conferred valuable status on the recipient; John Phillips’ honorary associations acted as a substitute for hard academic qualifications, and were frequently printed after his name. Honorary membership, then, became a vital mechanism for patronising collectors and extending the collecting network into neighbouring regions where collectors had no natural allegiance to York. The societies and the recipients gave emphasis to the honour but both probably realised that this was little more than a political and economic device.

Honorary membership was not, however, without its costs. A society would lose potential membership monies, and have to provide free curatorial and membership services, and complementary reports. It also had to be sure that any individual so honoured would act in the interests of the society; any impropriety would reflect badly. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society was very liberal in adding names to its list of honorary members, names which did little to dispel the local view that this was essentially a geological society (see Table 2.1). Whitby philosophers could afford few honorary members, and these were generally officials from neighbouring societies together with a few collecting men in outlying areas such as John Williamson in Scarborough and Robert Pickering in Malton. This was of no great concern to the coastal society, it really had little need for this collecting device; if it wanted to bribe favours it could do so with Whitby fossils.

It is no small advantage to this Institution, that it has access to an inexhaustible store of fossil treasures, from which it can augment the collections of other Societies, or of literary friends residing at a distance, who may be expected in return to supply our Museum with the rarities of their respective districts.^[25]

Honorary memberships were also used to build up mutual links for the exchange or movement of fossils between societies. Invariably it would be the secretaries of these societies who would be honoured; if one is bestowing favours with a purpose it is perhaps better to patronise an individual who can feel the warmth of the honour than the institution.^[26] In the case of the societies in York and Whitby, this strengthened links between supplier and customer. Officers of neighbouring societies often donated material to their sister institutions in their own names. Such actions served to strengthen intersociety bonds and acted as a kind of social preening.

Table 2.1 Honorary members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1824 showing the predominance of geological interests, and the influence of medical and theological networks.

Aikin, Arthur, FLS, MGS, London (1773-1854): Geological Society, Mineralogist, Stratigrapher, Society of arts

Alderson, John, MD, Hull: Physician, Geological interests, Fossil collection, Hull society & other public bodies in Hull

Atkinson, John, FLS (1787-1828): Surgeon, Leeds society, Botanist, Entomologist, Ornithologist

Baird, Rev. George, DD, FRSE: Cleric, Educationalist, Edinburgh link, Principal of the University of Edinburgh

Bean, William, Scarborough: Fossil and shell collecting gentleman

Bird, John, Whitby: Artist, Fossil collector, Whitby society

Brookes, Joshua, FRS, London (1761-1833): Anatomist, Educationalist, Writer

Buckland, William, DD, FRS, FLS, Oxford, Pres. G.S.: Cleric, Palaeontologist, Stratigrapher, Oxford Professor, Vernon’s mentor, Oxford link, Geological Society

Chantrey, Francis, Brandsby (1781-1841): Sculptor, Fossil preparation

Clift, William, FRS, London (1775-1849): Physician, Royal College of Surgeons, Comparative anatomist (including of fossils)

Conybeare, Rev William Daniel, FRS, MGS, Brislington, Somerset: Cleric, Palaeontologist, Stratigrapher, Oxford link, Vernon’s mentor, Bristol society

Crosse, John, FSA, FRSL, etc, Hull (d.c.1836): Geologist, Hull society

Davy, Sir Humphry (1778-1829): Royal Society, Chemist, Physicist, Inventor, Geological interests

Dalton, John (1766-1844): Prof. Natural History, New College, Manchester society, Chemist, Physicist

Dalton, Richard, York: Itinerant science lecturer

De la Beche, Henry T., Bristol: Stratigrapher

Dikes, William, Hull (1792-1864): Geologist and antiquarian collector, Hull society

Eastmead, Rev. W., Kirkbymoorside: Cleric, Geological interests – involved in Kirkdale

Edmonstone, Laurence, MWS, Balta Sound, Zetland

Eglin, Joseph, Hull: Hull society

Fitton, William Henry, MD, FRS, MGS (1780-1861): Physician, Stratigrapher

George, Edward Sanderson, Leeds (1801-1830): Chemist, Leeds society, Geologist, Ornithologist

Graham, Robert, MD FRSE, Prof. Botany, Edinburgh (1786-1845): Physician, Prof. of Medicine and Botany, Edinburgh link

Greenough, George Bellas, FRS, MGS, London (1778-1855): Stratigrapher, Geomorphologist, Geological Society, Chemist, Politician

Greville, Robert Kaye, LLD FRSE, Edinburgh (1794-1866): Botanist, Edinburgh link

Griscom, Prof. John New York (1774-1852): Chemist, Philanthropist

Humbolt, Baron Alexander von (1769-1859): Mineralogist, Explorer, Plant geographer

Halifax, Rev Robert, Standish, Gloucestershire: Cleric, Geologist collector

Henry, William, MD FRS, Manchester: Physician, Manchester society

Henslow, Rev, John Stevens, Prof. Min Cambridge (1796-1861): Cleric, Botanist

Mineralogist, Cambridge professor, Cambridge link

Heuland, John Henry, London (1778-1856): Mineralogist and dealer, Geological Society

Hinderwell, Thomas , Scarborough: Antiquarian, Writer, Collector inc. fossils

Hodgkinson, Rev H, Audley End, Essex: Cleric

Hooker, William Jackson Prof. Botany Glasgow (1785-1865): Botanist, Professor, Glasgow link

Jameson, Robert Prof. Nat. Hist., Edinburgh (1774-1854): Mineralogist, Wernerian, Edinburgh link

Knight, Arnold James, MD, Sheffield (1789-1871): Physician, Sheffield society

La Trobe, Rev Charles Joseph, London (1801-1875): Cleric, Botanist, Traveller

MacCulloch, John, MD, FRS, MGS (1173-1835): Physician, Chemist, Geomorphologist, Stratigrapher

Marshall, John: Leeds society

Meade, Thomas, Chatley, Somerset: Fossil collector and dealer, link to William Meade for imports from Philadelphia

Miller, Johann S., ALS, Bristol: Palaeontologist, Curator, Fossil collector, Bristol society

Miller, Patrick, MD, FRSE, Exeter: Physician

Montgomery, James: Sheffield society

Moorsom, Richard Jun.: Whitby society

Necker, Louis-Albert, Prof. of Min. & Geol., Academy of Geneva (1786-1861): Mineralogist, Zoologist, Edinburgh link

Noehden, George Heinrich (1770-1826): Botanist, Librarian, British Museum, Royal Asiatic Society

Parry, Charles Henry, MD, Bath (1779-1860): Physician, Geological collection, Bath link

Parry, Capt William Edward, RN, FRS (1790-1855): Explorer, Geological material, Bath link, Botanist

Phillips, John: Palaeontologist, Stratigrapher, Naturalist, Curatorial & lecturing services

Phillips, William, FLS, MGS, London (1773-1828): Stratigrapher, Mineralogist

Pickering, Robert, Malton: Fossil collector

Richardson, Rev. Benjamin, Farleigh, Somerset: Cleric, Bath link, Geologist and naturalist, Collector

Scoresby, William, Jun. FRS (1790-1857): Traveller, Naturalist

Sedgwick, Rev Prof. Adam, Cambridge (1785-1873): Cleric, Stratigrapher, Cambridge Professor, Cambridge link

Selby, Prideux John, Twizel House, Northumberland (1788-1867): Entomologist, Ornithologist, Botanist

Smith, William: Stratigrapher (key to Society objectives), Bath link

Smyth, Rev. Joseph, Kirkbymoorside: Cleric

Soret, M., Geneva

Taylor, Rev William: York philosopher, Machinery

Traill, Thomas Stewart, MD, FRSE, Liverpool: Physician, Mineralogist, Liverpool society

Wrangham, Rev. Archdeacon, FRS, FCPS etc. Hunmanby: Cleric

Warburton, Henry, FRS, VPGS, London: Geologist

Waterton, Charles, Walton Hall (1782-1865): Naturalist, Explorer

West, William, Leeds: Chemist, Leeds society

Worsley, Rev. Thomas, FCPS, Downing College, Cambridge (1797-1885): Cleric (Scawton, Yorks), Brother of William Worsley, Cambridge link

Young, Rev. George, Whitby: Geologist and antiquarian, Whitby society, Edinburgh link

Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society sought the support of those locals of ‘respectability and property’; indeed it was implied that this was conferred upon those who joined.^[27] Whilst it had not the wealth to patronise the rich and famous with honorary memberships, its fossil collections, particularly its magnificent crocodile, began to give the town status amongst these so-admired sophisticated and wealthy classes. Late in 1827 it had the celebrity of a visit of Prince von Pückler-Muskau;^[28] the visits of other ‘strangers’ would also provide useful marketing capital: ‘most of whom belong to the higher classes of society. Several gentlemen of high scientific and literary attainments have examined the collection minutely’.^[29] It would be more efficient for the smaller coastal societies to restrict their honours to local individuals who would, through collecting, assist in raising the profile of the institution and thus attract more eminent strangers.

The personal networks of ordinary members would also be exploited to further society collecting. Vernon’s own family provides a good example of this. He was one of 16 children and had 78 first cousins several of whom became important contributors of material from further afield.^[30] As children of the Archbishop of York, Vernon’s siblings formed an influential network of politicians, barristers, naval men and clerics. Each lived in a different part of the country and could provide suites of comparative material.^[31]

Amongst these it was the family’s clerics who became most actively involved in the affairs of the York society, particularly the Revs. Leveson Venables Vernon and Charles Venables Vernon. Indeed the intellectual driving force for these new societies remained rooted in the traditional professions – the church, the military, the law and medicine.^[32] Of these the clergy held greatest potential for furthering the course of science. Leading scientists and popular magazines encouraged the participation of clerics in natural history, not least for its spiritual and social benefits. As President of the Geological Society, William Henry Fitton made a direct appeal to rural clergy and medics to relieve the monotony of their lives by investigating local geology.

There is no district that will not furnish sufficient interest and novelty to an attentive inquirer, not merely to repay his own exertions, but to instruct the most learned, and enlarge the bounds of our science.^[33]

The clergy made up 23% of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s membership. The Whitby society, which had little interest in networking, made less use of this group; only 10% of its members were men of the church. As geographical dispersion was an inevitable consequence of their livelihood, these contacts were spread throughout the rural parishes of Yorkshire. The clergy also had their own contacts in distant parts, arising perhaps from a university education but easily extended through their Christian brotherhood. Country livings would never be fully absorbing and many missed the intellectual interactions of their college past; Vernon was not unusual in maintaining and exploiting his old university friends throughout his life. As associates of the central philosophical society, rural clerics would be provided with challenges encouraging them to investigate their local area and to report back with specimens. Phillips later suggested that geology owed a debt of gratitude to churchmen such as Vernon for liberating science from the attentions of ‘well-meaning but ill-reasoning theologians, who sometimes appeared to forget that they were not endowed with “super-natural knowledge of the mysteries of nature”’.^[34]

Medical men were, according to Charles Lyell, another profession making particularly important contributions to the progress of science and natural history in the provinces.^[35] Many of these, however, had received no university education, but it was hoped that these new societies might at least make up for this deficiency.

Other social groups also contributed to the network of observers. Of particular note were the landed gentry, who made up nearly 50% of the York society’s membership.^[36] They would contribute finds from their own property, discovered by their labourers and tenants. The new societies also nurtured a new profession, that of the curator and professional geologist. Smith and Phillips were perhaps exceptional examples of this class. They brought with them an extensive network of geological contacts (see table 2.2) and supplied a wide range of curatorial, scientific, promotional and educational functions which the societies acquired cheaply. Honorary memberships were often used as a means of rewarding their loyalty, strengthening bonds and keeping costs down.

In addition to observers close at hand, a society wishing to adopt a role in frontline science would also need comparative collections from further afield. Smith and Phillips could provide the York philosophers with links into their network of friends in and around Bath. Men such as Thomas Meade^[37] of Chatley Lodge, near Bath, who assembled his own fine collection but also acted as a broker for material arriving from his brother Williamin^[38] Philadelphia, and for collectors working the productive strata at Chippenham, Bradford upon Avon and Warminster.^[39] Meade was an associate of the Rev. Benjamin Newton, another Bath man who had moved into Yorkshire.^[40] Both were made honorary members.

In 1826, the York society’s Favil James Copsie^[41] returned from Gateshead with coal plants from John Bell, and from Norfolk with Crag shells from a Mr Sparsall and Chalk fossils from Samuel Woodward,^[42] both of Norwich. Woodward became a valuable extension of the York network contributing considerable quantities of Norfolk material derived from his own scientific investigations.^[43] These distant observers were frequently corresponding members to a number of societies. The society in Leeds for example also had strong links with Meade, Woodward and Samuel Sharp^[44] of Wakefield, another contributor of specimens to York. These men were in part building monuments to themselves in several centres, collections which often underpinned their own research and publication. They might also have benefited from exchanges.

Table 2.2 Phillips’ list of contacts in Yorkshire consisting of philosophical society men and dealers.^[45]

York: Mr [Rev. William] Vernon

[Rev.] W[illiam] Taylor

Dr. [George] Goldie

Dr. [Baldwin] Wake

Rev. W[illiam] Bulmer

[Graham] Thorpe

Hull: W[illiam] H[ey] Dikes

J[ohn] E[dward] Lee

Northen

Davies

Stickney

Mr [Christopher] Sykes

Leeds: E[dward]S[anderson] George

[Rev.] W.H. Bathurst

B. Eamonson

Sheffield: L[uke] Palpreyman

R[obert] Young

E Barker

E[dward] Smith

Miss Green

Dr Phillips

Montgomery

Manchester: G[eorge]W[William] Wood

Dr [William] Henry

Mr Winstanley

Bridlington: [Sam] Cowton

[Walter] Wilson

Strickland

Scarborough: J[ohn] Dunn

W[illiam] Bean

J[ohn] Williamson

J Cole

Crawford

Dr. W Travis

W[illiam[ Smith

!Sir J[ohn[ J[ohnstone]

Kirby Lonsdale: Elvilson[?]

Lancaster

Wakefield: [Rev.] S[amuel] Sharp

Wilby & c.

Barnsley: J[ames] Porter

Andrew[ Faulds

Doncaster: Hurst

Crowther

Mr Gooch

Malton: R[obert] Pickering

Mr Allen

Whitby: G[eorge] Young

R[ichard] Ripley

[Col.] J[ames] Wilson

[Brown] Marshall

Networks were often to be shared and exploited by others. Information and specimens might flow into a scientific centre via one network and be dispersed by another. Thus through the offices of William Buckland, the Yorkshire Philosophical Society established contact with, and supplied fossils to, Count Kaspar Maria von Sternburg, the Czech palaeobotanist. By the same device, duplicate specimens derived from the collector network were used to fuel exchanges with societies in the philosophical network. The British Association for the Advancement of Science which met in a different philosophical centre each year provided yet another network capable of enabling provincial philosophers to give interesting local fossils exposure to a wider scientific audience.^[46]

In addition to these networks of contacts there was, of course, a hardcore of ordinary members around which the society revolved.^[47] Every philosophical society had its own complement of scientific men. In addition to Vernon, the York society could boast Thomas Allis, the ornithologist; Rev William Hincks, a botanist; the brothers Thomas and James Backhouse,^[48] botanists and horticulturalists; and the Drs George Goldie, Stephen Beckwith and H. Stephens Belcombe, together with James Cooke, Jonathan Gray and Daniel Tuke^[49] – all men with a keen interest in science. In Hull, John Alderson, William Hey Dikes and John Edward Lee,^[50] were keen geologists, naturalists and antiquarians. In Whitby, perhaps only Richard Ripley was sufficiently unprejudiced in science, though he was later joined and surpassed by Martin Simpson.^[51] In Scarborough, the father and son John and William Williamson, Dr Peter Murray, William Bean, and John Dunn, and later John Leckenby and John Lycett,^[52] gave the town a strong tradition in fossil collecting. Leeds had Edward Sanderson George and a succession of first rate naturalists. Newcastle was home to William Hutton who was to publish on fossil botany with Lindley, Buddle, Thomas Sopwith, William Bowman, William Hewitson who published on birds’ eggs, Joshua Alder and Albany Hancock undertaking molluscan studies, and John Hancock, a keen ornithologist.^[53] In Wakefield, the Rev. Samuel Sharp was prominent. For such men the society provided a forum and ready audience for communicating and debating their ideas, and most became keen donors of material.

Omitted from this overview of the movement, are women. Excluded from membership of the Geological Society, and given restricted access to the proceedings of the philosophical societies they are inevitably difficult figures to track down. They apparently formed a tiny minority of donors to these societies, though social conventions probably hide their true participation. There are, of course, well-known and notable exceptions, and indeed a few contemporaries, such as George Cumberland made much of the need to give women their ‘full share of the honours’.^[54] Women were increasingly being encouraged to take a role in natural history, no longer to be ‘domestic managers, or household ornaments, but… rational companions to rational men’.^[55] But such a recommendation would still not give them status as individuals. There do survive, however, rare glimpses of geology as a social activity for the provincial philosopher and his family. For many philosophers it was by this means – a social diversion on a leisure outing which might include sketching, poetry and a picnic, rather than by ardent fieldwork – that specimens would be gathered for the local society collection.

A profession born of slavery

For a movement intent on making collections the manifest of science, one component in a society’s social structure was perhaps more important than any other. This was the provision made for collection curation. Despite their corporate identity, philosophical societies were still amateur organisations; they had no more expertise in collection building than the curiosity-driven gentlemen collectors they so often denigrated. The contemporary stereotypical view of the collection, based on existing private museums, would be of an assemblage of unrelated objects, collected without direction and displayed without order or explanation. The new societies intended to make collections a resource for research, education and self-improvement, ambitions requiring considerable curatorial input.

Initially, the larger organisations satisfied these needs by establishing honorary curatorships from which its keener members could oversee collection development in specific areas. Despite their initial enthusiasm these members possessed neither the specialist knowledge nor the time to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding collection. Individuals specifically devoted to the task were needed, servants who would undertake the curatorial drudgery, leaving members to enjoy the intellectual pleasures of the collection. But servants need financial remuneration. It was by this means that the first seeds of an academically focused geological profession became established. An earlier model of the geological professional was perhaps exemplified by William Smith who derived an income from the commercial exploitation of geological knowledge in agricultural and engineering works.^[56] The new breed of geological curator was to mark out a career dependent solely on the pursuit of the subject for intellectual ends. The new career geologists would include the likes of Johann Miller, William Lonsdale, William Williamson, Martin Simpson and most notably John Phillips.

In the early years of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, buoyed up by the novelty of their mission, the system of honorary curators worked well and they took every opportunity to become well-versed in acquisition, identification and curation. They saw only the potential of the museum and none of its problems. Vernon made use of his former Oxford associates, Conybeare, who was now involved in similar developments at the Bristol Institution,^[57] and Buckland, who could advise on collection storage and organisation. He and others also drew on the experiences of contemporary public and private museums.^[58] In the late spring of 1823, he visited London’s major scientific institutions gleaning details of best practice. At the Royal Institution, geological collections were displayed on steeply angled shelves, each specimen slotted into its own partition. Each shelf had been cut to the width of the doors, enabling their rapid removal from the cabinet during rearrangement or to accommodate larger specimens. The Institution had constructed the cabinets out of cheap wood, applying an oak stain to hide the economy. Such information could save the York men considerable expense. Vernon also discovered the steps being taken to minimise the effects of pollution on collections; the agent then seen as most damaging to collection integrity. The effects of this pollution can also be inferred from correspondence between geologists. Phillips’ health, for example, could not tolerate the urban atmosphere, his long sojourns into the mountains and along the coast were as much for his constitution as for science. Vernon believed York hardly less polluted than London. He learned from Michael Faraday, at the Royal Institution, and Thomas Webster,^[59] curator at the Geological Society, that cabinets required careful construction including a fabric gasket if smoke dust was to be excluded. Faraday was, at this time, pioneering research into the effects of atmospheric gases on museum specimens, his interest in eradicating such problems no doubt resulted from the considerable amount of time he spent cleaning the Institution’s mineral collections.

The excitement of planning and developing a museum had not prepared the honorary curators for the apparently endless and rather mundane tasks of curation. The problem was exacerbated by a lack of information and experience, but this was not a task that could be neglected. An institution’s scientific status relied upon order; indeed collection order was in itself a statement of scientific knowledge and understanding. Without this it would never surpass the low standards of the private collector. Part-time curators, temporary rooms and rapid acquisition could only result in chaos. Increased space alone would help little, the hobbyist curator would still need to deal with backlogs, maintenance and revision. Without hard won knowledge acquired from the field and from other collections, which the new professional curator could bring, the Society’s officers had little chance of identifying, and stratigraphically localising finds. And with every specimen accessible in drawers, if not on display, it would be impossible for a philosophical institution to hide its curatorial inadequacies. Without this curatorial basis members would be unable to expound, with any confidence, on subjects covered by the collection and the value of the whole institution would be put into question.

The inadequacy of the curatorial powers of the York curators, and a possible solution to the problem, became clear with the arrival of Smith and Phillips in York in February 1824. Uniquely equipped to curate geological collections and apparently keen to sell their services, the two men were seen as a godsend to the emerging societies. Smith, however, now in his early 50s, had no wish to become a curatorial servant. Phillips,^[60] on the other hand, was in his early 20s and suitably deferential. Doubtless tired of being the indebted nephew and junior assistant, he had hidden within him great scientific ambition and a strong desire to prove himself. He had received a good classical education, was well-versed in ancient and modern languages, very bright and highly articulate. This education had been supplemented with tuition from Benjamin Richardson of Farleigh near Bath, one of the region’s most noted naturalists. Phillips was a great contrast to his guardian who was of a far more anecdotal and rambling disposition; he too had been brought up by an uncle but had received none of the opportunities he had given his own nephew.

Phillips’ early education was further supplemented by the ideas which it had taken Smith a lifetime to formulate. These included the curatorial skills which Smith himself had developed, based on his unique knowledge of the relationship between fossils and strata. In the first decades of the century his curatorial skills were pre-eminent. At his London home his collection had been arranged stratigraphically on sloping shelves which emulated the dip of strata he had known near Bath. But as Phillips recalls Smith had never perfected his scheme and relied as much upon memory as on organisation, and indeed there is little evidence that Smith found such work rewarding.^[61]

In 1816, Smith had been forced to sell his collection to the British Museum to ameliorate financial difficulties. The collection had been accepted on the condition that it be organised stratigraphically in illustration of Smithian principles. It was the 15 year old Phillips who undertook much of this work.^[62] Utilising his newly acquired linguistic and zoological knowledge to decipher texts lent by Joseph Banks, it took him 5 months to curate the collection to a standard in advance of any then in Britain. Smith’s stratigraphic arrangement had been enhanced by the full identification of fossil species and a secondary zoological arrangement; each specimen was annotated with a system of codes indicating genus (a capital letter), species (a numeral) and locality (a lower case letter).^[63]

To the young Phillips the task had been a chore grudgingly carried out, but one which would mould his future life and ultimately take him from vagrant surveyor’s assistant to an Oxford professorship.^[64] Such curatorial tricks, when repeated on the collections of the Yorkshire societies nearly a decade later, would be met with great excitement. In the intervening years, Phillips would live and breathe the field geology of England as Smith’s assistant.

With their transition to peripatetic lecturers in 1824, the two often found themselves advising local societies on curatorial matters. Thus early in that year, Phillips organised the geological collections in York, and in part payment they were permitted to use the Society’s specimens in their lecture programme.^[65] Access to these collections and close liaison with an organisation committed to countywide geology could only benefit their commercial ventures. In return the York men found Smith a useful geological ally, one deserving of patronage and the one perhaps most likely to help them achieve their research goal; it would take them slightly longer to distinguish the young Phillips’ superior philosophical attributes. For a cost of £20, Phillips transformed the chaos of the York geological collection into a stratigraphically arranged assemblage of specimens, each labelled with its scientific name and locality. This metamorphosis rendered the collections as a whole ‘a very instructive school to the student’ but ‘in the Fossil Department… a very compendious and useful account of the local strata to the experienced geologist’.^[66] In these early years, income from the lectures of Smith, Phillips and others would also be channelled into collection care, particularly for the purchase of cabinets.^[67]

It was not long before the York philosophers sought to bring Phillips permanently into the fold. Given his keenness to pursue a career in science, they knew his talents could probably be acquired cheaply and in 1826 the post of Keeper of the Museum and Draughtsman was specifically created for him.

It is unnecessary to point out to the Meeting, in how many other respects this appointment promises to prove advantageous to the interests of an establishment, whose growing concerns already require more constant attention, than the spare time of its unsalaried officers can possibly afford.^[68]

Even this relatively large and wealthy society could not fund such a post from membership fees and lectures alone; half of Phillips’ salary of £60 would come from private subscriptions. Even so, the monies raised were only sufficient to pay for his part-time attachment to the museum: three days a week, 10 am to 4 pm, for nine months each year.^[69] Phillips revelled in the opportunities now open to him but was also aware that these were men with whom he had little social affinity:

I really know not how to express the feelings of gratitude and delight which occupy my mind; on finding that my conduct since I have been connected with the Society is approved by its members much my superiors in abilities and greatly my superiors in station. I think myself fortunate to be in any manner joined to a Society whose objects so perfectly coincide with my own views and from whose members I have received so much kindness and encouragement.^[70]

Phillips saw this as an opportunity to pursue science as a profession; an adventure that would remove him from the obvious career path and give him financial independence from his uncle for the first time. But he was to find the process of social adjustment to this new gentlemen’s society difficult, and frustrated by his curatorial role he often sunk into periods of melancholy, fearing that his destiny might so easily be thwarted.^[71]

He began work as Keeper on 9th February 1826, nearly two years after he had first arranged the Society’s collections. In the intervening period much had been added without any apparent sense of order or annotation. The labels on those specimens he had previously arranged were now out-of-date or had deteriorated. He began his work by considering how the collection could best be arranged, seeing complete revision as the only proper course.^[72] Where specimens lacked a locality, he set them aside in the hope of interrogating donors; he knew the vital importance of this data from his surveying days. Large groups of fossils from the same formation, such as the Mountain Limestone, were arranged geographically. The term ‘series’ grew into common local use at this time, to describe a suite of fossils and rocks that were unified under some stratigraphic or geographical banner. These series – such as that donated by Lyell from the Paris Basin – were often organised and displayed as discrete units.^[73]

By the end of his first year as Keeper, the Society’s Council were in no doubt that Phillips was as fundamental to their status and objectives as any assemblage of objects.

The condition which those who contribute such objects to a public institution are entitled to demand, is, that they shall be made more instructive than they could have been in private hands; a condition too often very little attended to, or, from a want of regular arrangement, very imperfectly fulfilled. It has always been kept in view by this Society; and the order which has been, from the first, observed in entering donations on the inventories of the Museum, and classing them on its shelves, has saved it from the embarrassment of a useless heap of undistinguished specimens. The Council have the satisfaction of adding, that the appointment made in the beginning of the year, which secured to the Institution the valuable services of John Phillips, has enabled them to realise still more completely their wishes in this respect, and to render the Society’s collection much more accessible and instructive.^[74]

Perhaps more importantly, the Society’s members could now abandon the chores of the Museum to Phillips. A new profession had been established which the York society would attempt to maintain against a background of severe financial difficulties. In later life, his geological career well established, Phillips failed to see the importance of the opportunity the Yorkshire Philosophical Society had given him.^[75] Instead he viewed paid curatorship as undermining local science:

they [honorary curators] find it impracticable to give regular attention to the duty expected; they have other more pressing engagements. In this (which is the common) case, a salaried curator is appointed and nearly all the work of the Society is entrusted to him, often with insufficient remuneration, and little help or encouragement to augment his knowledge or resources, Such institutions usually decline; fall asleep; are forgotten.^[76]

His experience had taught him that, in the presence of a paid keeper, members soon showed ‘a gentle acquiescence in growing indifferent to real study, and an upspringing demand for something more amusing, exciting or fashionable’; and the keeper frustrated and overworked gave his attention to other things.^[77]

When Phillips resigned from the post of Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum in 1840 he recommended that he not be replaced; the Society should instead use this as an opportunity to encourage greater participation by the membership in the workings of the Museum. The Council of the Society knew, however, that such a system simply did not work but had to endure it as a result of massive debts arising from property deals in that year. With the death of Stephen Beckwith in 1843 the Society received a legacy which cured its financial difficulties, and immediately appointed Edward Charlesworth, as Phillips’ successor.

Phillips gave similar advice to Sir John Johnstone when John Williamson’s Scarborough curatorship became vacant in 1853. He advised the appointment of a caretaker to keep the collections clean and secure, allowing a man of science to visit occasionally to advise. Johnstone tried to put the plan into action suggesting that ‘a woman might even suffice for the job’.^[78] Murchison, who was also consulted, suggested that the curator should also be able to point out the most remarkable fossils; he still saw museums as a vital index to provincial geology.

The human costs of curation

York was not alone in supporting the development of this new geological profession; geologists appear to have been appointed to the vast majority of philosophical society curatorships. These men all differed slightly in the role they took on and in their career progress, these being determined by their personal attributes, education and ability, the liberality of the employing institution, the availability of opportunities and the patronage or notice of men of distinction in science. A few of the most able, particularly those with well honed fossil identification skills, were snapped up from their provincial nests and enthroned in expanding national institutions; most, however, were left to a life of drudgery.

William Lonsdale, 6 years Phillips’ elder, is a good example of the rising curator. He became curator of the Bath Institution in 1825, an institution Phillips visited near the end of Lonsdale’s reign in 1829. ‘Lonsdale has worked very hard at the Bath Institution and put their miniature museum in good order and has succeeded pretty well’.^[79] From this ‘miniature museum’ Lonsdale was transported to the most influential geological museum in Britain – that of the Geological Society in London. Like Phillips, his impact on both collections and members was immediate. The collection now began to take on proper stratigraphic shape and descriptive labels were attached to individual specimens to replace inadequate drawer catalogues. With the collection in order, Lonsdale could also produce a ‘wants list’ to which it was hoped provincial institutions would contribute.^[80] Lonsdale received a salary of £200 for his full-time devotion to the task. In practice, the new curator also devoted his leisure hours and vacation to the Society’s collections. The committee reporting on the collection in 1832 recommended that steps be taken to prevent further encroachment on the curator’s time for the sake of the institution and the curator’s health.^[81] By 1842, however, Lonsdale’s health was suffering and he resigned his duties and moved to Devon. He told everyone he had ‘gone away to die’^[82] and the fellows hastily made a collection, raising in excess of £600. Phillips, however, felt he would recover, which he did. That Lonsdale’s health should have deteriorated became all too apparent to his successor, Edward Forbes, who complained of the ‘unreasonableness of geologists in the Society of occupying time’;^[83] he felt little more than a servant.

Johann Miller had likewise been selected for higher service. In 1821, Buckland led a failed attempt to have him installed as the natural replacement for W.E. Leach^[84] at the British Museum, yet another curator whose health had gone into rapid decline as a result of the overwhelming burden of curatorial work. Murchison described Miller as a man of ‘penetrating skill and incomparable collections’.^[85] Buckland had been impressed by his A Natural History of the Crinoidea, published earlier this year, and together with Conybeare and the Dean of Bristol lobbied the Archbishop of Canterbury whose decision the appointment was. As it turned out Miller, instead, joined the Bristol Institution on the 30 April 1823 supported by testimonials from Conybeare, Jameson, Buckland and Sedgwick^[86].

In 1829, not long before Miller’s death, Phillips viewed both Miller’s own collection and that of the Institution for which he worked:

Miller’s collection appears to be extremely large and well chosen. I saw the fine suite of Crinoidea, many corals, the Ancliff shells, Dundry fossils, Mountain Lime bed & c… [but] is imperfectly arranged in drawers which admit a shelf or layer like Mr Allis’s. The specimens are stuck upon little [sketch] parallelograms [i.e. rectangles] of board covered with coloured paper and intended to be labelled as far as he knows. This however is a labour in which he has made little or no progress in any department, wither for himself or the Institution. Is it because his time is so excessively engrossed or what other additional reason forbids?^[87]

Phillips could see no excuse for omitting this fundamental exercise; without such information the collection was useless. The Bristol Institution’s fossil collections were ‘few and fine’ but in some areas, particularly Crinoidea, Miller had finer.

Miller’s mode of life is uncommon. Breakfast at 8. To the Institution at 10. Remains there till 9 at night. Dines at 10 [in the ] evening. Takes chocolate at 1 coffee at 5. Rooms open from 10 to 4. He shows all, keeps the keys & c. Is a slave to the institution and therefore in my opinion does not care two-pence about it. He buys for himself but is not allowed (or does not allow himself?) to purchase for the Society. Hence the two interests are rivals.^[88]

Miller had seen local fads in natural history before; there had some time earlier been intense interest in entomology but this had died away. He certainly felt little attachment to his present occupation and no respect for his superiors – ‘there are few people of zeal and intelligence conjoined in Bristol’. As he told Phillips:

Mr P, the value of all these things is exactly proportioned to the zeal of the curator – at first bustle, then indifference – all depends on one, two or three men of influence who can carry things as they like.

Miller died in 1830, his important collection having already been purchased by his employing institution for £730.^[89]

In 1837, Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, ever keen to compete with its neighbours, found sufficient funds to appoint its own Lecturer and Keeper. Martin Simpson, an educated man, who had previously been a teacher and itinerant lecturer, as well as an active participant in the society in Wakefield, was also keen to establish himself in geology. Just a month older than Phillips, he would surely like to rise out of Yorkshire, in similar fashion. He pursued fieldwork with a passion and at the highest resolution, and wrote up his researches, but achieved little more than local celebrity. In Simpson, Whitby had found an extraordinarily loyal slave.^[90] His paltry wage of £20, however, proved too much for the Society and in 1841 his appointment ended:

…at the close of the year his services are to be dispensed with – services at no previous period more indispensable than at the present, and such as no other member of the Society could have leisure to render, and few only the ability and patience so to do.^[91]

Simpson soon found an appointment at the museum of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society in Wakefield but this lasted just 15 months, the Council of that Society believing that the rewards were not worth the outlay. As one member put it ‘the museum at Wakefield appears to me to be nearly a useless expense’;^[92] it was too out of the way for a membership spread across the West Riding and was on Simpson’s departure incorporated into the collections of the Leeds society. Following severe financial losses, Simpson returned to Whitby where he gave his time freely as curator for the next 20 years, before being given a ‘salary’ of £10 per year. He supplemented his income with the sale of fossils to tourists, and died at the age of 92, poor, lonely and embittered.^[93]

There was an unsuccessful attempt by Scarborough Literary and Philosophical Society to poach Simpson from Whitby in 1848 at a minimum salary of £10 with free accommodation in the museum, lighting and fuel.^[94] This was to replace John Williamson, upon whose fossil collection the Society had been founded. Williamson had been curator of the Museum since its inception, on a salary of just £30, with an additional £10 paid to his wife when she was appointed his assistant in 1838. These funds were raised, in part at least, from door receipts.^[95]

By trade Williamson was a market gardener and he had ‘enjoyed no educational advantages’.^[96] The one attribute, which made him appropriate to the post of curator other than the bribe of his collection, was that he was a collector. This became particularly useful during the late 1830s when the Society came into increasing financial difficulties. Unable to purchase specimens it relied upon Williamson to collect both for the Museum and for the purposes of sale and exchange. It was he who also built up the Museum’s collections of insects, birds, eggs and plants. After a financial crisis in 1848, Williamson was kept on as an assistant to the committee responsible for the Museum and paid £20 per annum for his time three days per week. As the future of the institution became an increasing cause for concern, he intimated that some specimens in the Museum were his own and not the Society’s. In practice, it would have been difficult to determine what arising from his collecting belonged to the Society and what to himself. As a result he was asked to produce a catalogue of the positions of those specimens said to be his. It was at this time that the Society sought a replacement for the ageing Williamson, and approached Simpson offering a ridiculously low salary, knowing of his impoverished status. Simpson rejected the offer outright.

Williamson, approaching 70 years in age, tendered his resignation from the post of Curator in 1853:

The active duties are such as I am no longer able to perform, I am fully conscious that when I was equal to them, the salary which I received was not proportionate to the efforts which I made to advance the interest of the Institution, but the labour was one of love, I rejoiced in the growing prosperity of the museum and did my best to promote it. In closing my official connection with an institution with which I have been so long associated, it is impossible not to feel some regrets, at the same time I earnestly hope that its future career will be prosperous and that some successor will be found whose interest in it and whose efforts for its advancement will be as great and enduring as my own.^[97]

The Society, accepting his resignation awarded him an annual pension of £10.^[98]

Whilst John Williamson derived few benefits from his dedication to the Scarborough society, his son, William, born in 1816, was exposed to the full impact of the philosophical movement during its most active years. He had met and knew Murchison, Smith, Phillips, and others who were attracted to Scarborough by his father’s collections. At the age of 19, he was appointed curator to the Natural History Society in Manchester on a salary of £110 per annum, and from there, like Phillips, rose to a university professorship.

The Hull society’s honorary curator, William Hey Dikes, like his counterpart in Scarborough, was essentially looking after material he had formerly owned privately. Dikes, however, had little time to devote to curation. Chaotic storage conditions made the task difficult and resulted in reduced numbers of donations. The problem of curation was partly resolved using Phillips and the young William Williamson to bring the collections up to scratch and then delegating maintenance work to a team of honorary subcurators. The Society also experimented with paid curatorship. For the Hull men the situation was exacerbated by the want of books on natural history. With their lavish illustrations these tended to be too expensive for societies to purchase or members to donate; in their first five years they received none. Such problems not only had implications for the collections but also for the education of members and curators:

Deprived of access to these sources of information also, he has no alternative but to remain a mere collector, unacquainted with the affinities and nature of the specimens which have excited his attention and curiosity.^[99]

Edward Charlesworth provides one final useful example of the geological curator. Charlesworth took up Phillips’ old post of Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum in 1844. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society thought they were acquiring a suitable replacement for Phillips but the two men could not have been less alike. Phillips was a consummate scientist; fossils were scientific facts from which one could extract environmental and stratigraphic data. Despite his deviation into the emerging specialism of palaeontology he remained principally a stratigrapher. Charlesworth, was a lover of fossils; to him fossils had an inherent sense of wonder enhanced by aesthetics and rarity. They were an end in themselves. Phillips was the bland, articulate, diplomat and Charlesworth the fiery, assertive, rude and awkward rebel.

Charlesworth had acquired the post in York after failing to succeed Lonsdale at the Geological Society. Here Charlesworth, after being initially rejected, ‘canvassed all geological England’^[100] to have his application reconsidered and located some 20-30 supporters. It is probable that he believed his rejection had come from Lyell’s supporters; Lyell had already crossed swords with him over the stratigraphy of the Crag.^[101] The infuriated Charlesworth even went to the length of threatening legal proceedings. On a visit to London in late 1842, Phillips ‘found Murchison & the geologists in fumes & fires about Mr. Charlesworth & his claims to succeed Lonsdale’, and told De la Beche, ‘How this rebellion will end I do not see except on one point that your Somerset House clique will be awfully shaken by it’.^[102] A special meeting of the Society was assembled, as Charles Darwin put it, ‘to call us of the Council over the coals – but he burnt his own fingers – for the meeting of a hundred and odd members, with not one dissident voice – voted the council “their grateful thanks”’.^[103] ‘I never saw any man, to use a theatrical expression, so utterly damned’, Darwin told Henslow after the meeting.^[104] It was reported that Charlesworth was to quit science for Edinburgh and medicine, but instead he found the post in York, which he kept until he became embroiled in yet another scandal.^[105]

The slavery to which Miller, Lonsdale, Phillips, Leach, Williamson, Simpson and Forbes were submitted was the norm for the curator. Others, such as John Salter^[106] and George Richardson,^[107] who both committed suicide, could be added to the list of casualties. Such exploitation was a necessary precursor to the adoption of a system of support based on merit rather than the size of one’s income or one’s bloodline. Only by proving the superiority of an approach which exploited ability would such a system be adopted. In the meantime curators had to accept their station, few were ever to rise out of it. Phillips’ apparent unhappiness with the implications of paid curatorship reflects more broadly his concern for a society’s scientific objectives and his subsequent distaste for the task. From the 1840s onwards the consensus in museums across Britain was that an informed curator was vital to the success of the museum.

What a museum depends upon for its success and usefulness is not its building, not its cases, nor even its specimens, but its curator. He and his staff are the life and soul of the institution, upon whom its whole value depends.^[108]

The Yorkshire society had established a geological powerbase built around the patronage of a social and scientific elite. An elite which also had a home in the capital and the Establishment, and alongside which many would like to stand. The Society used rank to establish a club where exclusivity was an important marketing tool. Such societies were the embodiment of the principle of self-improvement which pervaded the century, but self-improvement meant not simply education but to rise in rank and status.^[109] Its members were not political radicals; they wished not to overthrow the Establishment but to rise within it. Such social elevation was within their reach. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society successfully exploited its social structure in its collecting programme but its success as a scientific organisation was to depend on perhaps its lowliest member, John Phillips.

^[1] The collection of James R. Johnson of Hotwells, Bristol, for example, was seen by Miller and Phillips in 1829, and contained a fine collection of saurians, crinoids and other fossils but was, in Phillips’ opinion, ‘a show collection and not an illustrative solution’. Any intellectual intent on the part of the collector was not present in the collection. OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 19a, Journal for 1829, 13 October 1829.

^[2] Sheppard (1916:1).

^[3] YPS (1828) Annual Report for 1827.

^[4] WL&PS (1834) Annual Report, 12.

^[5] Boylan (History of Geology Group meeting 16 February 1996) has pointed out that Buckland’s (1821) instructions for collectors, which placed him at the centre of an international collecting network, were a response to those published by Alexandre Brongniart (1819). Buckland made widespread use of material sent to him from parts of the globe he never himself visited.

^[6] Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam (4 May 1786 – 4 October 1857) who became Earl Fitzwilliam in 1833. MP for Yorkshire from 1807 to 1830. Boase (1892). He remained YPS President until his death.

^[7] Altick (1973:25)

^[8] Sir George Cayley (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857). Boase (1892); The Times, 18 December 1857, 6; Hartley & Ingilby (1961:110-4).

^[9] 10 May 1772 – 25 December 1864.

^[10] James Archibald Stuart Wortley (1776-1845); Hailstone (1869:191).

^[11] d.9 May 1852.

^[12] Park (1886).

^[13] Morrell & Thackray (1981:114).

^[14] Edward Venables Vernon (1757-1847); Hailstone (1869:189).

^[15] George William Frederick Howard (1802-1864), the 7th Earl; Hailstone (1869:200).

^[16] John Delavel Carpenter (1790-1853).

^[17] William Joseph Stourton (1776-1846).

^[18] Godfrey Bosville- MacDonald (1775-1832).

^[19] Murchison remarked that the first meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held in York, was important not least for ‘bringing the working men of science into communication with individuals of rank and property’. By this means Smith gained a government pension. Presidential Address, 17 February 1832, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1, 378. Morrell & Thackray (1981:109) identify the same patterns of patronage in the affairs of the British Association which was largely modelled by William Vernon Harcourt.

^[20] The Bristol society also sought to attract geological alumni, indeed in a letter to De la Beche, Conybeare’s phrasing suggests that there existed a cache of geologists who had to be included: ‘Buckland, Sedgwick & c – who have or may give us presents’. Conybeare, Bristol to De la Beche, Jamaica, 19 December 1823, NMW 298.

^[21] See for example, Secord (1986b); Rudwick (1985); Oldroyd (1990).

^[22] See Morrell & Thackray (1981).

^[23] WL&PS (1825) Annual Report, 2.

^[24] As Prof. James F.W Johnston of Durham remarked to T.W. Embleton, 31 December 1837, ‘It will give me great pleasure to be enrolled amongst its [Yorkshire Geol. & Poly. Soc.] honorary members, by the side of my friends Phillips and Smith’, in Davies (1889:7).

^[25] WL&PS (1825) Annual Report, 2.

^[26] Thus YPS Secretary George Goldie, who had been instrumental in arranging purchases from Whitby, was honoured by the latter society early in 1825. Young to Goldie, 22 February 1825, in Melmore (1942).

^[27] Anon. (1827d).

^[28] Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Pückler-Muskau (30 October 1785 – 4 February 1871), a German writer and traveller (see Butler 1929).

^[29] Anon. (1827e).

^[30] Phillips (1871); Orange (1973:7); Pyrah (1988:20).

^[31] His brothers included, for example: George Granville Venables Vernon (1785-1861), barrister and MP for Lichfield and then Oxfordshire; Granville Venables Vernon (1792-1879), barrister, MP for Aldborough, Yorkshire and then Retford; Rev. Leveson Venables Vernon (1788-1860), rector living at Stokesley near Guisborough; Rev. Charles Venables Vernon of Rothbury in Northumberland; Egerton Venables Vernon (1803-1883), ecclesiastical registrar at Bishopthorpe, York; Frederick Edward Venables Vernon (1790-1883) and Octavius Henry Cyril Venables Vernon (1793-1863), both senior naval officers.

^[32] Porter (1978:812) has shown that the medical and theological professions, together with men of wealth and rank, had been the driving force behind the development of geology since the seventeenth century.

^[33] W.H. Fitton, Presidential address, 15 February 1828, Proc. Geol. Soc, 1, 60; see also Loudon (1835).

^[34] Phillips (1871:xv). This was in sharp contrast to his brother L.V. Harcourt who published Doctrine of the Deluge in 1838 expressing the truth of the Flood. See Morrell & Thackray (1981:242).

^[35] Lyell (1826:172).

^[36] Pyrah (1988:26).

^[37] Thomas Meade (d.1845), early honorary member of the Geological Society. Cleevely (1983:200).

^[38] William Meade (1789-1862) Irish physician and mineral collector; Am. J. Sci., 25(1), 215; Am. J. Sci., 26(1), 209-10.

^[39] Newton, Red Marley Rectory, Bath to YPS, 2 May 1824; Thomas Meade to the YPS, 10 July 1825, YPS Letter Book.

^[40] William Salmond was also a former resident of Bath and may have had considerable influence in the establishment of networking links (Torrens Pers. Comm.).

^[41] A partner with the Tuke family in a York tea business, also a YPS Secretary (Orange 1973).

^[42] Samuel Woodward (3 October 1790 – 14 January 1838), Norfolk banker and merchant who published on Norfolk geology in 1833. Cleevely (1983:317).

^[43] YPS Daybook of John Phillips, 1 & 6 April 1826; YPS (1827) Annual Report for 1826.

^[44] Samuel Sharp (1773-1855), Vicar of Wakefield.

^[45] From a slip of paper enclosed in OUM Box 82 Item 17. Phillips Notebook and Journal 1827-8.

^[46] YPS (1825) Annual Report for 1824; SL&PS Minutes of Council, 8 July 1836.

^[47] Williamson (1896:56-7).

^[48] Rev. William Hincks (1794-1871), lecturer. Thomas Backhouse (1792-1845); James Backhouse (1794-1869), sons of a Darlington banker, nurserymen.

^[49] Jonathan. Gray (1779-1837); Daniel Tuke (1784-1832)

^[50] John Edward Lee (21 December 1808 – 18 August1887).

^[51] Richard Ripley (d.1857); Martin Simpson (20 November 1800 – 31 December 1892).

^[52] Peter Murray (1828-1864); John Leckenby (20 September 1814 – 7 April 1877); John Lycett (1804 – 12 April 1882).

^[53] William Hutton (21 March 1797 – 21 November 1860); Thomas Sopwith (3 January 1803 – 16 January 1879); John Hancock (1808-1893).

^[54] Cumberland (1829:348).

^[55] Loudon (1835:iii).

^[56] Porter (1978:816): ‘The first stage of geological professionalization was not the professional researcher, but the technician or popularizer’. Porter, however, makes no mention of the fundamental importance of early nineteenth century curatorship to the development of the geological professional.

^[57] Vernon to Goldie, 11 November 1823, in Melmore (1942).

^[58] Vernon to Goldie, 26 May & 2 June 1823, in Melmore (1942). Phillips later reported on a visit to Gideon Mantell’s museum, and both he and William Marshall reported on continental museums.

^[59] Thomas Webster (11 February 1772 – 26 December 1844).

^[60] For Phillips’ background and career see Anon. (1870; 1874a; 1874b); Douglas & Edmonds (1950); Edmonds (1974; 1975a; 1975b; 1977; 1982); Edmonds & Beardmore (1955); Evans (1874); Sheppard (1932;1944); Morrell (1988); Morrell & Thackray (1981).

^[61] Phillips (1844).

^[62] Like fossil collecting, curatorship was traditionally to be delegated to juniors.

^[63] Anon. (1874a:598); Anon. (1874b:510). Eyles (1967) gives a detailed account of the sale and reproduces the bulk of the correspondence. Smith’s Strata identified by organized fossils (1815) and Stratigraphical system of organized fossils (1817) directly resulted from this curatorial effort. This arrangement was certainly in advance of that at the Geological Society, which claimed to be at the heart of British research (see Moore et al 1991:55).

^[64] It is interesting to note the similarly revelational effect for William Williamson undertaking the same task on his father’s collection (Williamson 1896:12).

^[65] Phillips (1835a:ix).

^[66] YPS (1825) Annual Report for 1824.

^[67] Smith’s lectures for 1824 earned a profit of £40 which could be turned to good use in the geological collection (YPS (1825) Annual Report for 1824); when Phillips later became Keeper of the Museum such profits were returned to him to supplement his paltry income.

^[68] YPS (1826) Annual Report for 1825.

^[69] Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday; YPS (1826) Annual Report for 1825; YPS Daybook of John Phillips, 7 February 1826.

^[70] Phillips’ own record of his speech at a dinner party at Baines Hotel, York, 7 March 1826.OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 13. Diary 1825-26.

^[71] OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 13, Diary 1825-26. 6 April 1826.

^[72] YPS Daybook of John Phillips, 9, 18, 21 February 1826.

^[73] YPS Daybook of John Phillips, 9 May 1826.

^[74] YPS (1827) Annual Report for 1826.

^[75] Secord (1985:61) suggests that the positive implications of these early careers in science are apparent only in retrospect; to those pursuing them they held great potential for disappointment and tragedy.

^[76] Phillips quoted by Collinge (1925:43).

^[77] Phillips, towards the end of his life, quoted by Orange (1973:40).

^[78] Johnstone, London to Leckenby, Scarborough, 19 & 24 March 1853, Scarborough Rotunda 427.39.1 & 2. Phillips, York to Johnstone, 22 March 1853, Scarborough Rotunda 183.58.

^[79] OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 19a. Journal 1829. 15 October 1829.

^[80] Report upon the Museums and Library & presidential address, 19 February 1830, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1, 173-5, 186.

^[81] Report of the Committee on the Museums, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1, 349.

^[82] Phillips, Malvern to De la Beche, 13 November 1842, NMW. In fact he died in 1871 at the age of 77.

^[83] Forbes to De la Beche, 11 November 1844, NMW 543.

^[84] William Elford Leach (1790 – 1836) suffered increasingly from mental instability, DNB. Allen (1976:85).

^[85] Murchison, Presidential Address, 17 February 1832, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1, 378. Buckland, Oxford to Miss Talbot, 26 November 1821, NMW 161.

^[86] Anon. (1829:555).

^[87] OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 19a. Journal 1829. 13 October 1829.

^[88] OUM Phillips Box 82 folder 19a. Journal 1829. 13 October 1829.

^[89] For more on Miller see Taylor (1994:187).

^[90] Hemingway (1946:99) discusses Simpson’s collecting from measured sections.

^[91] They had expected to dispense with him at the end of 1839. WL&PS (1839) Annual Report, 17.

^[92] J. Travis Clay to T.W. Embleton, 2 May 1843, in Davis (1889:164).

^[93] Browne (1949); Smales (1867).

^[94] SL&PS Minutes of Council, Committee to Manage the Museum, 6 November 1848.

^[95] SL&PS Minutes of Council, 23 May 1838.

^[96] Williamson (1896, 6).

^[97] Williamson to SL&PS, undated, Scarborough Rotunda unnumbered papers.

^[98] Leckenby to Williamson, 7 February 1853, Scarborough Rotunda unnumbered papers.

^[99] HL&PS (1827) Annual Report, 4.

^[100] Charles Darwin to Lyell, 7 October 1842 and Nov/Dec 1842, in Burkhardt & Smith (1986).

^[101] Charlesworth had published, what was referred to on his death as a ‘masterly paper’, on the Crag in 1835 at the age of 22. He disputed Lyell’s classification of the Crag at the BAAS meeting in 1836 (Charlesworth 1836).

^[102] Phillips, Malvern to De la Beche, 13 November 1842, NMW.

^[103] Darwin to W.D. Fox, 9 December 1842, in Burkhardt & Smith (1986).

^[104] Darwin to Henslow [22 January 1843] in ibid.

^[105] Pyrah (1988:66).

^[106] Secord (1985)

^[107] Torrens & Cooper (1986).

^[108] Flower (1889:12), a director of the British Museum (Natural History).

^[109] See for example Harrison (1988:138).

Simon Knell

Books and essays by Simon Knell