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David Kirkaldy (1820–1897) and His Museum Of ENDE-471; No. of Pages 8 Full text provided by www.sciencedirect.com Feature Endeavour Vol. xxx No. x David Kirkaldy (1820–1897) and his museum of destruction: the visual dilemmas of an engineer as man of science Frances Robertson Forum for Critical Inquiry, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, UK This paper examines codes of representation in nine- Victorian anxieties about industry such as John Ruskin’s teenth century engineering in Britain in relation to horror of the dehumanising effects of factory work, or broader visual culture. While engineering was promoted Thomas Carlyle’s warning that culture would be reduced as a rational public enterprise through techniques of to the ‘cash nexus’. Today, engineers’ fine presentation spectacular display, engineers who aimed to be taken drawings from this era are shown mainly in museums of seriously in the intellectual hierarchies of science had to transport and technology, enjoyed by enthusiasts and negotiate suitable techniques for making and using steam punk aficionados, but largely ignored or treated images. These difficulties can be examined in the visual with suspicion by many professional historians who dis- 1 practices that mark the career of engineer David Kirkaldy. cern their hidden ‘ideological’ messages. Furthermore, the Beginning as a bravura naval draughtsman, Kirkaldy later true diversity of this visual culture remains largely hidden negotiated his status as a serious experimenter in mate- in libraries and archives. Although the recent publication rial testing science, changing his style of representation The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment (Fox 2009) that at first sight seems to be in line with the ‘objective’ expanded on a wealth of unknown sketches and models strategy in science of getting nature to represent herself. from the earlier period of industrial development already And although Kirkaldy maintained a range of visual styles associated with such figures of popular history as James to communicate with different audiences, making rhetor- Watt or John Smeaton, technical imagery produced later in ical use of several technologies of inscription, from hand the nineteenth century has not been so closely examined. drawing to photography, nevertheless, his work does in This is creates a gap in the study of visual culture, espe- fact demonstrate new uses of the concept of objectivity in cially because other researchers such as Lorraine Daston representation when up against the practices of engineer- and Peter Galison with their consideration of the idea of ing. While these might seem merely pragmatic in com- ‘objectivity’ in science (1992 and 2007), or Martin Kemp in parison to the ethical weight given to the discourse of The Science of Art (1990) have now wakened up general objective representation in science, in the messy world of readers to new ways of thinking about image making in collapsing bridges and law suits, virtuous engineers had science and art. As these researchers have described the to develop various forms of visual knowledge as practical period 1850–1900, new pictorial values came to the fore in science. This was not ‘applied science’ but a differentiated science and art that aimed at a kind of purification of form of enquiry whose complexities hold as much interest intention, signalled by the search for one true style. These as the better known visual cultures of late nineteenth new ideals might be usefully contrasted if we imagine first century science or art. a gestural sketch by Van Gogh and then the graphic data laid down by the needle of a self-registering meteorological In the nineteenth century, spectacular exhibitions of instrument. While we might find very similar wavering engines and machine drawings promoted engineering as lines in both, the intentions behind these marks are very both a profitable commercial enterprise and as a form of different, and are read differently by the viewer. Just as disinterested rational enquiry through events such as the artists aimed to carve out a personal and recognisable Great Exhibition of 1851 that showed off engineers as expressive manner as proof of sincerity and integrity, so ‘heroes of invention’. In this public arena, however, engi- this was complemented by an equally ‘moralizing tone’ neers were embroiled with other professional groups who adopted by men of science as they struggled to represent had differing aims and values. As a result of the various the natural world in ways that appeared truthful, cool, 2 alliances they had made on the one hand with men of accurate and, above all, objective. However, visual strate- science and on the other with civil servants in charge of gies of engineers and technical draughtsmen do not at first state policy for technical and design education, engineers glance appear to fit with these ideals. Their enquiries were in an ambiguous position. In their approaches to 1 For example, see Louise Purbrick (1998) ‘Ideologically technical: illustration, visual representation they were used to expressing their automation and spinning cotton around the middle of the nineteenth century’ Journal creative prowess through artistic means, but they also of Design History 11: 275–93, or Brown, John K. (2000) ‘Design plans, working drawings, national styles: engineering practice in Great Britain and the United worried that bravura draughtsmanship was increasingly States, 1775–1945’ Technology and Culture 41 (2): 195–238. out of key with the ways in which serious science 2 Daston, Lorraine and Peter Galison (1992) ‘The image of objectivity’ Representa- was represented. In addition, engineers were a focus for tions 40, pp. 81–128; Daston, Lorraine and Peter Galison (2007) Objectivity New York: Zone Books; and see also Hentschel, Klaus (2008) review of Objectivity in Centaurus Corresponding author: Robertson, F. ([email protected]) 50: 329–330. www.sciencedirect.com 0160-9327/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2013.03.002 Please cite this article in press as: Robertson, F., David Kirkaldy (1820–1897) and his museum of destruction: the visual dilemmas of an engineer as man of science, Endeavour (2013), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2013.03.002 ENDE-471; No. of Pages 8 2 Feature Endeavour Vol. xxx No. x aimed not simply to observe the natural world, but to ence, guided by the question: ‘what are we to do’, rather 6 change it. With this goal, it was impossible to lay claim than ‘what are we to think’. Engineers used drawings for to an ‘objective’ discourse separate from social and cultural several purposes, in many styles, to propose new struc- constraints. But that does not mean that engineers did not tures and mechanisms and to see if they would work as develop forms of visual knowledge that had integrity. intended before expensive construction work. And while This article will examine practices of drawing for engi- drawings were used to reassure potential clients, peers and neering in order to ask how technical representations rivals, the ways in which engineers learnt to draw and use might fit into accounts of visual knowledge we are now images were also a crucial element in their drive to assert familiar with from the history of science. For although the personal professional standing in rivalry with other emerg- social and commercial aspects of scientific enterprises are ing professions of nineteenth century Britain. Before turn- now fully recognised by historians of science, in the visual ing to Kirkaldy and his work, it is important to consider realm the notion of technology as ‘applied science’ still some of these social factors that were in play in the lingers in a neglect of representations. Drawing and visual development of British professional lives in the nineteenth communication in engineering is ambiguous, being used century. not simply to observe or theorise natural phenomena, but also to make and shape new things. Shifts in pictorial style Making science and progress visible adopted by engineers were nonetheless neither pragmatic Engineers made professional claims for status on several nor arbitrary but instead they represented the moral and fronts from the late eighteenth century onwards, not least intellectual complexities of ‘practical science’ in action. In as ‘gentlemanly’ discoverers of new knowledge in equality looking at the different visual strategies developed by the with men of science. These aspirations resonated uncom- Scottish engineer David Kirkaldy (1820–1897) during his fortably with English social and professional hierarchies. working life we can move from an individual case study to a The working practices of engineers were derived from broader insight of some of the factors shaping visual manual craft trades, and their training as apprentices 3 knowledge in engineering, both in the context of the always began in the workshops, in opposition to the view professional rivalries of his time, and in relation to our that only gentlemen with a ‘liberal education’ could judge own current perceptions of that era. impartially and make trustworthy statements in the ‘pub- 7 Describing natural objects, what something ‘looks like’ lic sphere’. Nevertheless, prejudices and practices were when presented to the senses, is only one aspect of visual often at odds. In the period from 1830 onwards, ‘gentlemen expression. Science and engineering also create knowledge of science’ at the University of Cambridge began to develop through images such as diagrams or models of theoretical an interest in engineers and engineering during their 4 structures. In practising the art of ‘directing the great campaign to seize ownership of the British Association 8 sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). Engineers were 5 man’, engineers did not just observe natural structures, or recruited as allies during the formation of the BAAS in put forward theories about them, but in addition they order to ‘render visible’ the idea of progress, with frequent aimed to build new forms with strengths and weaknesses exhibitions of local manufactures at annual meetings.
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