Elements of Science and Art by John Imison 1822
Thank you to the internet, information technology is now possible to put together stories of how Orcadians take influenced the wider earth. This leads to all sorts of surprising connections and I did a series of them for Radio Orkney several years ago. This is an extended version of one of them.
Michael Faraday was one of the world's greatest scientists. He was as well 1 of the first to recognise the importance of reaching a wider audition and he had the perfect venue for this, at the Royal Institution in London. The lecture theatre there is probably the most famous in the world, thanks to the Christmas Lectures he began in 1825, which have been televised since 1966. Information technology was designed past an Orcadian, Thomas Webster. The theatre was rebuilt in 1927 but to the original plans.
Thomas'due south father Alexander was English language but his mother Mary was the daughter of Thomas Baikie, the minister of St Magnus Cathedral. Thomas was baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 11 February 1773 but grew up in Orkney. Co-ordinate to his entry in the Oxford Lexicon of National Biography, he attended Kirkwall Grammar Schoolhouse and then went to Aberdeen Academy in 1785, where "he assisted Professor Patrick Copland, a populariser of science". Professor Copland was a pioneer of public educational activity, whose extra-mural classes ran from 1785 to 1813. He also pioneered the utilize of demonstrations in his lectures so Thomas may have taken a few new ideas with him when he went to London.
Thomas Webster enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in London as an architectural educatee in 1793 and had his own business by 1799. He began 'a schoolhouse for mechanics' and this came to the attending of Count Rumford, one of the founders of what became the Royal Establishment. Rumford's aim was to encourage the apply of mechanical inventions and improvements and to encourage "the Application of Science to the Common Purposes of Life".
The story of the early on years of the Institution can be read online, in The Regal Establishment, its Founder and Showtime Professors, written by Henry Bence Jones in 1871. https://annal.org/details/royalinstitution00jonerich
Mr. Webster, a immature builder xx-6 years old, was engaged as Clerk of the Works. He had been educated at Aberdeen and had studied at the Majestic Academy and with an eminent architect. At this time, he had also a pocket-sized schoolhouse for about a dozen mechanics. Mr. Webster was appointed clerk to the treasurer and secretary, also as Clerk of the Works.
Webster superintended the transformation of a house in Albemarle Street into a suitable building. In January 1800, he was told to prepare plans for a new lecture room. Many years later he wrote,
The theatre of the Regal Institution is pronounced to be the most perfect room of the kind in the kingdom for possessing the properties of allowing the lecturer to be well heard and seen by the audition and for affording them easy archway and exit, &c… it has been stated by Faraday, in his tardily examination before a committee of the House of Commons, to be 'nigh perfect equally a lecture room,' and that 'although architects are continually measuring and drawing it to copy from, and many other rooms accept been built in imitation of it in which he has tried his voice, yet none of them proved equal to that in question.'
Sir Humphrey Davy was the first scientist to depict crowds to the lecture theatre, which could seat 900 people. Albemarle Street became the showtime one-fashion street in London, to deal with the traffic. Davy also fabricated good use of the laboratory which Thomas Webster had installed, using electrolysis to isolate sodium, potassium, barium, calcium, strontium and magnesium. Webster wrote later, "The chemical laboratory in which then many valuable discoveries have been made was not only designed and built by me, just owes to me its very beingness, for, though I inserted information technology in my plans, the managers did not at first consider information technology necessary."
According to Webster'southward obituary in The Literary Gazette, he had assisted at the lectures of Sir Humphrey and his predecessors, Dr Garnett and Dr Young and had "prepared the diverse experiments made at the lectures of natural philosophy and chemistry"
Count Rumford had assured Webster that he was going to plant a science school for workmen and, as he wrote to a friend,
It was through the prospect of beingness employed in this manner, which would have been as agreeable to my habits of thinking as useful to my interest, that I was induced to give upwardly the school which I then kept and the other concern in which I was engaged, and to accept of a state of affairs and salary in the Establishment by no ways equivalent to what I should take considered myself as entitled to under other circumstances.
Lxxx years earlier compulsory didactics, he had found that new techniques in edifice needed meliorate-educated workmen.
"Knowing from previous experience what it was possible to effect in their comeback, I conceived the idea of giving to mechanics for this purpose a species of scientific education suited to their condition, and I believe I was the first person in this country who took active steps for effecting and then desirable an object. I was non unacquainted with the political feelings of that fourth dimension, simply I did not think a trivial learning was a dangerous thing if judiciously bestowed… My idea was to make good mechanics, non to force them like hot-bed plants out of the sphere in which they are so useful.
I proposed, and so, to establish a school for mechanics in the house of the Imperial Institution, in which they should be taught such principles of science as would be useful in their several occupations, which I considered would in a great caste promote the 'application of science to the mutual purposes of life.' In the house of the Institution itself the men would be under the middle of the higher classes, and anything wrong would hands be put a stop to.
With this view I wrote a long letter to Count Rumford, detailing my views and plans. He was delighted with them, and he read my alphabetic character to the board of managers; the idea was favourably received, and my letter of the alphabet was inserted upon the Minutes of the Institution, where of course it may be seen (Managers' Minutes, Sept. 14, 1799). Some difficulties were, however, suggested. It was idea that Sir Joseph Banks, then president, would object, and I was requested to take the minute book to him and do what I could to win him over. I appropriately saw Sir Joseph, and, by explaining to him how much the arts would proceeds past intelligent operatives, I overcame a few political scruples which he had.
At last, all objections were silenced, and everyone seemed to rejoice in the prospect that opened of calculation to the Royal Establishment a decided proof of liberal feeling. The general idea and intention with respect to this school were published in the Journals of the Establishment and the news reached every corner of the kingdom that the managers of the Imperial Institution of Keen Britain, among whom were persons of the highest rank, instead of existence adverse to the diffusion of knowledge, had actually formed a school for the teaching of mechanical classes…
Information technology is unnecessary to enter into a detailed account of my program, which was, in fact, intended as an experiment. Information technology was by and large to educate a number of mechanics sent by the proprietors of the Institution. At start all were to larn the same elementary principles, simply subsequently they were to co-operative off co-ordinate to their several trades.
My first intention was to instruct bricklayers, joiners, tinmen, and ironplate workers, as those were the trades most connected with our improvements at this time. In a large room on the ground floor, we built upward for practising the men chimneys and fireplaces of all kinds in a slight manner, pulled them down, and built up others. We fitted upward improved burn down-places within, models of sometime-fashioned cottage chimneys, also boilers of various kinds, and showed how smoky chimneys might be cured, etc ; models of various culinary vessels were made from ideas of Count Rumford, and were put in the model room for the inspection of the public. Of the workmen to be instructed some were sent by Lord Winchelsea, by Sir Thomas Barnard, Lady Palmerston, &c., and when they were thought to exist sufficiently instructed, they returned to the office of the land from which they had come and practised what they had learned and taught others. Thus, past degrees a commendable zeal was created amongst various classes of order, even the highest, for acquiring useful knowledge and diffusing information technology by their several exertions. Never was there a period when this was felt in a stronger degree, and the institution of the Purple Establishment ought to be considered as the starting time of a new era in the history of science in this country…
In 1801, Count Rumford reported on the proposed schoolhouse to the Managers of the Institution.
At that place will be room in the firm for the accommodation of a certain number of young men, from eighteen to twenty in number, of unlike mechanical professions, who, at the recommendation of proprietors, will be taken into the business firm to be instructed ; who will be boarded and lodged in the house and be employed in the workshops, and for whose improvement in cartoon, practical geometry, and mathematics an evening school, under the direction of the Clerk of the Works (Mr. Webster), who was formerly a teacher in such a school, will be established in the house in a room adjoining the workshops.
Equally near of the young men who will exist admitted to this seminary will probably come from distant parts of the state and will render abode after a residence of three or four months at the Institution, carrying with them a perfect knowledge of such new and useful inventions applicable to the common purposes of life as may be deserving of being generally known and adopted, it is easy to foresee that this arrangement will be of nifty and all-encompassing public utility. It is, maybe, that role of the establishment precisely which volition be the most interesting, and which will contribute the most powerfully to the attainment of the principal object of the Establishment — the diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements.
Unfortunately, and almost incredibly, this eminently sensible idea was ahead of its time. Thomas Webster wrote many years later
But this project for improving mechanics, well intended as it was, which promised to exist and then useful, and which had already gained for the Institution ' golden opinions' was doomed to be crashed by the timidity (for I shall forbear to speak more harshly) of a few. I was asked rudely (by an individual whom I shall not at present name) what I meant by instructing the lower classes in science. I was told besides that it was resolved upon that the plan must be dropped as quietly as possible. It was thought to have a dangerous political tendency, and I was told that if I persisted I would become a marked man! Information technology was in vain to fence — the time was unfavourable — and I found the necessity of yielding. No notice was ever given publicly that the idea of instructing the mechanic was abandoned, and I take no dubiety just that in many parts of the kingdom the Institution got the credit of dandy liberality long later on the mechanics' school had become extinct…
… my principal views being evidently thwarted, and there beingness no prospect of my state of affairs becoming valuable in a pecuniary fashion, I thought it was high time to think of my own interest, and I determined on becoming a landscape painter, a profession which then offered considerable prospects in a very agreeable and contained occupation.
Webster did not spend much time as a landscape painter. His unusual combination of artistic skill and scientific knowledge led to a commission to produce a new edition of John Imison's The Elements of Science and Art. The book was very popular and Webster updated information technology twice. In the Preface to the 1822 edition https://annal.org/details/elementsofscienc01imis/page/n5/mode/2up, he explained how he saw this as another fashion to brand useful knowledge widely bachelor.
He [the editor] engaged in the task the more readily, as he conceived that, by giving a full general and curtailed view of the principles of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, and of their application to the arts, he might be, in some caste, instrumental in promoting the diffusion of science among persons deprived of the advantages of a regular educational activity.
Having had many opportunities, in the course of his profession, of observing the great use of even a pocket-size portion of scientific knowledge to a valuable grade of the customs, mechanics, he kept it particularly in his view to care for the various subjects, then as to return them as hands intelligible as possible; and, in full general, to adapt the explanation of them to that class for which the piece of work was intended past the original author.
In pursuance of this program, the alterations from the original " School of Arts," and also the additions to it, became and so considerable, that the work has assumed near the appearance of a new production and some apology is perhaps due for altering the features of Imison's book so far, that information technology is no longer recognizable. In this form it has passed through several editions, a circumstance that induces the promise, that the labour of the present editor has not been altogether useless.
In a volume intended to exhibit but the popular elements of science, it would be in vain to expect much original matter. To draw from authentic sources, and to arrange and describe with clearness and precision the primary known facts, appears to be all that the nature of the undertaking admits of. The following work, therefore, is derived from the discoveries of others ; but it volition be plant upon perusal, that in several instances, where the editor's profession or opportunities of ascertainment enabled him to add anything to the stock of detail knowledge, he has non failed to make the try.
It is hard to tell what led Thomas Webster to become the world's first professional geologist. It may have happened considering Sir Humphry Davy was one of the xiii founders of the Geological Society in 1807. Webster joined the social club in 1809 and two years later was commissioned by Sir Henry Englefield to survey the Isle of Wight. This was one of the kickoff geological surveys in U.k..
According to the Dictionary of National Biography,
During 1811–thirteen, on a geological committee in the Isle of Wight and Dorset for Henry Charles Englefield (1752–1822), Webster made the first geological map of the region and elucidated the Mesozoic–Third stratigraphy and structural geology of the Hampshire and London basins. His major newspaper on the Freshwater formations in the Isle of Wight (1814), published in the Transactions of the Geological Society, and his earlier-written illustrated descriptive letters in Englefield's Picturesque Beauties of the Island of Wight (1816) were highly regarded and established his geological career. Seven further papers followed (1821–9), including four on the Mesozoic stratigraphy of southern England.
In 1812, Thomas Webster was appointed to the first paid position in the Society, as its part-time Library and Museum draughtsman and Secretary to the Society. Former around then, the showtime President of the Society, George Bellas Greenough, commissioned him to describe a Geological Map of England. The map was fatigued from the work of others then Webster didn't do any of the surveying but the item is extraordinary and it is no wonder that it took five years to complete. https://www.abebooks.co.united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland/maps/Physical-Geological-Map-England-Wales-G.B/22762730400/bd#&gid=ane&pid=1
Combining together certain portions of several branches of knowledge not usually united, attributable to my having changed my profession then frequently, I at last thought that the subject of geology afforded an opportunity for bringing them into play successfully."
Thomas Webster left the Geological Society in 1827 and became a public lecturer on Geology. His obituary in the Literary Gazette says that he lectured in Bathroom, Bristol and Birmingham and that, "Few lecturers had a happier talent of conveying instruction in a popular and pleasing way." His lectures brought him back to the Royal Institution. Notices of the lecture courses in the 1830s include Faraday on Chemistry and Webster on Geology. He gave the Christmas Lectures, "suitable for a juvenile auditory", in 1830. How satisfying information technology must take been, to lecture in the theatre he designed.
University College London was founded in 1828 and Webster became its get-go professor of Geology in 1842. Unfortunately, science was still seen equally the pastime of wealthy men and the position was poorly paid. A twelvemonth earlier, friends had managed to persuade the Government to grant him an almanac alimony of £50 for services in promoting geology only he continued to piece of work on his largest committee.
For the last ten years of his life, Thomas Webster worked on a committee from Longmans Publishing. The enormousEncyclopedia of Domestic Economy, brought together all "the information useful to persons who have to superintend domestic establishments." Its 1200 pages begins with where to build your house and goes on to cover everything from the different options for estrus and low-cal to the preparation of every sort of beverage, from gin to coffee.
In the Introduction, Webster stressed the importance of practical didactics …
Without going into the subject of education, the present country of society, the utilise and corruption of time, it cannot but be admitted that it is extremely desirable, on many accounts, that those who occupy elevated positions in the social scale should possess that species of information which would assist them in fulfilling their domestic duties…
The editor ventures to hope that to many this suggested union of science with exercise will non bear witness irksome; on the contrary, he is satisfied that much rational amusement may exist derived from the experience. It may not exist necessary for everyone to brew or to bake, make vino or light a fire; yet to become through each of these operations one time, and then as to comprehend the principles upon which success depends may really be made an entertaining occupation.
It is now fairly well known that Isabella Beeton helped herself to other people'south piece of work for Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, published in 1859. As Bill Bryson wrote in 'At Home' (2010),
Mrs Beeton stole shamelessly from the most obvious and traceable sources. Whole passages are lifted verbatim from the autobiography of Florence Nightingale. Others are taken directly from Eliza Acton. Remarkably, Mrs Beeton didn't even trouble to adjust gender, so that one or two of her stories are related in a phonation that, disconcertingly and bewilderingly, tin can only be male.
Her main source was Webster's Encyclopedia, particularly on the Organisation of the Kitchen and the Full general Observations, on beverages, bread, etc. Thomas Webster was unable to mutter well-nigh her plagiarism. He had died anile 72 in December 1844. He was a man ahead of his time and so got neither the payment nor recognition that he deserved but his writing, though uncredited, has stood on more than bookshelves than all other Orcadian writers put together. Mrs Beeton'south Cookbook sold two million copies in its kickoff decade alone.
fishbournesockell.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.aboutorkney.com/2021/04/21/from-michael-faraday-to-mrs-beeton/