© Simon Knell, all rights reserved. From Simon Knell, Immortal remains: fossil collections from the heroic age of geology (1820-1850), Ph.D. thesis, University of Keele, UK, 1997.

… empty verbosity… the perfect uselessness of all its proceedings… the plagiarised papers which are weekly read before it, and the pure unadulterated nonsense which floats through the atmosphere of its hall from the mouth of its dilettante members.^[1]

For nearly two decades the philosophical societies held sway over provincial geology, particularly in those parts of Britain where that geology was assumed to conform to established knowledge.  For the only time in their history, provincial museums were at the heart of pioneering geological research.  Private ‘selfless’ enterprise, built on wealth and social status, had in a few years created collections of incredible diversity and richness.  From an age of speculation, philosophical societies, such as that in York, had based their activities on a new and supposedly inductive mode of investigation free from theory.  Inductivism, however, did not accurately describe their methodology, which was simply a shift towards observation and fact gathering.  Phillips and Smith, as well as more widely influential figures such as Buckland and Conybeare, were responsible for indoctrinating the provincial philosophers with this mode of study.

From the late 1830s, the role of the amateur in geology became increasingly marginalised.  If the provincial observer often failed to gain the respect of gentlemen geologists, their function would be further usurped by the formation of the Geological Survey of Great Britain.  A new level of rigour would pervade geology including the collecting and study of fossils.  The Survey would bring together a research school of high calibre scientists,^[2] supported by a team of collectors and fieldworkers who would be trained up to pursue geology at a higher resolution than had previously been possible.  New public support for science was to be based on merit rather than wealth and time for leisure.^[3]

The growth of publicly funded science was to drastically affect the functioning of those philosophical societies which had positioned themselves as participants in the development of geology.  After 1840 increasing numbers of academic and government positions would remove the very best geologists from philosophical circles.  Indeed, government organisations such as the Geological Survey would, by the 1840s, become the new proving ground for the professional geologist, training up numerous individuals for colonial service.  The new professionals might make use of existing museum collections, particularly those pursuing palaeontological description, but they would increasingly find their level of stratigraphic or locality information inadequate.  As Phillips was aware geology would want to make its own observations and its own collections.

With the passing of the Museum Act 1845 local government took on the funding of public museums, and did so, in many cases, by taking over the museums of philosophical societies.  The learned societies had revelled in their rate of acquisition and the size of their museums but within a few years these were filled to the gunwales and had no way or wish to control the collecting culture they had engendered.  Their museums were quite often embarrassingly disorganised, providing no more protection for their contents than specimens left in the field:

Several men of science who have visited our Museum, have complained of the want of a stratigraphical arrangement of fossils and rocks, and have also felt hurt at seeing so many valuable specimens lying exposed to injury.^[4]

Many provincial societies were undergoing considerable problems in maintaining their momentum as well as their museums.  Thus in 1850 the Manchester Geological Society, which was established in 1838, merged with the Manchester Society for the Promotion of Natural History established in 1821.  Equally, the largely dormant Derby Museum and Natural History Society, established 1836, merged with the much older local philosophical society eleven years later.  The Bristol Institution which had only opened its building in 1823, was from 1836 in financial crisis; the Bath Institution had gone into earlier decline.^[5] The philosophical societies in Yorkshire underwent a similar period of insecurity.

The new generation wanted something different and spawned their own style of natural history society and field club.  It was far easier to start a society and cast it in one’s own image than to take over that already invested with its own traditions, with its grey-haired elders wishing to hold onto the past.  The new provincial scientists were also less intent on running museums, though many did.  The preferred option was to pressure their local authorities into taking this on and acting as a support organisation.  In the latter half of the century these societies and their museums became focused on public education rather than research; many museums, including that in York, went through a phase of believing that local collections were of little use for this purpose, they would prefer general series of archetypes.  Considered equally useless were those comparative collections received from distant parts – material which had often come from the very workers who supported the pioneering discoveries of the 1820s and 1830s which underpinned contemporary geological understanding.

The history of museum geological collections is one of repeatedly unheeded warnings.^[6] As a result rather than the construction of a local resource, a monster is created which consumes all monies and every spare moment.  The rationalisation which follows fails to recognise the true worth of the collection and important material is lost.

Philosophical societies in decline in Yorkshire

By the mid 1830s Phillips had largely fulfilled the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s primary objective.  Exhausted by the process and wishing to progress onto geology’s main stage he would no longer be a major participant in the activities of the Society.  The Society would attempt to regain its scientific status with the appointment of another accomplished curator, Edward Charlesworth, but this great fossil enthusiast and dealer was the antithesis of Phillips.  His life tumbled through a succession of calamities, injustices, controversies and misjudgements to leave a bitter man.

In attempting to satisfy very material objectives – buildings, museums, libraries and so on – the philosophical societies frequently found themselves in debt.  The York society, for example, acquired a debt of £1500 in 1829 following the erection of its building.^[7] It also participated in property deals which thrust it massively into the red in 1840, only to be bailed out by the Beckwith bequest.  In 1847 it would again face financial difficulties in having to repay the late William Gray’s loan of £1000.^[8] Personal loans were frequently used to keep these societies afloat, but such monies would not be available beyond the death of the lender.

In this way, and through shareholding, sufficient capital could be squeezed out of the local community for the erection of a building; should the society fail, the investment remained secure.  It was more difficult to find adequate funds for the day to day operation of the museum in terms of staff or the provision of display cases. During the 1820s and 1830s, the societies in York, Scarborough and Whitby had great difficulty in casing their rapidly expanding collections.  In the late 1820s, Whitby Museum, for example, took the financial risk of upgrading its displays, only to find the membership unwilling to offset the debt.^[9]

The initial excitement of the 1820s was, by the late 1840s, an increasingly fading memory:

little can be done in the furtherance of those scientific objectives for which the Society was originally established, without the revival of that general interest which the origin of the society and the foundation of the Museum elicited throughout the county of York.^[10]

Even that mainstay of the York society’s operation, the monthly meeting, was no longer well-attended and thus encouraged few individuals to prepare papers.

For some societies the initial excitement disappeared even earlier: ‘The Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society has now existed for eight years, and its annual Reports cannot now be expected to present much that is novel or striking’.^[11] Three years later, the Society was suffering a general malaise of interest:

They cannot state that much has been done in the course of the year; yet while the Society has displayed less energy than at some former periods, its power has not been exhausted, nor its progress checked.^[12]

A further sixteen years later, the situation had not improved: ‘It has seldom happened, in a Society like ours… that much has occurred in the course of a single year, to call for lengthened remark’.^[13] Whitby also often suffered a decline in the visits of strangers, frequently finding itself at the centre of a cholera outbreak brought in by ship.

The society in Scarborough was even less assured of local support; many in the town were largely collecting for themselves and it seemed all too willing to admit its subservience to its York brethren.  It provides a good example of the short active life expectancy of these organisations.  Though many survive to the present day, none do so with anything like the vigour of their early years.  For a short time the burgeoning museum in Scarborough held displays illustrating the latest intelligence on local geology.  William Smith had been encouraged to colour maps and in 1830 a large-scale version of Phillips’ geological section of the Yorkshire coast, adorned the walls above stratigraphic displays.^[14]

However, the ease with which the Museum came into being disguised the difficulties which were to lie ahead.  The amateur enthusiasm which underpinned the philosophical model always threatened insecurity.  The Society lacked the funds necessary to generate an active lecture programme, indeed the building was incapable of seating anything more than the most select audience.  And this building was secured by a loan of £500 from Mrs Isabella Tindall at 4.5% interest and guaranteed by 19 individuals; a fragile foundation.^[15]

In a town the size of Scarborough, members could not afford to be complacent about their institution.  The class to which it appealed was represented in small numbers and only a fraction of these were active supporters.  By 1842 deaths and resignations had seriously drained memberships, momentum and funds.  A circular was drawn up to encourage wider support amongst

those gentlemen in the vicinity of Scarborough whose general influence and warm interest in all pursuits of a scientific nature might probably induce them to lend their support to so valuable an institution, conducted as this has always been on principles purely disinterested and solely with a view to promote the diffusion of these laudable objects.^[16]

The circular had little effect and the decline continued until a point of crisis was reached in 1848 when creditors began to recall their loans.  In April, executors required repayment of the £18 owed to Isaac Stickney for the plesiosaur, then in June, Robert Tindall recalled the original loan of £500 on the building.^[17] The survivors of the original nineteen signatories were now required to meet this debt.  The Old Bank of Scarborough stepped in, offering to lend the money on the same terms but many of the original backers were now having second thoughts.  It was time to look more closely into the affairs of the Society.

At a General Meeting of the Society, a committee was formed to include all the shareholders, benefactors and subscribers to the Museum, which subsequently established three subcommittees.^[18] The first was to examine the condition of the Museum, its organisation and appeal; the second to look at its constitution, staffing and the debt problem; and the third to examine the accounts, including specimen sale and purchase.  The subcommittees found the Museum poorly organised: ‘with the exception of one or two minor departments the contents of the Museum are not arranged and named in accordance with the present advanced state of science’.^[19]

It was also found that the Museum had no financial controls.  There was no inventory of the Museum’s contents and no way of locating those specimens acquired through purchase.  Since 1842 there had also been no record of specimen sales, despite earlier records showing this to have been a highly profitable source of income; the sales had continued but what had happened to the funds?  Subscriptions had been declining for four years through general dissatisfaction with the Museum and were set to drop a further 50% in the following year.  Receipts from admission charges had continued to decline since 1836; other societies had seen these increase with the coming of railway links.  However, despite gross mismanagement, income still exceeded expenditure, even if the surplus was very small.  The Society’s assets were estimated to be in the region of £3,200.  The debt of £500 was to be transferred to certain portions of the collections as well as fittings.  But the ‘whole or part of the £500 bond to be paid by those who are liable’ and a sinking fund to be established to help relieve the burden of those liable.  An expansion in support was required.  

Tight financial controls, and improvements in specimen documentation, were installed but the Society’s fortunes did not improve.  Perhaps indicating a sign of the times, the Scarborough Literary and Philosophical Society amalgamated with the Archaeological Society on Saturday 30 April 1853.  By 1859, the Rotunda’s chief attraction was an aquarium.

In many ways the task of the philosophical societies had been achieved.  They had succeeded in gathering together the newly recognised fossil fauna and flora.  The collections created during this period were comprehensive in terms of objects at least even if the associated data was often poor.  In the early 1870s, writing the final edition of his best known work, Phillips reflected: 

Since the former issues of this work…  Not very many new forms of life have thus been discovered; but the means for specific discrimination, and for comparison with analogous fossils in the south of England, have been increased… In the museum at York two spacious rooms are devoted to collections of Yorkshire fossils; and these are numerous, and only require fresh supplies of specimens chosen for novelty, rarity, or excellent condition.^[20]

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^[1] Leeds Monthly Magazine in the 1830s, quoted by Allen (1987:247), and North (1956) – signs of decline as these authors suggest or simply the outsider’s view?  Torrens (1990a:185) exposes similar views of the Bath society in 1829 suggesting that this was evidence of rapid decline.  It was in this year that Lonsdale left that society for London.

^[2] Secord (1986b).

^[3] It would be naive to believe that British society, particularly in the nineteenth century, ever became a true meritocracy, but by the mid 1820s the lowly Phillips could clearly see that science offered a career path from which he would not be excluded.  In 1822, Murchison and Sedgwick, may have been geological novices in comparison to Phillips and Smith, but their pre-eminent position in science also rested on merit; there were plenty of wealthy and talented individuals who would remain on the periphery of science.

^[4] WL&PS (1837) Annual Report, 15.

^[5] Taylor (1994:190); Torrens (1990a:185).

^[6] Greenough, for example, gave warnings in 1838 to the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society which were to be independently repeated by other workers throughout the century, see Davis (1889:154-5). This has been given longer treatment in Knell (1996); Knell (in press) discusses modern problems of evaluation.

^[7] YPS (1830) Annual Report for 1829.

^[8] YPS (1847) Annual Report for 1846.

^[9] Despite the debt the museum continued to purchase fossils: ‘The Council, as might be expected under present circumstances, have carefully avoided making purchases.  A Plesiosaurus, some rare Fossil Fishes, a few other Fossils, and a very few Minerals, comprise the whole amount during the last twelve months.’ WL&PS (1830) Annual Report, 8.

^[10] YPS (1847) Annual Report for 1846.

^[11] WL&PS (1830) Annual Report, 8.

^[12] WL&PS (1833) Annual Report, 11.

^[13] WL&PS (1849) Annual Report, 27.

^[14] There is no evidence that Phillips had anything to do with this section.  It was produced at a cost of £3 by a Mr Todd a painter and bookseller responsible for publishing the Society’s reports.  The section was in fact painted in reverse, perhaps to mirror the stratigraphic arrangement of the displays, but which defied any sense of geography.  It was completely repainted and corrected in 1906 at a cost of 10 guineas by a firm then undertaking refurbishment, using Geological Survey colours.  In both cases the production of the section was casually arranged and so cannot be viewed as a Phillipsian icon. SL&PS Minutes of Council, 1 March 1830 & 26 November 1906; SL&PS Annual Report for 1906.  In 1838 Whitby Museum, following the recommendation of Simpson also planned a painted section of the coast, WL&PS (1838) Annual Report, 16.

^[15] The strip of paper containing this contract remains in the Rotunda Museum, Scarborough.

^[16] SL&PS Minutes of Council proposed 10 January 1842, approved 14 Feb 1842.

^[17] SL&PS Minutes of Council 14 April 1848;  13 June 1848.

^[18] General meeting of SL&PS shareholders, 30 August 1848; Meeting of shareholders committee, 4 September 1848; recorded with SL&PS Council Minutes.

^[19] Reports of subcommittees 5 October 1848.  Recorded with SL&PS Council Minutes.

^[20] Phillips (1875:193).