CHAPTER FOUR

SOCIAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE GEOLOGICAL CAREERS OF LYELL AND MANTELL

The most striking social difference between Lyell and Mantell, or for that matter, between the ‘gentleman-specialists’ and Mantell, concerns their respective family backgrounds. In Mantell’s case, the fact that his father was a provincial shoe-maker, with dissenting religious beliefs and radical political views, resulted in Mantell having a markedly different social status from Lyell, and as a consequence, much more restricted educational and occupational opportunities. In this chapter the extent to which these factors proved to be a handicap to Mantell’s geological career are explored. Other social factors are also examined. These include patronage, the advantages of having an established network of influential friends and contacts, the resolution of career-choice clashes, fashioning a socially acceptable occupation in the world of gentlemanly geology, the importance of a supportive spouse and the income requirements for the lifestyle of a gentleman-specialist. In addition, personal qualities and factors such as ambition, diligence, and health problems are taken into account. The main emphasis in this chapter focuses on Mantell, since his case history epitomises that of an ‘outsider’, in contrast to the more orthodox case of Lyell. Nevertheless, Lyell also faced some career obstacles, which further illustrate aspects of early nineteenth-century geological life.

4.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature reviewed in this chapter falls into two broad categories: first, biographical material concerning Lyell and Mantell, and second, studies pertaining to scientific patronage, provincialism, occupational opportunities in natural history, and living standards, costs, and incomes. Most of these issues are interlinked, and in a broad sense the various factors reviewed focus on the question of how could a gentleman, or more pertinently, an ambitious person with gentlemanly pretensions, establish the necessary base

175 to achieve elite status in natural history during the first half of the nineteenth century. In this regard both Lyell and Mantell provide complementary and contrasting case histories.

4.1.1 LYELL AND MANTELL

The review of biographical data on Lyell and Mantell has been restricted to material examining or raising relevant social factors that affected the geological careers of the two men. For this reason most of the pre-1970 biographies are not discussed,1 but use is made of his Life and Letters.

(1) LYELL

One of the earliest and most important sources of information on Lyell is Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell,2 edited by his sister-in-law, Katherine M. Lyell, and published in 1881. Extracts from these two volumes, which are typical of this late Victorian biographical genre, have been cited frequently in the literature on Lyell’s work and the history of English geology.3 They provide useful insights into Lyell’s boyhood,4 his close family relationships, the high opinion he held of Mantell in the 1830s,5 his social milieu, his determination to establish a successful career in geology, and to his apparent indifference to money. The relative importance of Lyell’s letters to Mantell in these two volumes is indicated below.

1 Examples in this category include:iA. Geikie, The Founders of Geology, J. Murray, London, 1897;iH.B. Woodward, History of Geology, Watts and Co., London, 1911; iE.B. Bailey, Charles Lyell, Doubleday, New York, 1962. 2 K.M. Lyell (ed.), Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. author of ‘Principles of Geology &c’, 2 vols, J. Murray, London, 1881. 3 Extracts from these volumes are cited, for example, in:iJ.B. Morrell, ‘London Institutions and Lyell's Career: 1820-41’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1976, 32, pp. 132- 146;iN.A. Rupke, The Great Chain of History. William Buckland and the English School of Geology (1814-1849), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983, pp. 72, 88, and 246;iM.J.S. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985, pp. 73, 75, and 380. 4 The first 31 pages of Volume 1 contains an autobiographical sketch of Lyell’s life until he entered Oxford at the age of 17 years. It was written in 1831-32 for the information of his fiancee, Mary Elizabeth Horner, who was then living in Bonn, Germany. As such, it has inherent limitations, but it does give a picture of a pleasurable, uncomplicated and privileged childhood. 5 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 377 and pp. 444-446.

176 Quoted Recipients of Lyell’s Letters Number of Letters Quoted

Lyell’s sisters and mother 68 Charles Lyell Senior 49 L. Horner 42 G.A. Mantell 36 C. Bunbury 27

G. Tichnor 27 J. Fleming 15 C. Darwin 14 R.I. Murchison 7 A. Sedgwick 5

Since Horner was Lyell’s father-in-law, and Bunbury his wife’s brother-in- law, the quoted letters from Lyell to Mantell comprise the highest number written to any English geologist outside Lyell’s extended family. Additionally, these two volumes are interesting because of the nature of a number of subtle deletions and exclusions that Katherine Lyell made to some of the letters from Lyell to Mantell. These omissions have been identified by comparing the text of Lyell’s original letters with the 36 extracts quoted in the two volumes. For the most part the excisions made by Katherine Lyell relate to late nineteenth-century social conventions and to the impropriety of discussing financial matters, family incomes, and disparaging remarks concerning certain institutions and individuals. There are also strong indications of the editor deliberately fashioning and enhancing a favourable image of her brother-in-law. Lyell’s attitude to money is portrayed as that of the gentleman, relatively unconcerned with financial matters, as indicated in this extract from a letter to his father, dated 10 April 1827:

I am quite clear, from all that I have seen of the world, that there is most real independence in that class of society who, possessing moderate means, are engaged in literary and scientific hobbies; and that in ascending from them upwards, the feeling of independence decreases pretty nearly in the same ratio as the fortunes increase.6

6 CL to CL Senior, 10 April 1827. Quoted in K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 170-171.

177 Lyell’s seeming offhand attitude to money is further illustrated in his letter to Murchison, 21 months later, following their joint expedition to Sicily:

I shall never hope to make money by geology, but not to lose, and tax others for my amusement; and unless I can secure this, it would in my circumstances be selfish in me to devote myself as much as I hope to do to it.7

However, these and other quoted extracts from Lyell’s correspondence and journals do not provide an altogether balanced assessment of Lyell’s attitude to financial matters. A reading of all of Lyell’s 232 letters to Mantell indicates that Lyell was financially shrewd and worldly, and well aware of the importance of money. Under Katherine Lyell’s editorship, omissions range from a single key word to an entire significant letter, in order to enhance and consolidate a desired image. For example, in his letters to Mantell dated 14 June 1832 and 30 April 1833, Lyell made the following respective comments on his lectures at King’s College, London, and at the Royal Institution:

My lectures were splendidly attended. [(chiefly by persons who honoured me) to the last. As yet, far less profitable for purse, & surely for solid fame than writing. But I won’t be hasty.]8

and

My introductory lecture at Royal Institn. last Thursdy was attended by 250 persons, [95 of them proprietors who pay nothing.]9

The words in square parentheses in each of these quoted extracts, and which relate to Lyell’s income, were omitted from K. Lyell’s volumes.10 Other topics that were subject to editorial deletion concerned adverse references to the Established Church, particular individuals, and even the names of specific authors. In a letter to Mantell describing Buckland’s recent appointment as Canon at Christ Church, Lyell commented:

7 CL to R.I. Murchison, 15 January 1829, quoted in ibid., vol.1, p. 234. 8 CL to GAM, 14 June 1832, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 92). 9 CL to GAM, 30 April 1833, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63. (Supp.Vol.-Letter 100). 10 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 388 and 395 respectively.

178 The Canon has a glorious house & [but for the daily everlasting chapel going & long chants] is admirably set down for himself and geology.11

Again, the words in parentheses were omitted12 in this quoted letter in Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell. The socially disparaging term ‘tradesman’ was excised in a reference to the London publisher, John Murray,13 and in the same letter the following sentence was also excised:

Featherstonaugh has made an ass of himself by a poem on the deluge which is despicable low and vulgar to a degree that would disgust you.14

Another exclusion concerns Katherine Lyell’s suppression of references to George Toulmin,15 whose name was purposely left blank in an important quoted extract from Lyell’s letter to Mantell dated 29 December 1827:16

I marvel less at Dr Toulmin anticipations ( as I supposed them ) in Geol.l speculations now that I observe he followed Hutton & cites him. I think he ran unnecessarily counter to the feelings & prejudices of the age.17

In a follow-up letter Lyell wrote on 5 February 1828, Katherine Lyell deleted the following sentence:18

I will send Toulmin very soon. My absence has made me in arrears in reading.19

For various reasons Katherine Lyell simply did not wish to reveal that Lyell had read Toulmin, who subscribed to a world that was unchanging, socially

11 CL to GAM, 5 February 1828, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 61. (Supp.Vol.-Letter 44). 12 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2 ), vol. 1, p. 177. 13 CL to GAM, 23 April 1830, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 62. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 70). The term ‘tradesman’ was expunged by K.M. Lyell in op. cit. (note 2), vol.1, p. 264. 14 CL to GAM, 23 April 1830, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 62. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 70). 15 George Hoggart Toulmin (ca. 1750-1817). English theologian and writer who theorised on the indefinite antiquity of the earth. W.A. Sarjeant, Geologists and the History of Geology, 1980, p. 2280. 16 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 173. 17 CL to GAM, 29 December 1827, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 61. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 42). 18 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 177.

179 and geologically, for all time. Besides the deliberate omissions described above20 that comprise single words, phrases, or sentences, Katherine Lyell also completely ignored some of the most significant and interesting letters that Lyell wrote to Mantell. One of the most important omissions, quoted in the previous chapter, is Lyell’s letter setting out a career plan for Mantell to follow in order to achieve geological eminence.21 In doing so, Lyell indirectly revealed himself as a master in the fashioning and strategic planning of a successful career path. In another completely excluded letter, Lyell advised Mantell of his betrothal to Mary Elizabeth Horner. It contains the following sentence:

I shall have no money with her at all, which is certainly an act of imprudence on my part, but I feel confident that my wife will be satisfied to live in a very quiet way & I know that I shall.22

The two volumes of Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell highlight the need to be careful when relying on edited correspondence, particularly when it concerns personal and socially sensitive issues. Katherine Lyell’s omissions also underscore the importance of Lyell’s transcribed letters to Mantell that are contained in the supplementary volume of this thesis. Edward Herbert Bunbury,23 the brother of Lyell’s sister in law’s husband, Charles Bunbury,24 reviewed K. Lyell’s Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell in the Quarterly Review25 in 1882 and in doing so revealed some pertinent facts regarding Lyell’s background. In particular, he was the first to draw public attention to the fact that Lyell, the eldest son, did not inherit the family estate following the death of his father in 1849. Bunbury also emphasised the key supporting role that Lyell’s wife played

19 CL to GAM, 5 February 1828, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 61. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 44). 20 Some of these omissions have been discussed in M. Shortland and R. Yeo (eds), Telling lives in science: Essays in scientific biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 23. 21 CL to GAM, 23 March 1829, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 62. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 55). 22 CL to GAM, September 1831, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 87). 23 Edward Herbert Bunbury (1811-1895). Second son of General Sir Henry Bunbury of Great Barton, Suffolk. M.A. Cambridge and Liberal M.P. M. Stenton (ed.), Who’s Who of British Members of Parliament, Vol. 1, 1832-85, Harvester Press, Sussex, 1976. 24 Charles James Fox Bunbury (1809-1886). Son of General Sir Henry Bunbury. Educated Trinity College, Cambridge. GSL member of council 1846-54 and 1861-63. FRS 1851. Botanist. Succeeded to the baronetage in 1860. In 1844 married Frances Joanna Horner, second daughter of Leonard Horner, Lyell’s father-in-law. 25 The Quarterly Review, 1882, 153, pp. 96-131.

180 throughout his career. In subsequent literature until the mid-1970s, Lyell has generally been portrayed as one of the great geological ‘revolutionaries’, who also epitomised the virtues of the English gentleman and scholar. This characterisation is illustrated in the preface of Bonney’s biography, in which the author, after noting Lyell’s background advantages, stated that the object of his book was to show that Lyell “spared no labour, grudged no expenditure, shrank from no fatigue”, in order to put geology on “a more sound and philosophical basis”.26 Lyell’s motives and assumed altruism were not questioned. The most authoritative and comprehensive biography of Lyell yet published, Wilson’s Charles Lyell. The Years to 1841: The Revolution in Geology,27 the first of a planned trilogy, also exhibits some of these characteristics and has been similarly criticised, for example by Porter28 at the Charles Lyell Centenary Symposium in London in 1975. Nevertheless, Wilson’s work incorporates previously unavailable family papers and correspondence and provides a major reference base on Lyell’s background and career. Again, Lyell’s letters to Mantell are used frequently, but the extracts from the 43 letters quoted mainly relate to geological rather than sociological topics. In the main, Wilson adopts a benign attitude to Lyell’s motivations and methods, and as indicated in the title, his underlying theme is the depiction of Lyell as the successful, geological revolutionary. Wilson’s second volume of Lyell’s biography, covering the period 1841 to 1853, was published in 199829 and focuses on Lyell’s visits to North America. In one of the relatively few, completely socially orientated papers on Lyell, Morrell has argued that Lyell’s association with various London institutions such as the Royal Society, GSL, Royal Institution, and Athenaeum Club, “can be understood in terms of his perceptions about their utility for him”.30 After highlighting Lyell’s advantages – wealth, good social position, a sympathetic wife, no distracting children or family neuroses,

26 T.G. Bonney, Charles Lyell and modern Geology, Cassell, London, 1895, p. v. 27 L.G. Wilson, Charles Lyell. The Years to 1841: The Revolution in Geology, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1972. 28 R. Porter, ‘Charles Lyell and the Principles of Geology’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1976, 32, pp. 91-103 on p. 91. 29 L.G. Wilson, Lyell in America: Transatlantic Geology, 1841-1853, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1998. 30 Morrell, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 132-146.

181 Morrell argued that Lyell capitalised on these strengths in a single-minded manner to pursue his aims of “gaining geological knowledge, income, respect, fame and command of society”,31 citing supporting references from Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell.32 Morrell did not make the point, however, that any intelligent, ambitious person in a similar position would probably have followed the same pattern as Lyell. In fact, it would have been irrational for anyone not to have done so. The more interesting and germane question is, how could a person without the advantages of Lyell’s background pursue and achieve similar aims? Aspects of this question comprise a central feature of this chapter.

(2) MANTELL

Mantell’s obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine33 began with the sentence: “Dr Mantell was a striking instance of a rise in life amidst great difficulties”. The tribute went on to explain that as a result of his father’s strong support for the local Whig party, the feoffees denied Mantell one of the twelve places at the Southover and Lewes Free Grammar School.34 The obituary in the Abstracts of the Papers communicated to The Royal Society of London35 made no reference to this incident, but mentioned that Mantell’s father was a shoe-maker who employed as many as 23 men, according to Mantell’s surviving brother. The obituary delivered by the President36 of the GSL was even more circumspect, the only reference made to Mantell’s early years being: “for several years he practised as a medical man at Lewes in Sussex”.37 These three different perspectives and references to aspects of Mantell’s early life illustrate some of the difficulties encountered in reviewing and researching literature concerning the family background of an individual from modest circumstances. The main problem, which relates to

31 Ibid., p. 143. 32 K.M. Lyell, op. cit.(note 2), vol. 1, pp. 326, 360, 373. 33 The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1852, 38, London, pp. 644-647. 34 The Southover and Lewes Free Grammar School was founded and endowed by Agnes Morley in 1512 and was further enriched by Mrs Mary Jenkins in 1709. The school is situated in the parish of St. Ann, Lewes, and the Master is required to instruct so many boys gratuitously, as the trustees may direct. In Mantell’s time the number of boys so instructed did not exceed 12. T.W. Horsfield, The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex, (2 vols), reprinted Kohler and Coombes, Dorking, 1974, vol. 1, p. 213. 35 Abstracts of the Papers communicated to The Royal Society of London, 1854, 6, pp. 252-256. 36 William Hopkins (1793-1866). President of the GSL 1851-53. DNB. 37 Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, 1853, 9, pp. xxii-xxv.

182 the omission of information perceived to be embarrassing, tends to be accentuated in the case of a socially ambitious person like Mantell. Although Mantell’s relatively humble origins have always been recognised, there are no detailed accounts of how he overcame his various social handicaps. In fact, Mantell was a relatively neglected scientific figure following his death in 1852 until the late 1970s. During this period of approximately 125 years there were only two publications on Mantell and his work. The first, a biography by Spokes38 in 1927, was largely based on Mantell’s friendly and informal correspondence with Professor Benjamin Silliman39 of Yale College that commenced in 1830 when Mantell was 40. Spokes acknowledged that he had few details about Mantell’s medical practice in Lewes,40 but nevertheless his biography provides some useful insights, such as this recollection by Dr. Gordon Hake:

Gideon Mantell was an inhabitant of Lewes, struggling for fame by his researches within the chalk strata, and for his livelihood by his practice as a surgeon and apothecary, in which he had a fair amount of success, no doubt due to his great abilities, but in the estimation of many to the flash of his surroundings. His gig and groom were models as they waited at his door. His coat-of-arms embraced your vision as it shone in the fanlight and whispered of greatness within. He was tall, graciously graceful, and flexible, a naturalist, realizing his own lordship of the creation.41

The other pre-1980 publication on Mantell is Curwen’s42 abridged edition of Mantell’s Private Journal, the original of which is in the G.A. Mantell Papers at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. None of this material had been available to Spokes. The Private Journal entries quoted by Curwen comprise a little more than half of those contained in the original,43 and are orientated to Mantell’s personal, rather

38 S. Spokes, Gideon Algernon Mantell, LL.D., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., Surgeon and Geologist, John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, London, 1927. 39 The correspondence between Mantell and Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), Professor of Chemistry and Natural Science, Yale College, New Haven, U.S.A., comprises 126 letters from Mantell and 94 from Silliman and is located in the Yale University Library. Transcribed copies of Silliman’s letters are held at ATL-NZ. 40 Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 2. 41 Gordon Hake (1809-1895). Author of Memoirs of Eighty Years, Bentley, London, 1892, and quoted in ibid., p. 7. 42 E.C. Curwen (ed.), The Journal of Gideon Mantell, Surgeon and Geologist, covering the years 1818-1852, Oxford University Press, London, 1940. 43 Ibid., p. vi.

183 than geological, activities. For this reason they provide the basis for a good insight into Mantell’s aspirations and tribulations. Unfortunately, approximately ten per cent of the contents of Mantell’s original Journal were excised or particular entries completely blackened out, possibly because of their connection with Mantell’s wife who left him in 1838. Mantell’s motivations and career were reappraised in 1983 by Vallance,44 following his examination of the Mantell Papers in New Zealand. Vallance summed up Mantell in these terms:

Soaring ambition, an impressive presence and quickness of mind combined with an obsessive capacity for work enabled him to rise in a society dominated by those born privileged. In the scientific community where he won fame he was unusual in having to earn a living through time-consuming attention to another field. For him there was never the luxury of independent means or the employment in science that his colleagues enjoyed.45

Vallance’s analysis also highlighted the importance of the G.A. Mantell Papers to historians of geology. Subsequently, 15 papers concerning aspects of Mantell’s career and geological work were presented at the Gideon Mantell Bicentenary Symposium, held at Brighton, England, in 1990. Within the context of this review the most relevant of these papers was presented by Cleevely and Chapman.46 Although the basic theme of their paper focused on the accumulation, nature and subsequent sale of Mantell’s fossil collection to the British Museum in 1838, the authors also delved into the motivation for Mantell’s scientific endeavours. They concluded that during this period of ‘social flux’, Mantell used science “to transcend class barriers” in an effort to regain the social status of some of his distant forbears.47 Another relevant paper read at the Brighton Conference was by Dean48 who emphasized the achievements of Mantell, believing that his

44 T.G. Vallance, ‘Gideon Mantell (1790-1852): A Focus for Study in the History of Geology at the Turnbull Library’, in M.E. Hoare and L.G Bell (eds), “In Search of New Zealand’s Heritage”, Bulletin of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1984, 21, pp. 91-100. 45 Ibid., p. 92. 46 R.J. Cleevely and S.D. Chapman, ‘The accumulation and disposal of Gideon Mantell’s fossil collections and their role in the history of British palaeontology’, Archives of Natural History, 1992, 19 (3), pp. 307-364. 47 Ibid., pp. 307-309. 48 D.R. Dean, ‘A Bicentenary Retrospective on Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790-1852)’, Journal of Geological Education, 1990, 38, pp. 434-443.

184 accomplishments have not been adequately recognised.49 In 1979 Dean had been one of the first to highlight the importance of the Gideon Mantell manuscript papers,50 and in doing so, noted that since Spokes’ was the only full-length biography yet published, there was a need for a new biography based on the New Zealand material. Dean’s study on Mantell is expected to be published in 1999.51 Background material concerning the history and political, economic, religious and social structure of Lewes during the period 1714 to 1830 is contained in Brent’s book on Georgian Lewes.52 As yet, however, no fuller account has been given of the relative importance of the social barriers that Mantell faced in his scientific career and how he attempted to overcome them. Vallance focused on the importance of an independent income, while Cleevely and Chapman emphasized Mantell’s social ambitions. Other factors such as provincialism and patronage are only sparingly mentioned in the literature. There has been no published study on the Lyell-Mantell relationship.

4.1.2 SOCIOLOGICAL THEMES

The themes reviewed in this section relate to social factors that could have adversely affected the attainment of high status in geology during the period 1807 to 1850. Three main and interrelated factors were identified in chapter two: the need to be a member of appropriate social and geological networks, the importance of a London rather than a provincial base, and the requirement of an adequate and socially acceptable income. By definition none of these factors would have posed a problem to the archetypal ‘gentleman-specialist’, although the income requirement created some short-term difficulties for De la Beche53 in the 1830s. In the case of an ‘outsider’, however, the lack of influential family, school, university, club and political connections required the counterbalancing assistance of a patron. This then left the significant

49 D.R. Dean had earlier made this point in his review of M.J.S. Rudwick’s The Great Devonian Controversy, Annals of Science, 1986, 43, pp. 504-507. 50 D.R. Dean, ‘The Gideon Mantell collection, New Zealand’, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1979, 9, pp. 121-124. 51 D.R. Dean, Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs, ISBN 0-521-42048-2. 52 C. Brent, Georgian Lewes, 1714-1830: The Heyday of a County Town, Colin Brent Books, East Sussex, 1993. 53 Henry Thomas De la Beche (1796-1855). Following a sudden and major decline in his income from his Jamaican estate in 1831, De la Beche accepted an assignment with the Board of Ordnance

185 problem of obtaining an adequate income to live in London in a modest but gentlemanly style, and also having sufficient time to devote to geological matters. These are the themes reviewed in the following pages.

(1) NETWORKS AND PATRONAGE

A good summary description of a typical network was given by Cannon when outlining the scope, activities and influence of the ‘Cambridge network’ in the early Victorian period:

The grouping was a loose convergence of scientists, historians, dons, and other scholars, with a common acceptance of accuracy, intelligence, and novelty. It was made up of persons each of whom knew many but not all of the others intimately. Face-to-face contacts were sometimes regular, as with dons at the same college; sometimes often, as with leading members of the council of a scientific society; and sometimes periodic, as at christenings, Christmas celebrations, yearly terms of residence as a cathedral canon, and meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The chief agency of continual contact in such a network was the personal letter.54

Such a group has many of the characteristics of an informal club, with the members sharing common social and educational backgrounds and having similar viewpoints on the desired nature and structure of society, as well as implicit trust in each other. There is nothing new about networks of this nature, since they are based on the truism that ‘like attracts like and like tends to help like’. At their best, and as Cannon has pointed out, if the network welcomes creative people with new ideas, it exposes the other members to approaches that they may not have otherwise had, and accordingly, the overall intellectual scene is opened up and developed.55 On a more pragmatic level, Cannon has commented on the effectiveness of the ‘Cambridge network’ in identifying Darwin as a suitable ‘gentleman- naturalist’ for the Beagle voyage.56 Brown subsequently recounted how members of the same network quickly ensured Darwin’s success in securing

position which led to his later appointment of Director of the Geological Survey. DNB. 54 S.F. Cannon, Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period, Dawson and Science History Publications, New York, 1978, on p. 30. 55 Ibid., p. 62. 56 Ibid., p. 55.

186 £1000 out of public funds to cover the cost of producing The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle.57 Other similar networks in existence during this period included one based on gentlemen and noblemen educated at Eton, Harrow, and Winchester and who went on to Christ Church or Oriel College, Oxford, and the Geological Society Club, formed in 1824 with a membership restricted to 40.58 Rupke has highlighted the controlling influence that the Christ Church network exercised on the activities of the Hunterian and British Museums.59 Morrell and Thackray60 have pointed out that the basis of these various interconnected and overlapping networks is what can be described as a scientific clerisy.61 This broad group emerged in the 1820s and 1830s and comprised an intelligentsia of gentlemen with the leisure and income to pursue their institutional, political, cultural or scientific interests. A person who did not have the leisure and the necessary income to support a major interest in any of these particular activities was therefore reliant on assistance or patronage from the leading members of the various networks within this scientific clerisy. The importance of another kind of network, that concerned with Natural History correspondence, was described by Ann Secord in 1994.62 During the early nineteenth century, in particular, British naturalists were very reliant on correspondence as a means for gathering information and identifying and exchanging specimens. To this end, correspondence had to satisfy the same criteria of reliability as applied in other aspects of scientific practice. Confidence in the dependability of the information contained in each letter was of paramount importance. In his Social History of Truth,63 Shapin has made a strong case that in the seventeenth century gentlemen were regarded as reliable sources of information because their cultural practices fitted them for the role of being reliable spokesmen for reality. In short,

57 J. Brown, Charles Darwin: Voyaging, Jonathan Cape, London, 1995, p. 368. 58 H.B. Woodward, The History of the Geological Society of London, Longmans, London, 1908, p. 66. 59 N.A. Rupke, Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist, Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 48-55. 60 J. Morrell and A. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981, pp. 18-23. 61 Morrell and Thackray borrowed the term from Coleridge’s concept of ‘a national church of intellect’; ibid., p. 20. 62 A. Secord, ‘Corresponding interests: artisans and gentlemen in nineteenth-century natural history’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1994, 27, pp. 383-408. 63 S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1994.

187 gentlemen were supposedly disinterested and independent, and as a consequence, trustworthy. Secord has gone on to suggest that this association between gentlemen and trustworthiness continued into the nineteenth century.64 Certainly most ‘Gentlemen of Science’ knew each other through various networks. Potential problems arose when the status of a person requesting or supplying information was unknown. Strict codes of etiquette were therefore developed and followed, particularly if a correspondence was opened by somebody from a lower class.65 However, when such a correspondence was opened up and developed, as occurred between Mantell and Greenough from 1814 to 1822,66 it provided an opportunity for an outsider to establish a position on the periphery of an otherwise closed network. More importantly, it was a way in which the activities and abilities of an ‘unknown’ could be drawn to the attention of potential patrons. In a later section of this chapter it will be shown how Mantell adopted this approach. For present purposes two types of patronage can be recognised. The first concerns patronage within a particular social group or network, and its rationale can be summed up as ‘looking after one’s own’. Frequently such patronage was politically orientated, as for example, Lord Liverpool’s appointment of Buckland in 1825 to the canonry at Christ Church, Oxford, with its free house and £1000 per year, and Buckland’s subsequent elevation to the deanery at Westminster in 1845 by Sir Robert Peel.67 Buckland’s Toryism was an undoubted factor in both these appointments. As Morrell has observed, such patronage of geology and geologists “was usually not ostensible but incidental, occasional, and indirect”.68 In fact, patronage of this nature was usually limited to clerical preferment, a point made by Peel himself.69 The second type of patronage can be described as ‘aristocratic’, since its underlying style is one of ‘noblesse oblige’, and the encouragement of ‘deserving’, disadvantaged talent. A good example concerns John Phillips, for whom Harcourt70 secured the position of Keeper of the York Museum in

64 Secord, op. cit. (note 62), p. 384. 65 Ibid., p. 393. 66 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 45 and GAM ms 1812-1817. 67 DNB and CL to GAM, 20 July 1825, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 61. (Supp.Vol.-Letter 22). 68 Morrell, op. cit. (note 3), p. 140. 69 Cannon, op. cit. (note 54), on p. 249. 70 William Vernon Harcourt (1789-1871). Son of Edward Harcourt, Archbishop of York. General Secretary to the first meeting of the BAAS (York, 1831). Rector of Wheldrake and Bolton Percy.

188 1825. Subsequently, Phillips assisted Harcourt in the preparations for the 1831 BAAS meeting, and from this base Phillips went on to a meritorious and outstanding geological career. The influence and geological patronage that Murchison was able to bestow is noted by J. Secord;71 Murchison helped Phillips down to London in 1834, and obtained a Geological Survey post for Ramsay72 in the 1840s. Mantell’s obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine73 merely stated that he was greatly encouraged in his early work by Davies Gilbert. It will be shown later in this chapter that Mantell did not receive Davies Gilbert’s patronage and assistance by chance. He worked for it. A further point is that the recipient of any patronage has an obligation to his patron. In the case of State-based patronage, obligations tended to be politically orientated. Buckland was associated with Peelite-Toryism;74 Sedgwick, with his Whiggish convictions, was appointed to his prebendary stall at Norwich by Brougham in 1834.75 Recipients of ‘aristocratic’ patronage were expected to conform in other ways. For example, Rupke has recounted how Owen’s Oxbridge patrons, who pushed his Museum cause, expected Owen to carry out his vertebrate morphology and palaenontology in accordance with the Oxford ‘epistomology’ of natural theology.76 Rupke had earlier demonstrated that both Buckland and Sedgwick used natural theology to secure and consolidate their respective positions at Oxford and Cambridge prior to receiving their ecclesiastical preferments.77 As a general observation, intellectual rebels or political radicals were not ideal candidates for establishment patronage. It will be shown that this point was made clear to Mantell in 1820.

(2) THE ROLE OF THE PROVINCIAL GEOLOGIST

The aim here is to review the literature concerning the difficulties

DNB. 71 J.A. Secord, Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Debate, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986, p. 269. 72 Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1814-1891). Obtained employment in the Geological Survey of the U.K. in 1841 of which he became Director General in 1871. President GSL, 1862-64. DNB. 73 Op. cit. (note 33), pp. 664-647. 74 Rupke, op. cit. (note 3), p. 13. 75 Henry Peter Brougham, later Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868). Advocate, M.P., and Reformer. He appointed Sedgwick as a prebendary at Norwich when Lord Chancellor in Lord Melbourne’s administration. DNB. 76 Rupke, op. cit. (note 59), p. 59. 77 Rupke, op. cit. (note 3), p. 25.

189 encountered by an ambitious, provincial member of one of the major, London-based natural history institutions, and the perceived role of such members by the leaders of these institutions. In this context particular emphasis is given to provincials like Mantell in the 1820s, who were dependent on their provincial activities for their livelihood, and did not enjoy the advantages of a private income. The disadvantages faced by such individuals are largely self-evident, and in the main have been taken for granted in the literature. In the case of the GSL for instance, fifteen evening meetings were held during the period from early November to early June. The cost and time required to attend these meetings on a regular basis before train transport would have constituted a major obstacle for a provincial member of council. In any case, it was normally impractical for a busy accoucheur in the country, like Mantell, to have frequent one to two day absences from his patients. The difficulties associated with attending important, impromptu meetings in London were even greater, a point noted by Morrell and Thackray.78 Porter has observed79 that the perceived role for provincial geologists was essentially laid down in the GSL’s 1808 questionnaire, Geological inquiries, in which it was stated:

to reduce Geology to a system demands a total devotion of time, and an acquaintance with almost every branch of experimental and general Science and can be performed only by philosophers; but the facts necessary to this great end may be collected without much labour, and by persons attached to various pursuits and occupations; the principal requisites being minute observation and faithful record.80

In the above context the term ‘philosophers’ equates with the London-based ‘gentleman-specialists’, whilst the collectors, who can be “persons attached to various pursuits and occupations”, essentially designates the prescribed function of the provincials.

78 Morrell and Thackray, op. cit. (note 60), p. 301, describe how through the use of impromptu meetings in London, provincials were effectively debarred from any direct voice in the conduct of BAAS within 18 months of its foundation. 79 R. Porter, The Making of Geology: Earth science in Britain 1660-1815, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, p. 147. 80 Geological inquiries, GSL, London, 1808 and reprinted in Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 1817, 44, pp. 421-429.

190 Rudwick81 has outlined the role of the 332 (52%) GSL members who lived outside London in 1835 in an unequivocal manner by designating their three main functions: to make available their strictly local expertise; to donate specimens; and to assist visitors from the metropolis. The prosopographic and screening analyses in chapter two highlighted the rarity of provincial members on the GSL council. In this chapter the difficulties that Mantell faced in leaving his provincial base are given considerable emphasis.

(3) INCOMES OF THE GENTLEMAN-SPECIALISTS

This section of the literature review has two main aims: first, to examine the published data on the incomes of those members identified as both ‘gentleman- specialists’ and members of the geological elite, and second, to review guidelines concerning the minimum income needed to support the lifestyle of this group. In regard to the first aim, Porter has made the following comment:

Almost no research has been done on geologists’ incomes (a mark of gentlemanly historians). None of the printed lives and letters of nineteenth century geologists delves into so vulgar a subject.82

Subsequently, Secord provided a listing of staff members, positions held, and annual rate of pay in 1848, of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Museum of Practical Geology, Mining Record Office and Geological Survey of Ireland in his 1986 paper, ‘The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a Research School, 1839-1855’.83 Secord’s list includes De la Beche and J. Phillips. As a general rule the incomes of ‘gentleman and clergyman- specialists’ who were the recipients of ecclesiastical preferments or political patronage, such as Buckland,84 Sedgwick,85 and De la Beche,86 are recorded in

81 M.J.S. Rudwick, ‘A year in the life of Adam Sedgwick and company, geologists’, Archives of Natural History, 1988, 15, pp. 257-259. 82 R. Porter, ‘Gentleman and Geology: The Emergence of a Scientific Career, 1660-1920’, The Historical Journal, 1978, 21, pp. 809-836 p. 823. 83 J.A. Secord, ‘The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a Research School, 1839-1855’, History of Science, 1986, 24, pp. 223-275 on p. 236. 84 Buckland’s annual stipend for each readership at Oxford was no more than £100. However, in 1825 he was also appointed a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, which carried a free house and £1,000 per year. Rupke, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 13 and 22.

191 the literature. The paucity of information arises in the case of those with private incomes. For example, no specific income has been reported for either Fitton or Greenough. Geikie described Fitton’s circumstances as follows:

Eventually, having married a lady of ample means, he [Fitton] retired from his profession, and established himself in London where his house became one of the scientific centres of the time.87

Subsequent references to Fitton in the literature concerning his financial position have been based on variants of the above quotation. Recent references to Greenough have been only slightly more specific:

He [Greenough] was a very rich man. Born in 1775, he was orphaned at the age of six and adopted by a wealthy Londoner, adding the final name of Greenough to his original name of George Bellas as a condition of inheriting a considerable legacy.88

The son of a lawyer but orphaned at an early age, his gentlemanly style of life had been secured when a grandparent left him a substantial fortune, derived from a lifetime’s successful but less than gentlemanly business as an apothecary.89

In the case of Murchison, whose lifestyle was grander and more ostentatious than most of the ‘gentleman-specialists’, there is comparable vagueness about his income after 1823, when he and his wife were forced to economise after spending more than 2,000 pounds a year.90

85 In 1818 Sedgwick was appointed Woodwardian Professor of Geology, Cambridge University, for which he received £100 per annum. He subsequently obtained a further £100 for a second set of lectures each year. Additionally, as a Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Sedgwick had rooms and commons plus dividends from the College which varied from £130-500 a year. Following his appointment as a prebendary at Norwich in 1834, Sedgwick received a further £600 a year. Cannon, op. cit. (note 54), p. 40 and a private communication from Trinity College Library to D.R. Oldroyd, 4 October 1996, which was kindly shown to the writer. 86 Until around 1832 De la Beche enjoyed an income from his family’s West Indies estates of around £3,000 which he then lost. Morrell, op. cit. (note 3), p.139. In 1835 De la Beche received a salary of £500 for carrying out geological work for the Government. In 1848 his salary as Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain was £800. Secord, op. cit. (note 71), p. 226 and p. 236. 87 A. Geikie, The Founders of Geology, Macmillan, (2nd ed.), London, 1905, p. 397, (note 3). 88 J.F. Wyatt, ‘George Bellas Greenough: a Romantic Geologist’, Archives of Natural History, 1995, 22, pp. 61-71 p. 62. 89 Rudwick, op. cit. (note 3), p. 65. Additionally, Greenough’s Obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine contained two general references to his “considerable and ample wealth”. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, May 1855, pp. 532-534.

192 After a year spent with Charlotte’s [Murchison’s wife] parents, the Murchisons – still possessed of a substantial independent income – set up house on a reduced scale in London.91

Secord did not quantify the Murchison’s reduced, but substantial income. It is recorded that Murchison subsequently inherited the estates of his father, father-in-law and uncle,92 and, moreover, lost substantial sums on various investments including 10,000 pounds on a single railway company in 1862 and in the following year more than three times this sum in bad investments.93 The interest foregone on just these losses would have amounted to at least £1200 a year if the capital had been invested in Government loan funds or ‘consols’. Although his private income must therefore have varied considerably until his death in 1871, Murchison’s described style of living could not have been maintained on an annual income less than £1500, and more likely £2000. The nature of Lyell’s private income at the time of his marriage in 1832 has been described by Wilson:

During his bachelor years Lyell had received from his father an annual allowance of £400 but as part of the marriage settlement Mr. Lyell increased this allowance to £500 per year. Lyell had saved the money he had earned by writing articles for the Quarterly Review and what he had received from the Principles and thus had several hundred pounds invested in the funds, that is, in British Government securities. In addition Mary Horner received from her father under the marriage settlement £4000 which would yield another £120 per year of income. Thus the young couple would have a secure income of about £650 per year on which to start their married life, entirely apart from what Lyell hoped to continue to earn by writing.94

Although Wilson records the ongoing negotiations and sums received by Lyell from his publisher, Murray,95 for the various volumes and editions of his Principles of Geology, the amounts received annually by Lyell from his writing activities are not explicitly set out. This is an important point, since

90 A. Geikie, Life of Sir Roderick Murchison, (2 vols), John Murray, London, 1875, vol. 1, p. 91. 91 Secord, op. cit. (note 71), p. 44. 92 L.E. Page, ‘The Rivalry between Charles Lyell and Roderick Murchison, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1976, 32, p. 156. 93 R.A. Stafford, Scientist of Empire: Sir Robert Murchison, scientific exploration and Victorian imperialism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, p. 209. 94 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 361. 95 John Murray (1778-1843). Publisher of Albermarle Street, London. DNB.

193 some historians have regarded Lyell’s writing as his principal occupation, for example, Bartholomew:

Keeping it [Principles of Geology], and its companion Elements, up to date was Lyell’s chief commitment – it was his job. He tended to publish his original work in his books rather than in individual papers….He needed the money his writing brought in.96

A similar attitude was adopted by Latour who stated that Lyell had to earn a living since the pittance he received from his father was not enough to support a family.97 The relative importance of Lyell’s income from writing will be placed in perspective later in this chapter. Little specific data have been published on the income that Mantell earned at his three medical practices, first at Lewes (1811-1833), then Brighton (1834-1838), and finally at Clapham (1838-1852). Although it is evident from Curwen’s edition of The Journal of Gideon Mantell,98 that Mantell built up a large and successful practice at Lewes, encountered financial disaster at Brighton, and had a modest practice at Clapham, there is no published information on his actual income during these three phases of his career. This is reflected in the four major publications on Mantell.99 However, additional information obtained from an analysis of the Lyell-Mantell correspondence and the G.A. Mantell Papers in New Zealand, has proved useful in giving a better indication of Mantell’s varying financial circumstances. The income that Lyell and Mantell earned from the publication of their geological books has not been investigated in detail. This information, set out in a later section of this chapter, assists in providing a better insight into the difficulties of securing a reasonable income from writing scientific books in the first half of the nineteenth century. There is also relatively little detailed information, in the history of

96 M. Bartholomew, ‘The Singularity of Lyell’, History of Science, 1979, 17, pp. 276-293 on p. 289. 97 B. Latour, Science in Action, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1987, pp. 146-150. 98 Curwen, op. cit. (note 42). 99 Spokes, op. cit.(note 38), on pp. 6 and 9 referred to Mantell being a good all-round practitioner and having an extensive practice at Lewes.iVallance, op. cit. (note 44), commented that the 1820s were years of achievement for Mantell and that his Lewes medical practice flourished; (p. 94), that Mantell was losing money at Brighton, (p. 97), and that the practice at Clapham proved reasonably successful, (p. 98).iCleevely and Chapman, op. cit. (note 46), p. 310, simply stated that Mantell’s move to Brighton proved to be a complete failure.iDean, op. cit. (note 48), p. 438, commented that

194 science literature, concerning the minimum income necessary for the lifestyle of a ‘gentleman-specialist’, although Morrell and Thackray provided some guidelines in the following footnote:

It is difficult to give present-day equivalents of incomes during the early Victorian era. An Anglican parson might receive £200 per annum, a prosperous provincial physician, £300, a schoolmaster, £75. A gentleman with a wife, three children, and five servants (including a coachman), was affluent on £800. Among the lower orders, a coachman received £25 and a skilled artisan £50.100

In an Appendix to The Great Devonian Controversy,101 Rudwick included a brief note on prices and incomes during the 1830s and 1840s. After noting that it is notoriously difficult to convert such data into their present equivalents, he suggested a conversion factor of 40 as perhaps the least misleading way in which to compare the values of the 1830s with those of the mid-1980s. On this basis, a book costing ten shillings in 1830 would involve an equivalent, current outlay of around 25 pounds or 70 Australian dollars (1999). Rudwick also chose two indicative income levels to illustrate the application of this conversion factor. First, a modest income of £200 per annum, which equates to a 1985 figure of £8000, was stated as clearly insufficient to support a gentleman in a life of science unless he was unmarried and the beneficiary of free housing, like Sedgwick at Cambridge during the 1820s. On the other hand, it was indicated that an income of £1000 in the 1830s would have been more than adequate to support a ‘gentleman-specialist’. Some, however, found this sum insufficient. Lyell’s father-in-law, Leonard Horner, who had six unmarried daughters in 1830 when he was negotiating his appointment as Warden of University College, London, insisted that “with so numerous a family as I have, I cannot live in a House in Gower Street in a very quiet way for less than £1400 per an.”102 In fact, if allowance is made for subsequent inflation since 1985, a more appropriate conversion factor for 1998 would be 50 rather than 40. This point alone is indicative of the many complications in establishing equivalent values within the one country. Other difficulties concern major

Mantell made the mistake of moving to Brighton without acquiring a practice. 100 Morrell and Thackray, op. cit. (note 60), p. 309, note 56. 101 Rudwick, op. cit. (note 3), Appendix C, pp. 460-461. 102 H.H. Bellot, University College London: 1826-1926, University of London Press, London, 1929,

195 differences in taxation laws over the past 160 years, changing values and priorities in respect to particular social norms and living standards, and the compound effects of productivity and technological changes. For these reasons, the approach adopted here to assess an adequate income for a ‘gentleman-specialist’, has been to develop appropriate annual living cost budgets based on London cost and price data in 1830 and to disregard possible current day equivalents. Harrison has provided an overview of living standards during the period 1832-1851.103 The middle class was defined as the servant-keeping class, and with an income below £300 a year only a maid-of-all-work was economically feasible. Above £300, another housemaid could be added; and at £400 to £500, a cook could also be employed. A household with one horse and a coachman-groom necessitated an income of at least £600 a year.104 Harrison, though, did not provide sufficient details to compile annual budgets for the following three styles of living for a ‘gentleman-specialist’:

(i) Modest but socially acceptable house in London. Married with three children. Limited travelling and entertaining. Maintains gentlemanly style of living, but forced to be prudent. (ii) The style of living enjoyed by Lyell following his marriage in 1832. (iii) Reasonably fashionable house in London, but no country residence. Married with three children. Visits continental Europe once a year and when necessary, travels comfortably throughout the U.K. Entertains adequately but not lavishly.

The first of the above three categories describes an economically constrained and moderate lifestyle. Its purpose is to provide clear guidelines concerning the minimum required income for a ‘gentleman-specialist’. This case also gives an indication of the private income Mantell would have needed if he had moved to London to pursue his palaeontological investigations on a full- time basis. The second category is self-explanatory. The third category, which is less austere, characterises the lifestyle to which Mantell aspired, but is less lavish than that enjoyed by Murchison. p. 194. 103 J.F.C. Harrison, The Early Victorians: 1832-1851, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1971, pp. 104- 109.

196 Much of the necessary detailed cost data to prepare annual budgets for the three nominated lifestyles are derived from an 1824 edition of A New System of Practical Domestic Economy founded on Modern Discoveries and from the Private Communications of Persons of Experience, by a Lady (Mrs Rundell), and printed for Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, London. Extracts from this handbook are contained in several works and references on the sociology of nineteenth-century life in England.105 For all income groups this handbook sets out such details as the amount and cost of bread, eggs, meat, soap and candles consumed; the number of fires per house and the cost of coal burnt; the cost of servants and their overheads; as well as housing, clothing, education and transport expenses. Although written before 1830, the data contained in this manual are generally applicable until the mid- 1840s. Variations in the cost of living during this period, and in particular, fluctuations in the price of such staples as bread, were only of real concern to those earning less than £100 a year.106 Cost data on other expenses that would have been incurred by a gentleman-specialist, such as postage, continental travel, purchase of reference books and specimens, and club and specialist society fees, have been compiled from numerous publications referred to in a later section of this chapter. No detailed annual living cost budget for a ‘gentleman-specialist’ has been noted in the relevant literature.

(4) GENTLEMANLY OCCUPATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN GEOLOGY

As discussed in chapter two (section 2.1.4), English geology was dominated during the period 1830 to 1850 by the gentleman-specialists who effectively fulfilled the role normally assumed by ‘professionals’. Here, the literature review focuses on the occupational opportunities that existed in geology during the first half of the nineteenth century for ‘gentleman-specialists’, such as Lyell, who needed to supplement their private income, and also for

104 Ibid., pp. 108-109. 105 C.S. Peel, ‘Homes and Habits’, in E.M. Young (ed.), Early Victorian England 1830-1865, 2 vols, Oxford University Press, London, 1934, pp. 77-152;iJ. Burnett, Plenty and Want: A social history of diet in England from 1815 to the present day, Thomas Nelson, London, 1966, pp. 57-71. 106 The weekly cost of bread for a family with 3 children was 3s. 6d. in 1825, 3s. 9d. in 1831, 3s. 6d. in 1841, and 2s.6d. in 1851. E.P. Thompson and E. Yeo (eds), The Unknown Mayhew: Selections

197 aspiring gentlemen like Mantell, who were socially ambitious but had relatively little capital. With the possible exception of Taylor,107 no notable ‘gentleman-specialist’ in geology before 1840 overcame this predicament by first amassing a fortune from business activities, as did the astronomer Baily.108 Another alternative was to marry a wealthy woman, as did Fitton. A key problem for those faced with the need to find employment in geology was the maintenance of their gentlemanly status. Heyck109 has observed that the same dilemma confronted ‘men of letters’ in Victorian England; the old criterion that a gentleman did not work for a living still held considerable sway in the mid-nineteenth century, despite the fact that the concept of a gentleman was increasingly based on moral values. Although there were salaried professionals in geology, most of these men were lowly paid curators from modest family backgrounds, and who not infrequently obtained their position because of the patronage of a ‘gentleman-specialist’.110 Trading in mineral and fossil specimens would certainly have involved loss of gentlemanly status. In fact there were few acceptable employment opportunities in geology in England between the years 1807 and 1850. Two such positions were the Oxbridge professorships held by Buckland and Sedgwick, but both men were also recipients of ecclesiastical preferments resulting from political patronage. Perhaps the most notable position was the appointment of De la Beche as the first Director of the Geological Survey in the mid-1830s, a post essentially created for him by his colleagues.111 Another pertinent appointment was Lyell’s sojourn as a lecturer at King’s College, London, in 1831-32, that has been well documented by from the Morning Chronicle 1849-1850, Merlin Press, London, 1971, in Appendix II, p. 482. 107 John Taylor (1779-1863). Successful mining engineer, manager and entrepreneur. Not a conventional ‘gentleman-specialist’. GSL treasurer 1823-1843. DNB and Woodward, op. cit. (note 58), p.298. 108 Francis Baily (1774-1844). Eminent astronomer who retired from business in 1825 to devote himself to astronomy. DNB. 109 T.W. Heyck, The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England, Croom Helm Ltd., London, 1982, p. 31. 110 Examples areiJohn Phillips who was appointed Keeper of the York Museum in 1825 at a salary of £60 per annum through Vernon Harcourt’s patronage. Morrell and Thackray, op. cit. (note 60), p. 439;iG.F. Richardson was appointed an assistant in the Mineralogical and Geological Branch of the Department of Natural History at a salary of £100 per annum following the closure of the Mantellian Museum at Brighton in 1838. H.S. Torrens and J.A. Cooper, ‘George Fleming Richardson (1796-1848): Man of Lettters, Lecturer, and Geological Curator’, The Geological Curator, 1986, 5, p. 256; andiJ.S. Miller, for whom Conybeare engineered the post of curator at the Bristol Institute in 1823 at a salary of £150 per annum. M. Neeve, ‘Science in a commercial city: Bristol 1820-60’, in: I. Inkster and J. Morrell (eds), Metropolis and Province, p. 193.

198 Wilson.112 This episode in Lyell’s early career demonstrated that full-time lecturing was not an ideal occupation for a ‘gentleman-specialist’, since it did not allow sufficient time for geological investigations. According to Hays,113 scientific lecturing was one of three activities that were especially important to the non-gentlemanly members of the various scientific communities of London between 1800 and 1850. The other two activities nominated by him were medical practice and technological involvement in trade and industry. Hays has further argued that scientific lecturing in the 1830s and 1840s was a contributing factor to the professionalisation of science, since it provided a stable, though small, income,114 but he also noted that few of this class of career lecturers could be regarded as in the ‘first rank’ of original researchers. Through the process of exclusion, one of the few occupational opportunities left was scientific writing. It can also be regarded as socially acceptable, since it was adopted by Lyell as a means of supplementing his income, and he did so without loss of his gentlemanly status. A further advantage of scientific writing was that it could be conducted on a part-time basis at times to suit the author. This activity was also important to Mantell, but it will be shown that it did not give him a significant supplementary income. Heyck has shown that considerable money was earned by popular and best-selling authors such as Scott, Byron, and Moore during the first half of the nineteenth century and that in the 1840s and 1850s, a mediocre novelist frequently earned £250 for a novel.115 However, during this period the average edition of a serious book was only around 750 copies.116 Moreover, during the 1820s and 1830s, in particular, books on science were not numerous. Yeo117 has observed that most reports on scientific investigations were published in the transactions and journals of the specialist societies. He

111 Secord, op. cit. (note 71), pp. 226 and 236. 112 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 308-360. 113 J.N. Hays, ‘The London lecturing empire, 1800-50’, in: I. Inkster and J. Morrell (eds), Metropolis and Province, pp. 91-119. 114 Ibid., p. 109. 115 Heyck, op. cit. (note 109), p. 28. 116 R.D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800- 1900, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1957, on p. 263. Altick went on to comment that if the book sold well then further editions might rapidly follow, but the size of these editions was still limited because of the relatively high cost of paper. 117 R. Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, natural knowledge, and public debate in early

199 quoted from Lyell’s 1826 article on ‘Scientific Institutions’ to support this contention:

Those who are aware of the limited sale of scientific works, even of profound research, and who know the consequent reluctance of publishers to undertake the publication of them at their own risk, even when proceeding from authors of acknowledged talents.118

The attitude of the publishers can be appreciated when it is realised that in the 1830s only one book in fifteen paid for its own expenses.119 The literature concerning the economics of scientific writing during the first half of the nineteenth century is incidental and not extensive, probably because of the small number of successful practitioners. Cumming120 has described the circumstances surrounding the publication of Macculloch’s, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, a lavish three-volume production that did not recover costs. J. Thackray has revealed that Murchison and his publisher John Murray shared a profit of £312 in the production of Siluria.121 One of the best accounts of the difficulties encountered in publishing serious scientific works, combined with specific data concerning their profitability, is contained in Wilson’s Charles Lyell: The Years to 1841.122 Wilson, though, does not give a detailed breakdown of the fixed and variable costs of the various reprints and editions that is essential to gaining an understanding of the economics of scientific book publication. He also does not give a clear account of how much supplemental income Lyell actually earned from his writing on a year-to-year basis. Both of these aspects are explored in a later section of this chapter. As will be seen, the Lyell-Mantell letters and Mantell’s Private Journal contain considerable unpublished information concerning the profitability of scientific writing and lecturing in England in the 1840s.

Victorian Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, p. 80. 118 Lyell, ‘Art. VIII. – Scientific Institutions’, The Quarterly Review, 1826, 34, p. 167. 119 W.A. Astore, ‘Observing God: Thomas Dick (1774-1857)’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oxford University, 1995, p. 190, referring to J. Grant, The Great Metropolis, 2 vols, Saunders, London, 1837, in vol.1, on p. 134. 120 D.A. Cumming, ‘A description of the western islands of Scotland: John Macculloch’s successful failure’, Bibliography of Natural History, 1977, 8, pp. 270-285. 121 J.C. Thackray, ‘R.I. Murchison’s Siluria (1854 and later)’, Archives of Natural History, 1981, 10, pp. 37-43 on p. 38. 122 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 341-343, 376, 411-413.

200 (5) THE ROLE OF THE SPOUSE IN ENGLISH GEOLOGY

Although the English geological community, as depicted through the activities of the GSL in the first half of the nineteenth century, was almost wholly male, the role of the wives of the ‘gentleman-specialists’ also warrants examination. The importance of this point is accentuated by the contrasting roles that the wives of Lyell and Mantell played throughout the careers of their husbands, and the explanatory value that their respective domestic situations had on the nature and scope of their work. The need for such an understanding has been recognised by Abir-Am and Outram, who made the following observation:

In the early nineteenth century, the predicament of both men and women in relation to science was similar in many important ways. Approaches to science were enormously influenced by personal and family situations....Although actual scientific posts were wholly monopolized by men, such posts were few in number; not all men producing science held such posts; and most amateurs, male and female, worked from a domestic base. Often other family members greatly affected the actual resources of time, energy, and assistance available for scientific work of any kind.123

In the main there are very few references in the literature to the role of the wives of ‘gentleman-specialists’. An exception is the five-page tribute that Murchison wrote to Geikie in 1869 for inclusion in his planned biography,124 about the assistance, companionship, influence, and encouragement that had been given him by his late wife. E.H. Bunbury, the brother of Lyell’s brother-in-law, extolled the virtues of Lyell’s wife, and in particular, stated “she devoted herself heart and soul to the furtherance of her husband’s pursuits”.125 Wilson’s two biographical studies on Lyell126 only cover the years to 1853 and consequently it would have been inappropriate to include an assessment of the role of Lyell’s wife in these volumes. In the case of Mantell, references in the literature about his wife are minor, and

123 P.G. Abir-Am and D. Outram (eds), Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science 1789-1979, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1987, pp. 2-3. 124 Geikie, op. cit. (note 90), vol. 2, pp. 332-336. 125 E.H. Bunbury, ‘Art. III – Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., Edited by his Sister-in-Law, Mrs. Lyell, 2 vols, London, 1881’, The Quarterly Review, 1882, 153, p. 112. 126 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27) and op. cit. (note 29).

201 mainly relate to her work in producing the engravings for Mantell’s first book, her role in allegedly finding the first Iguanodon teeth in 1822, and the fact that she left her husband in 1838.127 Unfortunately, manuscript sources shed little light on the last incident. In this chapter emphasis is placed on demonstrating the contrasting but significant roles played by the wives of Lyell and Mantell during the careers of the two men.

4.2 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION

In line with the methodology adopted in the previous chapters, the following examination of various social factors that may have had a significant influence on the scientific careers of Lyell and Mantell has been carried out on a decade-by-decade basis. Most of the factors discussed are only relevant within a particular time-frame, and Mantell’s or Lyell’s reactions and responses are best related to the circumstances and conventions of that particular time. The basic approach adopted has been to examine and probe the journals and correspondence of Lyell and Mantell, together with other contemporary material, to determine the primary objectives of the two men during each decade, and then to identify and assess the significance of the various social factors that had a bearing on the attainment of these aims. A disadvantage of this approach is that it tends to present a somewhat distorted

127 Respective references to these three incidents are contained in Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), pp. 11, 18 and 110.

202 overall view of each of the two men, since emphasis is necessarily focused on specific social factors and particular personality traits. Consequently, Lyell’s single-mindedness and commercial acumen are highlighted, as are Mantell’s foibles, such as his yearning for recognition and high social status. In the main, the more appealing human characteristics and virtues are given little attention, unless relevant to a particular issue. The key source of information for the analyses in this chapter is the material contained in the Mantell Family Papers, 1805-1895, held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, in Wellington, New Zealand, and more specifically the G.A. Mantell Papers that comprise Series One of this collection. These papers include the letters Mantell received from 269 correspondents, including the letters from Lyell; Mantell’s Personal Journal that he kept from 1819-1852; copies of some of his outward correspondence including his pre-1820 letters to James Sowerby, Etheldred Benett, and Greenough; as well as various notebooks, manuscripts and family papers. Other manuscript and information sources are noted where applicable. 4.3 ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL FACTORS THAT AFFECTED THE GEOLOGICAL CAREERS OF LYELL AND MANTELL

4.3.1 THE YEARS TO 1820: OVERCOMING INITIAL HANDICAPS

At the close of 1820, Lyell was a 23-year old Oxford graduate who had started his legal studies in London, evinced a keen and growing interest in geology, and visited continental Europe twice. His father, Charles senior, owned a considerable estate in Forfarshire, Scotland, and was a man with cultivated literary and botanical interests. Furthermore, Lyell enjoyed the advantage of being the eldest son, with presumed prospects of inheriting the estate. The only significant problem that Lyell seems to have experienced until this time was a weakness in his eyes, which became inflamed following intensive reading.128 By the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century Mantell’s future prospects would also have been generally regarded as favourable. In 1820, Mantell was 30 years of age, married with two children and had a successful medical practice in the provincial town of Lewes, Sussex.

128 K. M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 112.

203 Additionally, he had established a local reputation for his interest in, and knowledge of, the district’s antiquities and natural history. In contrast to Lyell, however, Mantell had had to overcome several major social barriers in order to attain the position he held. In this section, which deals with the early, formative years of the two men, most of the discussion revolves around Mantell, since his case history is that of the ambitious outsider, in contrast to Lyell’s, whose conventional, upper-class background epitomises that of the archetypal ‘gentleman- specialist’.

(1) MANTELL

In an autobiographical summary,129 written after November 1850, Mantell recorded the following facts concerning his early years:

Gideon Algernon Mantell was born at Lewes in Sussex February 3, 1790. Baptised at the Dissenting Chapel in Saint Mary’s Street by Rev. Barnard. At the dissolution of this Chapel the register was lost.

Educated at Mr Button’s School (a day scholar) till 1801 from 1797. Went as boarder to his uncle Rev. George Mantell at Westbury, Wiltshire and afterwards removed with his Uncle to Swindon in the same County from 1801-1804.

Apprenticed to James Moore, a Surgeon at Lewes, February 3, 1804, for a period of 5 years. In 1810 entered as pupil at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, under Mr Abernethy and Sir Charles Blicke. Fellow of the Royal Coll. of Surgeons 19/4/1811. Entered into partnership with Mr Moore, at Lewes, 1811.

Married 4 May 1816, Mary Ann Woodhouse. Resided at Castle Place.

1814, February 1st. Elected a Fellow of the Linnaean [sic] Socy of London.130

It is mildly surprising that in these brief biographical notes Mantell mentioned the fact that he was baptised in a Dissenting Chapel, since this is

129 ‘Memoir of the Mantells’, Mantell mss, ATL-N.Z, Folder 122. The last dated entry in this summary prepared by Mantell is dated 4 November 1850. 130 In the remainder of this biographical note Mantell listed his papers, awards, lectures, and books

204 the only intimation that he came from a modest family background. In none of the other personal notes and summaries in this particular folder, that Mantell titled, ‘Scrapbook-Memoranda, relating to the Mantells of Northamptonshre, Sussex and Kent from A.D. 1066’, does he give any details on his father’s occupation, political activities or dissenting religious views. In fact, apart from listing the dates of the births, marriages, baptisms and deaths of his immediate relations, Mantell made no further mention of the activities of his parents, brothers, or sisters. Nor does Mantell explain that he attended his Baptist uncle’s school in Swindon because the trustees of the local Southover and Lewes Free Grammar School, which had an endowment to provide free instruction for up to 12 boys, were antipathetic to the radical views of his father.131 In essence, Mantell distanced himself from his immediate family and focused instead on the gentility of some distant forbears. His attitude is illustrated in the following description of his early background that he wrote in 1845:

Descended from a family of high antiquity, many of whose members had borne the honour of knighthood when that distinction was sparingly bestowed, and whose possessions and honours had been dissipated and lost by civil commotions and religious persecutions, my father filled a respectable but humble station in a county town. His children received the best education which the provincial grammar school could bestow; and from an early predilection for study which I was supposed to evince, at the age of twelve I was removed from my Alma Mater and placed under the private tuition of a clergyman, in a distant part of England. Here I remained three years, and at the expiration of that term was apprenticed to a general practitioner, in a market town in the west of __shire.132

In a sense Mantell simply did not openly acknowledge his early social handicaps. However, it will be shown that he worked very hard at overcoming them following his return to Lewes from London in 1811. Mantell’s birthplace, Lewes, is situated 49 miles from London on the South Downs of Sussex and is a strategically placed old market centre for the

in chronological order. 131 Background on The Southover and Lewes Free Grammar School is contained in Horsfield’s History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex, vol.1, p. 213 and in Mantell’s obituary, The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1852, 38, p. 645. 132 G.A. Mantell, (published anonymously under the pseudonym ‘Stat nominis umbra’), Memoirs of The Life of a Country Surgeon, Reeves Brothers, London, 1845.

205 agricultural surpluses of the South Downs and the Weald.133 In Mantell’s time the town’s commercial vigour also resulted in Lewes becoming a focus for legal and medical practitioners. The borough of Lewes had four parishes, and seven dissenting chapels,134 including the Chapel in St. Mary’s Lane where Mantell was baptised. In 1801 the population of Lewes was 5,200; it increased to 6,500 in 1811, 7,400 in 1821 and 8,900 in 1831.135 Gideon Algernon Mantell was the fourth son of seven surviving children of Thomas and Sarah Mantell. Mantell’s father had been baptised in the local Established Church of St. Michael, but it is not known when he became a dissenter. His local activity in radical whig politics, though, is documented.136 According to Mantell’s oldest brother, Thomas, their father’s shoe-making business employed up to 23 men,137 and he also owned at least two properties in the town.138 More importantly, he was able to pay the Lewes surgeon, James Moore, the considerable sum of 200 guineas when Mantell entered into a five-year indenture agreement as an apprentice on 2 March 1805.139 Moreover, following the death of Mantell’s father on 11 July 1807, there were sufficient family funds for Mantell to proceed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in London, as a pupil in 1810. He was not, therefore, brought up in penurious circumstances. On 19 April 1811, Mantell was awarded the Diploma of Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons and he returned to Lewes, entering into partnership with his old master, James Moore. The best record of Mantell’s experiences during the period from 1805, when he began his apprenticeship, until 1819, the year in which he started his Private Journal, are contained in his little-known and anonymously written, 21-page pamphlet, Memoirs of The Life of a Country Surgeon, extracts of which are set down below:

My master was a married man in the prime of his life, about 40 years of age.…He held the situation of medical attendant to the poor of 3 parishes as well as that of ‘Ordnance Surgeon’ to a troop of artillery, stationed in barracks near town. He was popular with the trades people but few of the gentry however were included in his list of patients.

133 Brent, op. cit. (note 52), p. 27. 134 Horsfield, op. cit. (note 34), vol.1, p. 208 and pp. 216-217. 135 Brent, op. cit. (note 52), p. 59 and pp. 213-217. 136 Ibid., p. 39, 193, and 194. 137 Abstracts of the Papers communicated to The Royal Society of London,1854, 6, p. 252. 138 Brent, op. cit. (note 52), pp. 163-165. 139 Mantell mss, ATL-N.Z., Folder 121, Indenture Agreement.

206 The returns of his practice at the commencement of my service amounted to between £500 and £600 p.a. inclusive of his salary as ordnance surgeon, and for the attendance on the sick poor of three parishes. The latter were contracted for at £20 each, surgery and midwifery being charged extra; the fee for each accouchement was 10/6, with an additional 2/6 when 3 miles distant.

As I was tall and looked old for my age I was soon able to be of considerable service to my master, by visiting the poor in slight ailments and occasionally accompanying him to the military hospital, and assisting to dress the poor fellows’ backs; for flogging was at that time in vogue, and we often had 5 or 6 men in the hospital from the infliction of that horrible and iniquitous punishment. Here I was initiated into postmortem examinations;

Four years passed away in this daily round of occupations; and by rising very early (often by four o’clock) I had many a spare hour for reading and drawing; and having an ardent love for natural history, I made a little collection of plants, shells &c from the neighbourhood.

At twenty, the term of my apprenticeship expired and I proceeded to London to complete my professional education.

It will not be necessary to dwell on my sojourn at the London Hospitals. At the period to which I refer (some 35 years since) no examination was required of the general practitioner and the only Court of Examiners was that of the College of Surgeons. Although anxious, on account of the limited means of my only surviving parent, to avoid unnecessary expense, I was ambitious of obtaining the only professional distinction within my reach, and therefore resolved to acquire the diploma of the college. But the students of those days were sadly restricted in their anatomical studies, by the scarcity and high price of subjects for dissection, from six to ten pounds being the usual sum for a body, and frequently one could not be obtained at any price.

I spent 2 years at the hospitals, attending the usual course of lectures in medicine, surgery and midwifery; and at the age of 22 passed my examination at the College, and became a member of that body. A small share of a country practice was immediately offered to me, by a surgeon who had known me from boyhood, and which I accepted, although it was not likely to produce me more than £50 p.a., but this was my only resource, for I had tried in vain for the situation of an assistant in London. The town in which I now began my medical career contained about 8 or 9 thousand inhabitants and several populous villages were situated within a few miles of the place; and there were

207 barracks for 1 or 2 troops of horse artillery, the medical attendance upon which was generally given to one of the resident surgeons.140 The practice depended in great measure on midwifery, the fee for attendance rarely exceeding 10/6; there were 3 parishes141 contracted for at £20 each; surgical and obstetrical cases being paid for extra, at low charges.

For 10 years I continued in partnership with the founder of this practice142 and by incessant labour increased the returns from £250 to £700 p.a.; attending myself from 200 to 300 cases of midwifery annually. Frequently I have been up for six or seven nights in succession; an occasional hours sleep in my clothes being the only repose I could obtain. The death of my partner about this time143 put me in possession of the entire emoluments; with the exception of £100 p.a. to the widow for a stipulated term of years.144

Although Mantell wrote this pamphlet in 1845 as a commentary on Sir James Graham’s Medical Bill concerning the Charter of the College of Surgeons, the dates and incidents recounted by Mantell are in general agreement with other records of his early life. The above extracts indicate that long hours and constant attention to his medical practice were one of the key ways that enabled Mantell to become established in Lewes. His exertions to this end are also confirmed by the following pattern of entries from his Private Journal:

August 2, 1818. An immense number of persons in this Town and neighbourhood are ill with Typhus fever – I have visited upwards of 40 and 50 patients every day for some time: yesterday I visited 64.

March 19, 1819. Mrs Tasker died yesterday – I am almost fatigued to death. I have been detained two nights and two days.

March 21, 1819. Exceedingly engaged: visited nearly 60 patients. Rode to Rodmill in the morning before breakfast: to Ringmer, Barcombe and Cocks bridge in the afternoon.145

140 In February 1819, Mantell’s 3-year superintendency of The Royal Artillery Hospital, Ringmer, ceased following the transfer of the Troop to Ireland. GAM-PJ, entry 24 February 1819. 141 Mantell was appointed medical attendance of the Parishes of Ringmer, Malling, St. John’s and St. Michael’s. GAM-PJ, entry 24 March, 1820. 142 Mantell bought James Moore out of their Lewes surgical partnership on 25 March 1818. The terms were an annuity of £91 p.a. in 2 equal instalments for 7 years and Mantell also pledged to pay the yearly rent of £40 as tenant of the property in High Street. Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 121. 143 James Moore died at Lewes on 31 August 1820. GAM-PJ, entry 31 August 1820. 144 Mantell, op. cit. (note 132), pp. 9-16. 145 GAM-PJ.

208 The long hours that Mantell gave to building up and maintaining his medical practice continued throughout the 1820s and contributed to the serious detriment of his health. The situation was also exacerbated by the fact that Mantell’s specialty was midwifery, which necessitated many late night calls and unexpectedly long periods of attendance with his patients. Additionally, he needed to find sufficient time to pursue his growing interests in natural history and in particular, geology. One consequence, though, of Mantell’s exertions in his medical practice was financial reward. In November 1818, Mantell entered into a contract to purchase Moore’s house at 3 Castle Place for £725, and six months later, he acquired the adjoining house on the west side for £600. By combining the two residences Mantell created a handsome drawing room for his antiquities and fossil collection.146 Although Mantell did not complete full settlement on the original house at 3 Castle Place until April 1821, the shoe-maker’s son was the owner of property worth in excess of £1300 at the age of 30 years. On 4 May 1816, Mantell married Mary Ann Woodhouse, the eldest daughter of George Edward Woodhouse of Maida Hill, Paddington, at the Church of St. Mary-le-bone. In the literature she is described as the daughter of one of Mantell’s patients,147 but little is known of her family background. It is a reasonable assumption that if she had had any family connections with the gentry, Mantell would have made this fact known. She was born on 9 July 1795, and was five years younger than Mantell. Their first surviving child, Ellen Maria, was born on 30 May 1818, followed by a son, Walter Baldock Durrant, on 11 March 1820, Hannah Matilda on 24 November 1822, and Reginald Neville, on 11 August 1827. In an external sense, at least, any legacy of the dissenting religious views of Mantell’s father was dispelled following his death in 1807, when Mantell was 17 years of age. Thomas Mantell was buried in the Anglican churchyard of St. John’s sub-castro where the remains of Mantell’s mother, who died on 23 December 1828, were also interred. Furthermore, Mantell placed a memorial tablet in St. Michael’s Church, where his father had been baptised on 21 April 1750. The first four lines of Mantell’s tribute read as follows:

146 GAM-PJ, entries 23 and 24 June 1819. 147 Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 5.

209 Though humble was the lot to thee assign’d The sterling virtues of an upright mind In thee, beloved parent, purely shone, And made content and happiness thy own.

All of Mantell’s children were baptised at the Established Church of St. Michael’s, Lewes. Another way in which Mantell strove to increase his social status was through the assumption of the arms of some of his claimed distant forbears. His Scrapbook-Memoranda148 contains numerous references to the Mantells who originally came from Normandy and settled in Northamptonshire. Most of Mantell’s genealogical investigations were carried out before 1814, the upshot of which was that he simply assumed the armorial bearings149 of his presumed ancestors. Following his marriage in 1816, Mantell combined the arms of the Mantell and Woodhouse families, and openly displayed these assumptions of gentility:

Had my arms painted on the marble table in the drawing room – the Mantell arms, impaled with those of Woodhouse.150

Following his removal to Brighton in the 1833, Mantell resumed the use of the armorial bearings of the ancient Mantells. In a revealing letter to his American friend, Professor Benjamin Silliman, written on 30 March 1843, Mantell first described and extolled various exploits of his claimed ancestors, and then made the following admission:

To you I will confess my weakness, that in my boyish days I fancied I should restore its honours, and that my boy Walter would have obtained the distinctions our knightly race once bore – but that is passed. Sic transit &c.151

Mantell’s confession that he yearned and strove for a knighthood in his early days provides a key to understanding his aspirations, especially during the

148 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 122. 149 The Mantell arms are described in Horsfield, op. cit, (note 34), vol. 1, p. 156, as: Arms: Ar. a cross, engr. between four martlets sa. Crest: A stag’s head, affrontee, ar. issuing out of ducal coronet, or. 150 GAM-PJ, entry 16 October 1820.

210 first two decades of the nineteenth century. Another area in which Mantell distanced himself from his father is politics. As previously noted,152 Thomas Mantell was recognised in Lewes as a radical whig. Although numerous entries in Mantell’s Private Journal indicate that he continued to espouse whiggish principles and supported the cause of Reform,153 he was not openly radical or extreme in his political views. Such viewpoints would have hindered Mantell’s quest for professional and social acceptance by the local gentry. This is indicated by the following extracts from a letter that Mantell received on 6 September 1820:

The strongest and best disposed minds are ever found most eager to promote whatever promises to be of advantage to their fellow creatures. I lament, therefore, but am not surprized, at hearing that you are warm in the cause of patriotic reform, and I fear will hardly think it possible that you can be mistaken either in your object of ameliorating the condition of your fellow country men, or in the means for accomplishing it. As a medical man and one who promises to be an honour to his profession, I appeal to you, whether in the Physical world, you can trace the connection between Cause and Effect? Why the small seed springs up into the lofty tree, why the same Earth and Water nourishes plants of such different qualities. . . . In like manner, Philosophers remark, the real road to obtain a desirable end, is, often far different from what experience would at first sight choose, that Liberty, for example, is protected and cherished by institutions which at first sight seem to impinge upon, and abridge it. Did I feel you interested in a state of plunder and Anarchy, or too weak in mind, to judge for yourself, I would not send the inclosed books, but I trust, as neither of those suppositions is the case that you will give them a candid consideration, and the only favour I ask, is, that you will not attempt to find out from whom they came. I recommend that Cotter be read first. August 1820 You need not scruple to receive the books, being a tribute of gratitude from one, whom you have obliged.

[Mantell wrote the following undated note at the bottom of this letter]

151 Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 148 . 152 Brent, op. cit. (note 52), pp. 39, 193 and 194. 153 The following indications of Mantell’s democratic outlook are contained in his Private Journal: reference is made to the strong democrat and republican minded Sir Richard Phillips, as his “enlightened friend”, entry 12 September 1819; he openly admired Napoleon, entries 15 August 1819 and 6 July 1821; and his general sympathy for the poor and underprivileged is clearly stated in entry 31 December 1830.

211 This letter was sent to me with two works: one “Conversations on Political Economy”, the other a translation of “Cotter on Jurisprudence”. At the time I received them, I suspected they had been sent to me by the Lady of Davies Gilbert M.P. Eastbourne; but I now doubt if this opinion is correct. G.Mantell.154

The significance of this letter does not concern the identity of the author, but the confirmation it provides of Mantell’s reformist political views and the insight it gives of the social pressures to which he was subjected. In early 1820, Davies Gilbert had been largely instrumental in getting Mantell elected to the GSL, and during the next five years he was to extend even greater patronage and assistance to the ambitious Lewes surgeon. Mantell evinced a marked enthusiasm for natural history as a young boy at Mr Button’s school at Lewes and when he boarded with his uncle at Swindon.155 His interest was further stimulated and encouraged when he met James Parkinson156 in London, in 1811. Years later, in 1850, Mantell paid the following tribute to Parkinson:

He kindly showed and explained to me the principal objects in his cabinets, and pointed out every source of information on fossil remains, a department of natural knowledge at that time but little cultivated in England, but which peculiar circumstances had contributed to render the engrossing subject of my young and ardent mind. In after years Mr. Parkinson warmly encouraged my attempts to elucidate the nature of the strata and organic remains of my native county, Sussex, a district which was then supposed to be devoid of geological interest; and he revised my drawings, and favoured me with his remarks on many subjects treated of in my first work The Fossils of the South Downs.157

Following his return to Lewes in 1811, Mantell found time to pursue various natural history investigations in the Lewes neighbourhood, despite the arduous demands of his medical partnership. In 1812-13 he wrote three

154 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 43. 155 Mantell obituary, Abstracts of the Royal Society of London, 1854, VI, on p. 253. In 1841 Mantell revisited the scenes of his schooldays at Swindon and recalled the many hours spent in his garden or in solitary reading secluded from his noisy school-fellows. GAM-PJ, entry July 1841. 156 James Parkinson (1755-1824). English surgeon and original member of the GSL. Author of Organic Remains of a Former World. An Examination of the Mineralized Remains of the Vegetables and Animals of the Antediluvian World; Generally termed Extraneous Fossils, 3 vols, London, 1804, 1808 and 1811. 157 G.A. Mantell, A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains consisting of coloured Illustrations selected from Parkinson’s ‘Organic remains of a Former World’, and Artis’s ‘Antediluvian Phytology’, with

212 letters to the Editor of the Lewes Journal on ‘The Extraneous Fossils found in the neighbourhood of Lewes’.158 These were followed by his first London paper, ‘A Description of a Fossil Alcyonium from the Chalk Strata near Lewes’, read before the Linnean Society in 1814.159 Mantell had joined this Society on 1 February 1814, an event he regarded as sufficiently important to highlight in his autobiographical notes.160 Based on intimations in Mantell’s early correspondence with Miss Etheldred Benett of Wiltshire,161 it appears probable that A.B. Lambert162 was responsible for Mantell’s election. Lambert also acted as an intermediary when Mantell initiated correspondence with Benett on geological matters in June 1813. In addition to the mutual benefits resulting from the exchange of fossil specimens and geological information, this activity also gave Mantell a mechanism through which he could establish influential new contacts beyond the environs of Lewes. A parcel of unusual fossils was one of the few things which Mantell could offer to selected notables and know that they would be well received. During the period 1811 to 1820, Mantell initiated correspondence and exchanged geological specimens and information with two professional naturalists, Konig163 and J. Sowerby164 and with three members of the gentry, Benett, Greenough and John Hawkins.165 He also wrote four and received three letters from Parkinson, but the basic theme of this particular

descriptions, H.G. Bohn, London, 1850, p. 14. 158 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, 1812-1817, (No. 1500). 159 G.A. Mantell, ‘Description of a fossil Alcyonium from the Chalk Strata near Lewes’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 1815, 11, pp. 401-407 . 160 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 122. 161 Etheldred Benett (1775-1845).The daughter of a Wiltshire squire who lived at Norton House, near Warminster. Fossil collector and correspondent of Mantell from 1813-1843. The references to Lambert are in GAM to E. Benett, 30 June 1813, and E. Benett to GAM, 15 July 1813, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 10A. 162 Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842). Wiltshire botanist and Vice-President of the Linnean Society of London, from 1796-1842. A.T. Gage and W.T. Stearn, A Bicentenary History of The Linnean Society of London, Academic Press, London, 1988, p. 191. 163 Charles Dietrich Ebernhardt Konig (1774-1851). German born mineralogist who was Keeper, Dept. of Mineralogy and Natural History, British Museum from 1807. By the end of 1820 Konig had written 5 letters to Mantell, in which specimens were acknowledged and named. Mantell mss, ATL- NZ, Folder 56. 164 James Sowerby (1757-1822). English conchologist. Mantell first wrote to Sowerby in 1813 and there are 25 letters until 1819 concerned with the identification and naming of fossils forwarded by Mantell. Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 90. 165 John Hawkins (1758-1841). Wealthy owner of Bignor Park, Sussex. Devoted his life to science, literature and the arts. Wrote some papers on geology. DNB.

213 correspondence was gratitude and thanks on the part of Mantell.166 For example, in his letter to Parkinson, dated 30 May 1814, Mantell advised that he had sent a small parcel of three species of Turrilites as “a small testimony of my gratitude for the pleasure & instruction I have received from your valuable work”. Mantell’s geological correspondence with Benett and Greenough is the more interesting because it illustrates several relevant points; the initial, socially subservient status of Mantell, his eagerness to gratify their wishes, and how the exchange of information developed into a virtual research programme for Mantell, as well as a learning process. Additionally, the 30 year correspondence between Mantell and the Wiltshire squire’s spinster daughter indirectly reveals the gradual development of a deep and fond relationship between the two naturalists who also shared the problem of continual poor health. The opening paragraph of Mantell’s first letter to Benett, in 1813, illustrates his initial social subservience:

Madam Under the kind recommendation of Mr Lambert a stranger begs to intrude himself on your notice and respectfully solicits the honour of a correspondence, so gratifying to his inclinations and so flattering to his pursuits. The diffidence which an introductory letter naturally creates, would have prevented me from embracing the opportunity that presents itself, of being favoured with your correspondence, had I not been reassured by the flattering letter of Mr Lambert, and the consciousness that your goodness will look with an indulgent eye on the formal style which politeness imposes upon a stranger.167

Mantell opened up his correspondence with Greenough in 1814 by sending him a collection of fossils and an outline of the geological work that he had carried out in Sussex. Greenough was receptive to Mantell’s approach and in his reply, dated 31 July 1814, raised two desiderata: tracing the course of the Ashburnham beds, and ascertaining the extent of the Eastbourne green-sand. Mantell pursued these and other requested investigations concerning the geology of Sussex, and until the early 1820s continued to send Greenough considerable detailed geological information, together with numerous parcels of samples. In fact, until Mantell met Lyell

166 GAM to J. Parkinson, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 78. 167 GAM to E. Benett, 30 June 1813, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 10A.

214 in October 1821, Greenough exercised more influence over Mantell’s geological development than any other geologist; his requests for data on the geology of Sussex effectively constituted a major research programme for Mantell. However, Greenough’s tutelage also incorporated his scepticism, as indicated in this letter to Mantell in 1817:

I rejoice in the attention which is at present paid to fossils, because that brand of science has been unfairly neglected & because it holds out to us the assurance of most important results; but no one can reflect upon what has been written upon the subject lately, without perceiving that there is a disposition on both sides of the channel to ride this delightful hobby too hard. Were we to reason in the other departments of natural history as we do in geology, we would see Camels & Bears classed together in the first instance, & then divided into two species, those which have monkies on their backs & those which have not. I never now see Macarel [sic] & Gooseberries associated together at a dinner table when geologists are present without expecting to hear it disputed whether the Macarel was terrestrial or the Gooseberries marine.168

Mantell’s geological correspondence with Greenough effectively ceased in May 1822. Despite the wealth of information that Mantell forwarded to London during the six years to 1820, Greenough gave no intimation in his letters to Mantell that he could, or should, join the GSL. That initiative was taken by Davies Gilbert, and on 13 April 1820, Mantell was advised that he had been elected a Member of the Society.169 Notwithstanding his considerable achievements during the years to 1820, Mantell would have been aware that a successful medical practice at Lewes, and a growing reputation as a provincial geologist, were insufficient bases for his longed-for knighthood. To some extent this realisation is reflected in his Private Journal entry on 31 December 1820:

At the close of another year, one naturally reflects on the events in which we have taken a part during the time that ------my servant informs me that I am requested to attend a patient in the country immediately. The domestic events of my life during the last year present but little interest or variety – with the exception of the birth of my little boy, nothing remarkable has occurred. My intended work on the fossils of the South Downs is in a state of forwardness. I have added a few specimens to my cabinet, and

168 G.B. Greenough to GAM, 27 April 1817, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 45. 169 GAM-PJ, entry 13 April 1820.

215 have acquired some new patients.170

Mantell intended that his planned book on the fossils of the South Downs would play a major role in furthering his social and geological status. This venture is examined in the section dealing with Mantell’s activities in the 1820s.

(2) LYELL

During the years to 1820, Lyell, like Mantell, exhibited an early boyhood interest in natural history and also received geological instruction and encouragement from a notable mentor, in this case Buckland at Oxford. These are the only relevant background factors that Lyell and Mantell had in common during this period, apart from living in southern England. Lyell’s early interest in natural history is clearly revealed in the autobiographical notes that he wrote for his fiancée, Mary Elizabeth Horner, in 1831-32. Illustrative extracts are set down below:

Collecting insects was just the sort of desultory occupation which suited me at that time.…[in 1808 when Lyell was 11 years of age] I had no companion to share this hobby with me, no one to encourage me in following it up, yet my love for it continued always to increase, and it afforded a most varied source of amusement.171

Among the things which supported me in my secret estimation of entomology, was the number of expensive books on the subject which I found in my father’s library.172

The second extract also indicates one of the early background advantages enjoyed by Lyell, having a wealthy and cultivated father who was interested in natural history and literary pursuits. Lyell’s father, Charles senior, had inherited a Scottish estate, Kinnordy, in Forfarshire, that his father had purchased in 1782 for £38,000 from prize money received as a purser in the Royal Navy.173 Charles senior was educated at Cambridge,

170 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1820. 171 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 14. 172 Ibid., p. 17. 173 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 3.

216 taking his degree in 1791, and shortly after the death of his father in 1796, married Frances Smith, daughter of Thomas Smith of Maker Hall, Swaledale, Yorkshire. Lyell’s early background is well described in Wilson’s 1972 biography174 and in summary form in Katherine Lyell’s Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell.175 In brief, Lyell was born on 14 November 1797 and was the eldest of 10 children, having two brothers and seven sisters. Although born in Scotland, Lyell’s education was entirely English, mainly because his father preferred living in the South of England where he had taken a lease on an 80 acre property, Bartley Lodge, in the New Forest. Lyell first attended a nearby school at Ringwood, when he was almost 8 years of age; at the age of 10 years he was transferred to a school at Salisbury; and finally, when 12 years old, he was enrolled at a public school at Midhurst that was modelled on Westminster. At the age of 17 years Lyell was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, where he obtained a second class honours degree in classics in 1819. In his biography of Lyell, Wilson has included an extract from a letter Lyell’s father wrote to his friend Charles Wedderburn, in which he explains why he sent his son to Oxford as a gentleman commoner:

as it gave the command of his society; and the best is not within a man’s reach at that Tory University unless he is well born, or has been educated at a public School, or is a Gentleman Commoner.176

Although Lyell could be described at this time as at least belonging to the ‘minor’ Scottish gentry, his father appears to have been aware that his family was not exactly well born. Nevertheless, Lyell’s background and education epitomises that of the ‘gentleman-geologist’, and unlike Mantell, Lyell was not confronted with any social barriers during these years. In 1819 he joined the GSL and the Linnean Society, and after leaving Oxford, Lyell complied with the wish of his father and entered Lincoln’s Inn, London, to study law. One particular handicap became manifest at this time; his eyes became weak and inflamed following intensive reading. During the 1820s Lyell was to use this physical disability to help resolve his career-choice conflict.

174 Ibid., pp 1-64. 175 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 1-18, 32 and 112. 176 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 64.

217 (3) REVIEW OF THE YEARS TO 1820

In many respects the careers of Mantell and Lyell to 1820 represent quintessential and contrasting case histories. Mantell’s case illustrates how an intelligent and ambitious person of relatively lowly origins could rise in provincial society by establishing a successful medical practice and by cultivating antiquarian and geological interests. Lyell’s case history at this stage provides the standard comparison, since it illustrates the conventional ‘norm’ of a future ‘gentleman-specialist’. Although Mantell’s achievements can be regarded as creditable and noteworthy, they were not singular or particularly uncommon throughout England during this period. Mantell still had a long way to go if he wanted to achieve the status he so strongly desired. Few of his medical patients were members of the Sussex gentry, and his role as a budding geologist was largely confined to local geological investigations and forwarding information to London.

4.3.2 1820 - 1830: POSITIONING FOR SCIENTIFIC STATUS

During the late 1820s both Lyell and Mantell either identified, or were advised of, a potential geological domain. Accordingly, in this section emphasis is placed on examining how effectively each man had positioned himself to exploit that identified opportunity by the end of the decade.

(1) MANTELL

In 1817, Mantell privately produced a well illustrated manuscript, ‘Outlines of the Mineral Geography of the Environs of Lewes’, which can be regarded as a forerunner of a planned book on the geology and fossils of Sussex, a project supported and encouraged by Parkinson,177 Benett,178 and Greenough.179 Mantell expected that this work would enable him to achieve a major breakthrough in his quest for social recognition and procure him his

177 J. Parkinson to GAM, 14 December 1817, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 78. 178 E. Benett to GAM, 21 April 1818, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 10. 179 G.B. Greenough 17 September 1818, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 45.

218 “introduction to the first circles in this neighbourhood”.180 This book,181 completed in May 1822, was an ambitious and bold project on several counts. First, disregarding papers in the various journals, it is one of only 21 geological books produced and published in Britain during the ten year period, 1812 to 1812.

Geological and Palaeontological Books published in England 1812 - 1822182 (summarised titles)

1812-26 J. Sowerby, and J. de C. Sowerby, The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain, 7 vols, London. [3 vols. published before 1822]

1813 R. Bakewell, An Introduction to Geology, London.

1813 J. Townsend, The Character of Moses Established for Veracity as an Historian: Recording Events from the Creation to the Deluge, Bath and London.

1813 W. Watson, A Section of the Strata forming the Surface in the Vicinity of Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, England, Chesterfield.

1815 W. Smith, A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland, together with A memoir to the map, London.

1815 J. Kidd, A Geological Essay on the Imperfect Evidence in Support of a Theory of the Earth, Oxford.

1815 W. Phillips, Outline of Mineralogy and Geology, London.

1816 [F. Kendall], Mineralogy and Rocks including Organic Remains of Scarborough, Scarborough.

1817 W. Smith, Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils, London.

1818 W. Phillips, A Selection of Facts from the Best Authorities Arranged as to Form an Outline of the Geology of England and Wales, London.183

1818 W. Knight, Facts and Observations towards Forming a New Theory of the Earth, Edinburgh.

1819 G.B. Greenough, A Critical Examination of the First Principles of Geology; in a Series of Essays, London.

1819 J. Macculloch, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland including the Isle of Man:, 3 vols, London.

180 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1822. 181 G.A. Mantell, The Fossils of the South Downs or Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, Lupton Relfe, London, 1822. 182 Jameson’s 1813 translation of Cuvier’s, Essay on the Theory of the Earth, has been excluded from the list. New editions of previously published works are also excluded. 183 This work by Phillips became the basis of a joint-publication with Conybeare in 1822, Outline of the Geology of England and Wales.

219 1819 R. Bakewell, An Introduction to Mineralogy, London.

1820, W. Buckland, Vindiciae Geologicae; or the Connexion of Geology with Religion Explained, Oxford.

1821 J.S. Miller, A Natural History of the Crinoidea, London.

1821 J. Macculloch, A Geological Classification of rocks, with Descriptive Synopses of the Species and Varieties, London.

1822 W.D. Conybeare and W. Phillips, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, London.

1822 G.A. Mantell, The Fossils of the South Downs: or Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, London.

1822 J. Parkinson, Outlines of Oryctology; an Introduction to the Study of Fossil Organic Remains, London.

1822 G. Young, and J. Bird, A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast, Whitby.

Second, Mantell’s publication is noteworthy because of its lavish number of plates and illustrations, and the inclusion of an introductory, 13- page, anonymous essay on ‘The Mosaic Account of Creation’. The single volume work consists of 320 Crown Quarto pages and contains 42 illustrated plates, engraved and lithographed by Mantell’s wife. It was an expensive production, designed to make a big ‘impact’. The cost of the book to subscribers was £3-3-0, with a deluxe, hand-coloured version costing £6-6- 0. Mantell’s prospectus stated that the book would be published as soon as 200 names were obtained, but at the time of publication there were only 134 subscribers who took up a total of 152 copies. The work was dedicated to an influential local patron of Mantell’s, Davies Gilbert,184 who ordered three copies.185 Mantell was forced to work hard in distributing the prospectus. Lyell’s assistance was requested, and he distributed copies to various members of the GSL, besides offering Mantell some shrewd advice:

I am sorry that in those [copies of Mantell’s prospectus] which I have, you have not included all the later subscribers, because some people are led by the number of names, others are apt to think themselves slighted if after subscribing they do not see themselves among the patrons of science. You will easily believe

184 Davies Gilbert (1767-1839). A wealthy Sussex based parliamentarian, naturalist and antiquarian who lived at Eastbourne near Lewes. President of the Royal Society of London 1827-1830. DNB. 185 GAM-PJ, entry 12 April 1821.

220 me that it does not arise from such vanity that I regret that my name is not there but simply from this that no one can with such good grace ask others to subscribe as one who appears in print as subscriber himself.186 In his Preface, Mantell explained that the ‘Essay on the Mosaic Account of the Creation’, was sent to him by an unknown clergyman of the established church soon after the prospectus was distributed, and that it was included because “the vast importance of the subject, and the ability and temper with which it is discussed, render any apology for its insertion unnecessary”. Indeed, 28 clergymen of the established church subscribed to Mantell’s book, constituting a significant contribution to the financial viability of the project. Nevertheless, the publication of this book resulted in a financial loss for Mantell, who received the following consoling advice from Greenough:

I am sorry tho’ not surprized that the sale of the work is not likely to pay its expenses. Yours is the fate of almost every author who writes for the advancement of science. Fame is all the remuneration a philosopher can calculate upon.187

Mantell’s assessment of his ambitious project is reflected in the following extract from his Private Journal, written seven months after the publication of the book:

The past year like its predecessors has fleeted away almost imperceptibly, and I am as far from attaining that eminence in my profession to which I aspire, as at the commencement of it, the publication of my work on the Geology of Sussex, although attended with many flattering circumstances, has not yet procured me that introduction to the first circles in this neighbourhood which I had been led to expect it would have done. In fact I perceive so many chances against my surmounting the prejudice which the humble station of my family naturally excites in the minds of the great, that I have serious thoughts of trying my fortune either at Brighton or London.188

This indicates that Mantell was as much interested in the social rather than the scientific impact of The Fossils of the South Downs. Nevertheless, its production must be regarded as a major achievement, considering it was

186 CL to GAM, 7 March 1822, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 60. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 4) 187 G.B. Greenough to GAM, 29 May 1822, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 45. 188 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1822.

221 carried out in conjunction with the responsibilities of a busy medical practice. Mantell alluded to this factor in the book’s Preface, and in doing so, pointed out one of the major difficulties that faced a provincial geologist:

Few indeed have been the moments dedicated to this work, that have not been snatched from the hours of repose, after active and laborious exertion during the day. Another formidable obstacle has arisen from local situation, which has prevented access to a comprehensive library, and thus deprived me of the important aid to be derived from an unlimited reference to the work of others.

Although The Fossils of the South Downs did not open all the doors to the “first circles of the neighbourhood”, Mantell continued his busy medical practice and geological investigations. Additionally, he built up his geological and antiquarian museum that occupied one of the drawing rooms of his expanded house at Castle Place, Lewes, and which attracted increasing numbers of influential visitors and geological contacts. His aspirations are best summed up by the following entry in his Personal Journal on New Year’s day, 1823:

As usual I begin the new year, poring over my accounts and sitting up alone, to a late hour. Should my life and health be spared, I am resolved to make every possible effort to obtain that rank in society, to which I feel I am entitled, both by my education, and by my profession. If I fail this year, I will then remove elsewhere, for I am now arriving at an age when it will not do to hesitate.189

An important breakthrough occurred in the summer of 1822 when Mantell’s wife discovered some unusual, worn fossil teeth in the Tilgate Forest near Cuckfield.190 It took Mantell two years to identify these teeth as belonging to an unknown, very large, herbivorous reptile that he named Iguanodon. His notice describing this discovery was read to the Royal Society of London on 10 February 1825, and subsequently published in the Society’s Philosophical Transactions.191 1825 proved to be a good year for Mantell. In February he was elected

189 GAM-PJ, entry 1 January 1823. 190 Mantell, op. cit. (note 181), p. 71. 191 G.A. Mantell, ‘Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate forest, in Sussex. In a Letter to Davies Gilbert, Esq. M.P., V.P.R.S. &c. &c. &c

222 to the council of the GSL, having been reassured by Buckland that he need not imagine himself disqualified by not residing in London.192 Lyell’s advice was similar:

You must not decline being on our Council from your incapacity to attend it. It is a compliment which is thought the more due to you from the laboriousness of your professional engagements which make your exertions in Geology the more meritorious, at least in the eyes of every lover of that Science.193

Another consequential event was Mantell’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in November, one of his main supporters being Davies Gilbert,194 to whom he also dedicated his next book.195 Mantell was now making sound progress indeed, and geological fame must have seemed attainable in the near future. There is an undertone of confidence in the following lines that Mantell wrote in March 1825.

No! whatso’er my fate I’ll not complain If that my humble name enroll’d shall be Among the glorious intellectual train Whose fame shall live thro’ all futurity.196

Mantell’s provincial position, however, remained a major drawback. In fact it became accentuated following his appointment to the GSL Council. One of the difficulties has been previously noted by Mantell – the lack of ready access to a reference library and specialised collections, both essential to anyone engaged in palaeontological investigations. Equally important was the lack of frequent personal contact with geological peers. To some extent Mantell overcame these problems through his extensive correspondence, his generosity when exchanging fossil specimens, and by making his Museum freely available to visitors.197 Nevertheless, although Lewes is situated only

Communicated by D. Gilbert, Esq.’, PTRSL, 1825, 115, pp. 179-186. 192 W. Buckland to GAM, 8 January 1825, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 20. 193 CL to GAM, 14 January 1825, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 60. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 19) 194 GAM-PJ, entry 27 November 1825. 195 G.A. Mantell, Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex: Containing a General View of the Geological relations of the South-Eastern part of England; with figures and descriptions of the fossils of Tilgate Forest, Lupton Relfe, London, 1827. 196 GAM-PJ, entry 25 March 1825. 197 Mantell’s Private Journal contains frequent references to the number of visitors who called to inspect his Museum which he enlarged again in 1829. GAM-PJ, entry 5 August 1829.

223 49 miles from London, considerable effort was needed to attend a GSL meeting during the 1820s:

Last evening, at seven o’clock, I started for Brighton, by Moon’s cart….On my arrival at Brighton, the suburbs of the town were in high bustle….I got into the night coach at ten o’clock, and had 2 stupid companions….I scarcely awoke till we arrived at Reigate; it was then half past two, and we alighted at a miserable inn, to take some refreshment….We proceeded at 3 o’clock: the sun was just rising…we arrived at Cheapside soon after six….At half past two I proceeded to the Coach office in Grace Church Street and left London at 3 o’clock. After a pleasant jaunt of six hours we arrived at Brighton; and in company with Mr Godlee the Banker, we arrived by Moon’s cart, at Lewes. It is now mid-night.198

It is not surprising that Mantell was unable to attend many GSL Council meetings during his one-year term in 1826. An additional factor to the time and discomfort of travelling to London by public coach was the not inconsiderable cost. In 1833 the average fare for seating inside a public coach from Brighton to London was 15 shillings. On a pro-rata basis the extra fare from Lewes to Brighton would have been 2 shillings, making the cost of a return journey to London from Lewes £1-14-0.199 Furthermore, since Mantell’s practice had a large midwifery component, he could not afford to be absent from Lewes for any extended period, resulting in very tiring one to two day visits. In a letter to Mantell, written in 1832, the geologist Robert Bakewell200 commented on another disadvantage of living in a provincial town:

In all smaller moderate sized provincial Towns a man of scientific or intellectual pursuits who rises somewhat above the level of his neighbours[’] intellects is sure to draw upon himself no small portion of envy hatred and calumny let him bear his faculties ever so meekly. Of this I had myself 20 years experience. It is also no small evil to be deprived of the frequent society of those who can understand or appreciate your efforts.201

Bakewell was also familiar with the converse side of the prejudice displayed against provincial geologists. Following a three-day visit to Mantell’s

198 GAM-PJ, entry 2 June 1821. 199 E.W. Gilbert, Brighton: Old Ocean’s Bauble, Methuen & Co., London, 1954, p. 117. 200 Robert Bakewell (1768-1843). Geologist and correspondent of Mantell 1829-1843. ATL-NZ, Folder 5. 201 R. Bakewell to GAM, 27 November 1832, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 5.

224 Museum at Lewes, in September 1829,202 Bakewell included the following comments in his favourable review of the Mantellian Museum:

The labours of Mr. Mantell did not in the first instance receive the attention that they justly merited. There is a certain prejudice more or less prevalent among the members of scientific societies in large cities, such as London or Paris, which makes them unwilling to believe that persons residing in provincial towns or in the country (les esprits campagnards, as they are called) can do anything important for science; and it is strangely imagined, that a city geologist, who runs over a district in a few days, can make greater discoveries than any one residing in it, who is in the habit of daily and repeated observation.203

The other adverse factor that continued to affect Mantell throughout the 1820s was increasing ill-health, much of which resulted from over exertion and too little rest, due to his medical practice and geological investigations. His Private Journal contains constant references to various ailments experienced during these years.204 Mantell was to have no respite from health problems for the rest of his life. In summary, the 1820s were years of both achievement and frustration. The major difficulties Mantell encountered during this period resulted from his provincial base at Lewes and poor health. Although he was aware of these two problem areas at the start of the decade, neither was resolved by 1830. Nevertheless, his journal entry on the last day of the decade was more positive than most of his other year-end entries:

Another year has passed rapidly away. I have built a Museum and newly arranged and enlarged my collection: published a catalogue of the Museum; and the list of the Organic Remains of Sussex, has just appeared in the Transactions of the Geological Society. I have certainly materially enlarged the circle of my literary reputation, and have now foreign correspondents of the first order.205

Mantell, though, was not well positioned to follow up and exploit the

202 GAM-PJ, entry 17 September 1829. 203 R. Bakewell, Art. II.‘A Visit to the Mantellian Museum at Lewes’, The Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology, 1830, 3, pp. 9-17 on p. 10. 204 In May 1826, for example, Mantell recorded that he was ill with lumbago; on 8 August 1827 he had a tumour in the groin; on 6 January 1829 he experienced an infection of the bladder and 28 November 1830 Mantell was exceedingly ill with a severe headache. GAM-PJ. 205 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1829.

225 ‘taxonomic’ domain that Lyell had outlined for him in his letter of 23 March 1829. Instead, Mantell was in the process of developing an alternative plan: a plan with the primary aim of increasing his social status.

(2) LYELL

In 1820 Lyell began legal studies in London in compliance with his father’s wish, and was in receipt of an annual living allowance of £400.206 At the end of the decade he was ensconced in comfortable bachelor quarters at 9 Crown Office Row, Temple, had served for three years as one of the secretaries of the GSL, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and had been a member of the Athenaeum Club since its inception in 1824. More significantly, Lyell had decided on a career in geology, identified his geological domain, and what is more, set about exploiting it. Accordingly, the main points of interest in this section concern the manner in which Lyell resolved his career-choice clash between geology and the law, and the extent to which he was well positioned to carry out his geological investigations. Lyell was conscious of a potential, if not an actual, career-choice clash between geology and his planned profession as a barrister, early in his studies. This is indicated in the closing paragraph of his first letter to Mantell, following their initial meeting on 4 October 1821:

Let me know what Hawkins says of the Whin, but do not write to me before Xmas unless I can be of use to your work by getting you any information, for I am buried in the study of Law here & am too fond of geology to do both. It is not so compatible with my Profession as with yours.207

There is no indication in Lyell’s correspondence or writings that he found any significant appeal or interest in the law, or in the professional life of a barrister. He embarked on a legal career as a dutiful son, and at the strong urging of his father, who was no doubt mindful that he had a large family to support. Lyell had two younger brothers who had entered the armed services,208 and seven unmarried sisters at that stage. Moreover, Lyell’s father, Charles senior, did not earn any income from personal exertion and

206 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 361 and private communication with the author, 7 November 1996. 207 CL to GAM, 3 November 1821, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 60. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 1).

226 the family incurred considerable additional living costs through spending most of the year at their leased property, Bartley Lodge in the New Forest, rather than at the family seat, Kinnordy, in Forfarshire. Since Lyell was financially dependent on the £400 annual allowance from his father, it would have been imprudent if he had abruptly discontinued the law in favour of geology, which gave no promise of financial reward. Such a career change, in fact, could only be done with the understanding and tacit acceptance of his father. A reading of Lyell’s correspondence with Mantell indicates that Lyell was more than sufficiently worldly to appreciate this fact. One factor that militated against a career in law for Lyell was a weakness in his eyes, which caused them to become inflamed and sore after intensive reading. This weakness became sufficiently pronounced in September 1820, for Lyell’s father to take him to Italy for a holiday, and during the period 1823 to 1824 any legal work was virtually curtailed, enabling Lyell to carry out geological investigations in south-eastern England and in Forfarshire. During the interval from February 1823 until April 1824, each of the four long letters that Lyell sent to Mantell concerning the succession of beds below the chalk was written by an amanuensis, because of problems with his eyes. In 1825, Lyell’s father urged his son to resume legal work209 and Lyell chose the western circuit. During the next three years there were three pertinent developments. First, there was no diminution in Lyell’s interest in and enthusiasm for geology. Second, Lyell did not cover his direct expenses as a barrister when on circuit.210 And third, in 1825 Lyell was invited to write an article for The Quarterly Review that was published in December of that year.211 This article was followed by four others212 during the next two years

208 Thomas (born 1799) who joined the Royal Navy and Henry (born 1804) who joined the Army. 209 K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol.1, p. 160. 210 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27). Page 172 sets out Lyell’s notebook analysis of the Warminster Sessions in July 1827. Lyell’s expenses were £8 and his receipts less than £5. 211 C. Lyell, ‘Article X. Letter to Mr. Brougham on the Subject of a London University, together with Suggestions respecting the Plan. By T. Campbell Esq., London, 1825’, The Quarterly Review, 1825- 26, 33, pp. 257-275. 212 C. Lyell,iArticle VIII. ‘Scientific Institutions’, The Quarterly Review, 1826, 34, pp. 153-179; iArticle IX. ‘Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 1824, 1, 2d series’, The Quarterly Review, 1826, 34, pp. 507-540;iArticle VIII. ‘State of the Universities’, The Quarterly Review, 1827, 36, pp. 216-268;iArticle IV. ‘Memoir on the Geology of Central France; including the Volcanic Formations of Auvergne, the Velay and the Vivarais, with a volume of Maps and Plates. By G.P. Scrope F.R.S., F.G.S., London, 1827’, The Quarterly Review, 1827, 36, pp. 437-483.

227 for which he was financially rewarded.213 In April 1827, Lyell was in a position to advise his father as follows:

But to be willing without avail to work hard, and almost for nothing, is now the fate of many hundreds of barristers, and many millions of our labouring classes, and we must congratulate ourselves at not being among the latter. I am quite clear, from all that I have seen of the world, that there is most real independence in that class of society who, possessing moderate means, are engaged in literary and scientific hobbies; and that in ascending from there upwards, the feeling of independence decreases pretty nearly in the same ratio as the fortunes increase. My eyes go on tolerably, and I feel my faculty of composition increases, and I hope to make friends amongst those that a literary reputation will procure me who may assist me.214

By this time it is likely that Lyell’s father would have been at least partly resigned to the fact that his eldest son intended to foresake the law as a profession. The final step followed on from Lyell’s decision to visit Auvergne with Murchison in May 1828. This visit was largely inspired by Scrope’s geological observations,215 and set the seal on Lyell’s future plans and intentions, as indicated in the following extract from a letter written to Murchison in January 1829:

I will tell you fairly that it is at present of no small consequence to me to get a respectable sum for my volume, – not only to cover extra expenses for present and future projected campaigns but because my making my hobby pay its additional costs, which it entails, will alone justify my pursuing it with a mind sufficiently satisfied with itself, and so as to feel independent, and free to

indulge in the enthusiasm necessary for success. I shall never hope to make money from geology, but not to lose, and tax others for my amusement; and unless I can secure this, it would in my circumstances be selfish in me to devote myself as much as I hope to do to it. I have little fear of accomplishing so much and with that view I shall set steadily to the task. My work is in part written, and all planned….This year we have by our joint tour fathomed the depth and ascertained the shallowness of the geologists of France and Italy as to their original observations.

213 Lyell received 40 guineas for his review of the TGSL. Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 159. 214 CL to C. Lyell (senior), 10 April 1827; quoted in K.M. Lyell, op.cit. (note 2), vol. 1, pp. 169-171. 215 G.P. Scrope, Memoir on the Geology of Central France; including the Volcanic Formations of Auvergne, the Velay and the Vivarais, with a volume of Maps and Plates, Longman, London, 1827.

228 We can without fear measure our strength against most of those in our own land, and the question is, whether Germany is stronger. They are a people who generally ‘drink deep or taste not’, &c. Their language must be learnt; the places to which their memoirs relate, visited; and then you may see, as I may, to what extent we may indulge dreams of eminence, at least as original observers. If I can but earn the wherewithal to carry on the war, or rather its extraordinary costs, depend upon it I will waste no time in bookmaking for lucre’s sake.216

When Lyell returned to his London chambers on 24 February 1829 he had resolved his career conflict between geology and the law, although he had not finally settled on the most suitable way to supplement his adequate, but essentially modest, private income. In summary, he was reasonably, but not ideally, ‘positioned’. His articles for The Quarterly Review had given Lyell confidence that he could buttress his income in an acceptable manner through authorship, but writing a geological book was different from reviewing. Nevertheless, he had cause for optimism ten months after the first volume of his Principles of Geology217 appeared in June 1830. In a letter to his sister Marianne, Lyell remarked:

I have pretty good news to tell you about my volumes….The booksellers tell me that if the latter part of my work is as popular and readable as the first, it will prove an annuity to me. Whewell of Cambridge has done me no small service by giving out at his University that I have discovered a new set of powers in Nature which might be termed ‘Geological Dynamics’.218

An alternative way of supplementing his income, through lecturing, was not to be explored until the early 1830s.

4.3.3 1830 - 1840: THE DECADE FOR ACHIEVEMENT

This period has been sub-titled ‘The Decade for Achievement’ because of the upsurge in the number of major geological domains that were established by the identified elite during these years. The main theme in this section, however, still concerns the importance of positioning and associated aspects of the concept.

216 CL to R.I. Murchison, 15 January 1829; quoted in K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 234. 217 C. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 1, John Murray, London, 1830.

229 In December 1833 Mantell moved to Brighton, which proved to be a disastrous mistake on almost every count; it significantly affected the quality and quantity of his scientific work, reduced his income to virtually nil, forced him to sell his outstanding collection of fossil specimens, and also resulted in his wife and children leaving him. On the other hand, the 1830s proved to be years of ongoing and steady achievement for Lyell, who had suitably positioned himself to good advantage by the time Mantell moved to Brighton. Considerable attention is given to two associated aspects of ‘positioning’. The first concerns the income that would have been necessary to support the life-style of a ‘gentleman-specialist’ during the 1830s. This provides a yardstick to gauge the respective financial circumstances of the two men. The second deals with the economics and financial returns from writing geological books in the first half of the nineteenth century, since both Lyell and Mantell engaged in this activity in order to supplement their income.

(1) INDICATIVE INCOMES OF GENTLEMAN - SPECIALISTS

Indicative cost-of-living budgets have been prepared for three varying life- styles of a ‘gentleman-specialist’ during the period 1830 to 1840. The base criteria for these three categories are summarised below.

1.Minimum Required Budget

· London based; married with 3 children. · Modest entertaining and infrequent travelling. · Prudence exercised with all expenditures. · Two maid-servants. No private transport.

The purpose of this case is to give an indication of the private income that Mantell would have needed if he had moved to London to pursue his palaeontological investigations on a full-time basis. It also provides an indication of the minimum income required by a married ‘gentleman- specialist’ with three children.

2.Estimated Annual Living Expenses of Lyell following his Marriage in 1832

218 CL to M. Lyell, 14 November 1830; quoted in K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), vol. 1, p. 312.

230 · Comfortable London house, but not fashionably located. · Entertains adequately, but not lavishly. No children. · No stinting on expenditures for books, clubs or society memberships. · No curtailment of necessary travel in the U.K. One annual visit to Europe for geological investigations. · Domestic staff comprises 1 manservant (Hall), 1 house-boy, 1 cook (Mrs. Hall), and 2 maid servants. · No private transport.

3. Indicative Annual Budget of a Gentleman-specialist with a Private Income in the range £1,000 - £1,500

· Based in London; married with 3 children. · Comfortable, but not highly fashionable house. · Has coach with a pair of horses. Household staff comprises coachman, man-servant, cook, house-maid and nursery maid.

This case covers the style of living to which Mantell aspired and what would have been typical of a moderately successful London medical practitioner. It approximates the standard of living enjoyed by Horner, but would have been considered modest by Murchison’s standards.

TABLE 4.1 - ANNUAL BUDGETS OF GENTLEMAN-SPECIALISTS219

(estimated costs in pounds)

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 (7 persons) (7 persons) (10 persons)

Food and Household Provisions

- bread, groceries, milk, tea &c 63 63 110 - meat and fish 42 42 82 - vegetables and fruit 9 9 20 - beer and liquors 20 20 55 - coals and wood 15 20 25 - candles, oil, soap, sundries 12 20 38 - medicines 5 5 10

219 Most of the data used in the three budgets set down below are based on material obtained from the 1824 edition of a New System of Practical Domestic Economy founded on Modern Discoveries and from the Private Communications of Persons of Experience and contained in Peel, op. cit. (note 105) pp. 90-151. References for other cost data are noted separately.

231 Sub total-Food Expenses 166 179 340 Education 30 - 40 Entertainment 8 20 20 Clothes and Haberdashery 50 60 120

232 Table 4.1 (cont.) Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 (7 persons) (7 persons) (10 persons) Rent and Taxes 40 130220 120 Misc. Expenses 13 15 35 Transport - coach - - 40 - 2 horses - - 66 House Servants - coachman - - 38 - footman and groom - 60221 35 - house boy - 15 - - cook / maid servants 30 25 40 Sub-total - Household Expenses 337 504 894 Club and Society Fees222 - annual subscriptions 15 20 25 - club and society dining expenses 10 15 30 Geological Publications &c223 - scientific books and journals 10 25 30 - specimens 5 10 10 Correspondence224 5 10 15 Travelling Expenses - within U.K. 10225 150226 150 - Europe - 100 150 SUBTOTAL 392 834 1304 Contingency 38 41 96

TOTAL 430 875 1400

Of the above expenses, the most difficult to estimate were the costs of

220 In a letter to L. Horner, dated 18 September 1832, Lyell commented as follows on his new residence at 16 Hart Street: “rent £89, taxes included £129. £300 lately laid out on it by the Proprietor, new paper &c, so we can get into it without almost any expense”. Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 373. 221 The wage of Lyell’s man-servant, Hall, has been estimated at the relatively high figure of £60 since he also acted as secretary and amanuensis to Lyell. 222 It has been assumed that there has been no compounding of annual subscriptions which was normally the case with the more affluent members. Annual subscriptions were: Royal Society £4; GSL £3-3-0; Linnean £3; BAAS £1; Athenaeum Club £6-6-0. The cost of dining in a modest manner at the Athenaeum Club once a week has been assessed at 3/6. A.A. Hume, The Learned Societies and Printing Clubs of the United Kingdom, Longman Brown Green and Longmans, London, 1847, and F.R. Cowell, The Athenaeum: Club and Social Life in London 1824-1974, Heinemann, London, 1975. 223 Authors of geological books usually received a negotiated number of copies from their publisher which they presented to their friends and colleagues. Consequently, the annual amount expended on geological books by Lyell and Mantell may have been less than the sum shown, but in a sense such interchanges represent income foregone. A similar case applies to fossils. 224 Before 1840 the cost of postage varied between 4 and 20 pence per letter. In Lyell’s case a weekly expenditure of 4 shillings has been assumed for geological correspondence. 225 Based on 5 return trips by coach averaging 50 miles each way at a cost of 5d. per mile. 226 This estimate is based on one annual return coach trip to Kinnordy, Forfarshire, and the

233 an annual two-month geological visit to Europe, since the standards of available accommodation and transport varied widely, and these costs were also subject to negotiation. Although actual expenditures for any particular item would have varied significantly between individuals, it is considered that the above budgets provide adequate guidelines for the required incomes of the three categories of ‘gentleman-specialist’. In the minimum case, a capital sum of £13,250 would need to have been invested to yield the required annual income of £430.227 In 1830, Mantell’s income, and hence style of living, was significantly in excess of this figure; in fact, Mantell implied that it was close to £2,000:

My reputation now stood high; and by degrees my practice included all the principal families in the town and neighbourhood, and my returns exceeded £2,000 p.a.; but this amount was made up of bills which would scarcely average more than £3 or £4 each; including the attendance on a military hospital, and on six large parishes.228

It is possible that Mantell exaggerated his income when he wrote this pamphlet for political purposes in 1845, but his standard of living in 1830 certainly approximated that of a ‘gentleman-specialist’ with a private income of £1,400. However, Mantell’s capital was far short of the £13,250 required to provide a minimum income of £430. If he had sold his practice for the high figure of £2,000, and realised £1,500 on his Lewes property, then his resulting income would only have amounted to £113 if this sum had been invested in ‘consols’. Thus, if Mantell wished to leave Lewes for London, he could only have continued his palaeontological and geological investigations on a part-time basis. In the event that he discontinued practicing medicine, he would have needed to earn a supplementary annual sum of £320 from lecturing, writing or other acceptable activities. As indicated earlier, Lyell and his wife enjoyed a private annual income of at least £620 during the 1830s, £255 less than their estimated total expenditure of £875. In this regard Lyell’s ‘problem’ was manifestly easier than Mantell’s. It will be shown that he was able to bridge this ‘gap’ equivalent of 4 return trips to Brighton or Oxford, accompanied by his wife in each case. 227 It has been assumed that the capital sum has been invested in ‘consols’ at an interest rate of 3.25%.

234 through his geological writings. It is also relevant to note that during this period Lyell, as the eldest son, had every expectation of inheriting his father’s estate. (2) MANTELL

During the early 1820s Mantell produced his lavishly-produced book, The Fossils of the South Downs, with the expectation that it would give him an entreé into “the first circles of Sussex”, besides establishing his geological reputation. In the early 1830s Mantell made another bold decision in order to achieve his desired ‘breakthrough’. He would move to Brighton, where he believed he would be able to leave the provincialism of Lewes, obtain a higher social class of patient, maintain his income, turn his museum into some account and be able to practise both geology and medicine. His decision was not taken impetuously. Mantell had contemplated such a move as early as December 1822,229 when he realised that The Fossils of the South Downs, would not achieve the success he had expected. Nevertheless, he was still hesitant about making such a major move in December 1831:

Shall I leave this dull place and venture into the vortex of fashion and dissipation at Brighton, or shall I not? Prudence says stay where you are but ambition and my friend Martin Cripp Esqr. say go and prosper! What shall I do?230

It is possible that Mantell’s indecisiveness during 1831 at least partly resulted from a major disagreement with his wife on the matter; approximately eight pages of his Private Journal, covering the period mid- June to mid-August 1831, were subsequently excised by his family. However, in October 1833, one of Mantell’s major local patrons, Lord Egremont,231 offered one thousand pounds to cover the removal costs of Mantell’s museum to Brighton.232 On 21 December 1833, Mantell recorded “My family and all my servants &c take up their abode in 20 Steyne – farewell forever to Castle

228 Mantell, op. cit. (note 132), p. 6. 229 “I have serious thoughts of trying my fortune either at Brighton or London”. GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1822. 230 GAM-PJ, entry 29 January 1831. 231 George O’Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont (1751-1837). Lord Lieutenant of Sussex 1819-35. A well-known and generous patron of the arts and science. DNB. 232 GAM-PJ, entries 5 October 1833 and 1 May 1834.

235 Place”.233 In 1783, when the future Prince Regent first visited Brighton, the population of the town was only 1,783, but as a result of the building of the Royal Pavilion between 1815 and 1820, combined with the town’s reputation as a health resort and its relative proximity to London, Brighton’s population increased from 24,429 in 1821 to 40,634 in 1831.234 In fact, after 1830 Brighton succeeded Bath as a fashionable centre.235 In moving to Brighton Mantell certainly left the provincial life of Lewes, but he was to encounter a very competitive medical environment. The growth in the number of medical practitioners matched the town’s population growth.

GROWTH OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS AT BRIGHTON236 Year Physicians Surgeons 1800 1 9 1824 9 29 1834 11 32 1842 18 52

Mantell did not purchase or buy into an established medical practice when he moved to Brighton. Naively, he had assumed that the fashionable gentry who would visit his new Museum would also visit him as a patient. Mantell’s move to Brighton quickly proved to be a professional and financial disaster, as indicated by the following entries in his Private Journal:

1 May 1834 – My reception in this town has certainly been very flattering so far as visitors and visitings have been concerned but my professional prospects are not encouraging….All the principal persons in this place have called upon me….My museum has been visited by nearly a thousand persons.

9 October 1834 – As usual murdering my time – lots of visitors but no patients.

25 June 1835 – My practice here is very unpromising.

18 October 1835 – Gracious being!. Oh enable me to bear up under the miseries that surround me on every side.

233 GAM-PJ, entry 21 December 1833. 234 Gilbert, op. cit. (note 199), p. 89 and p. 97. 235 A. Dale, Fashionable Brighton: 1820-1860, Country Life Limited, London, 1947, p. 17. 236 Gilbert, op. cit.(note 199), p. 85.

236 1 January 1836 – My prospects are so cheerless.

15 July 1836 – Eternal round of nothingness!….Could I but find a good professional opening (the more labour the better) and all would be well.

In summary, Mantell had not realised that the Brighton public would regard him as a man of science, and not as a medical practitioner. He even encouraged this image by insisting on using the title of doctor after Yale College conferred the honorary degree of L.L.D. on him in October 1834,237 although his friend Bakewell strongly counselled against its use.238 Bakewell correctly assessed the situation in a well-meaning letter to Mantell in February 1835:

I heard our principal medical practitioner here [in Hampstead] say “Mr Mantell is a man of superior scientific attainments & so much devoted to science that like the late Dr Young239 persons except his own immediate friends never think of employing him”. I combatted this assertion as well as I could but still I believe such an opinion bears against you & is promoted by your Brethren of the healing art.240

In the same letter Bakewell also advised Mantell to sell the Museum and return to Lewes, where he still owned the house at Castle Place. Drastic financial measures became necessary. As an interim step in early 1836, Mantell negotiated an arrangement with some of his supporters that involved a proposed Sussex Scientific and Literary Institution taking over his house and museum for a two and a half year period for a combined annual fee of £400. Again, Lord Egremont assisted in this development by contributing £1,000.241 The scheme necessitated Mantell moving into lodgings on the Steyne, and his wife and family moving first to Southover, and subsequently to 114 Western Road, Brighton.242 The Museum opened to the public under these new arrangements on 23 May 1836 and attracted a total of

237 Mantell was awarded the degree of L.L.D. by Yale College, New Haven, through the efforts of his friend and correspondent, Professor B. Silliman, Professor of Chemistry and Natural Science at Yale. GAM-PJ, entry 3 October 1834. 238 R. Bakewell to GAM, 7 December 1834, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 6. 239 Thomas Young (1773-1829). M.D., F.R.S. Child prodigy, physiologist, natural scientist and Egyptologist. DNB. 240 R. Bakewell to GAM, 10 February 1835, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 6. 241 GAM-PJ, entry 4 January 1836.

237 3,000 visitors in its first year.243 The entry fee was one shilling per person. In July 1837 Mantell began negotiations for the sale of his Museum to the Brighton Council and for the purchase of a medical practice at Clapham, near London. The former negotiations were unsuccessful, partly due to the death of Mantell’s patron, Lord Egremont.244 In early 1838, Mantell commenced negotiations with the British Museum for the sale of his collection that consisted of between 20 and 25 thousand specimens.245 Negotiations were concluded in 1839, with Mantell receiving a net sum of £4,000.246 On the 1 April 1838 Mantell acquired the medical practice of Sir William Pearson at Clapham for £1,500, having sold his Brighton practice for a mere £100.247 Other financial measures taken during this two-year period included the sale of another house owned at Lewes for £800.248 Consequently, by the end of the decade Mantell had capital funds of at least £3,500, plus the property at Castle Place, Lewes, and the goodwill of the recently purchased Clapham medical practice. However, his health had deteriorated considerably during the 1830s. More dramatically, Mantell’s preoccupation with geology became too much for his wife, who left him in 1838. In 1839 this blow was compounded when Mantell’s eldest son, Walter Baldock Durrant, emigrated to New Zealand. In addition to illustrating the difficulties that a medical practitioner encountered if he wished to pursue a concurrent career in science,249 Mantell’s case history during the 1830s provides some insights into the practicality of other acceptable modes of employment. At Brighton, Mantell was virtually forced to venture into two such fields, namely lecturing and scientific writing.

242 GAM-PJ, entry 25 April 1836. 243 Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 81; GAM-PJ, 17 and 25 April and 26 August 1836, and First Annual report of the Sussex Royal Institution and Mantellian Museum, 1837, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ. 244 In the Preface of the second edition of Wonders of Geology, Mantell attributed the abandonment of the idea of Brighton Council purchasing his collection to form the nucleus of a proposed Sussex County Museum, on the deaths of his patrons, the Earls of Egremont and Munster. Quoted in Cleevely and Chapman, op. cit. (note 46), p. 321. 245 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 122. 246 Lyell assisted Mantell in various minor ways in these negotiations with the British Museum. See CL to GAM, 21 December 1837, 16 January 1838, 7, 17, and 21 February 1838 and 5 June 1838, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp.Vol.-Letters 151, 152, 154, 155, 156 and 160). 247 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 121. 248 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 121, and GAM-PJ, entries 4 April 1837,4 March and August 1839. 249 This issue was publicly raised by a Mr. F.B. Winslow in 1839 when he anonymously stated in Physic and Physicians: a medical sketch book, that Mantell’s “geological pursuits were incompatible with the practice of medicine” and were the cause of Mantell’s failure as a medical man in Sussex.

238 Mantell’s Private Journal records that soon after his arrival in Brighton he gave several well-attended public lectures for the benefit of local causes, and in the following year gave at least four more lectures that were received with “great approbation” or “went off with great éclat”.250 At this stage there was no thought that Mantell would lecture on a professional fee- paying basis. In fact, in October 1834, he commented to his American friend, Silliman, that he would lose caste if he lectured for money.251 However, one of the arrangements, when Mantell’s museum was leased to the Sussex Scientific and Literary Institution, was an undertaking that Mantell would deliver five lectures for £50. These were all well attended and well received. These lectures subsequently provided the basis for Mantell’s Wonders of Geology.252 The success of his Brighton lectures prompted Mantell to investigate the feasibility of securing a suitable lecturing position in London, and to this end Lyell sounded out several possibilities in comparative anatomy. Lyell’s contacts were unanimous in the belief that Mantell would be unable to secure such a position in London, where he was only known as a geologist.253 Lyell went on to give Mantell some blunt, but realistic advice:

I believe there is no alternative but all medicine or all science. The latter would only yield two or three hundred a year if that in London. Whether you could give 52 lectures or one a week & clear £25 by each by lecturing at great towns in the country & so clear £1,300 a year is a question I cannot solve but I know that it is easier to make £100 at Leeds, Manchester or Newcastle than £10 by lectures in Londn.254

Lyell followed up this theme more strongly in three subsequent letters to Mantell, one of which referred to Lyell’s resolution of his own career-choice clash:

The more I think on your affairs of which you have spoken so

Quoted in Torrens and Cooper, op. cit. (note 110), p. 257. 250 GAM-PJ, entries 1 May 1834, April 1835, and 13 November 1835. 251 Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 68. 252 G.A. Mantell, The Wonders of Geology or a Familiar Exposition of Geological Phenomena, 2 vols, Relfe and Fletcher, London, 1838. 253 CL to GAM, 3 and 18 March 1836, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp. Vol.-Letters 139 and 140). 254 Ibid., CL to GAM, 3 March 1836.

239 openly in your letters the more it strikes me that you will never have anything like rest & tranquility till you take a more decided line either for science or medicine; if for the latter you might do as much as ever in a quiet way & get reputation among the best people in science but appear to the world to be but little occupied with anything but your profession. I went through the same struggle when I cut law.255

Mantell never fully realised that the resolution of a career choice clash is a fundamental pre-requirement for correct ‘positioning’. Several points concerning the economics of writing scientific books in the first-half of the nineteenth century are contained in a letter that Bakewell wrote to Mantell on 12 April 1834:

In fact a work of science unless it be some new theory (or some old friend with a new face) like Mr Lyell’s Principles, Books of science seldom pay for the time of writing them unless school books & compilations which run away with all the profits. My late friend Mr Lowry256 who next to Dr Woollaston [sic] was the best natural philosopher in England always declined writing….I don’t believe Conybeare & Phillips England published in 1822 is all sold yet though 12 years have elapsed. I believe I cleared not more than 350 by all the 3 Editions of my book.257….A Manual of Fossils is much wanted & would have a very very great sale I am sure & better repay you than any other book could do.258

Given Mantell’s financial circumstances and tribulations from 1834 to 1839, it is not surprising that his geological books during these years were orientated to the ‘popular’ market, and more often than not, based on his earlier work. Mantell simply did not have the time, money or suitable working environment to write a serious work such as ‘A Manual of Reptile Fossils’. But he was aware that Lyell had earned more than £200 on each of his volumes of Principles of Geology,259 and it is understandable that he tried to emulate Lyell’s example. The first of the three books that Mantell wrote during the 1830s, The Geology of the South-east of England, was produced

255 CL to GAM, 6 July 1836. Other relevant comments on the theme of ‘science or medicine’ are contained CL to GAM, 19 September 1836, and 7 February 1838, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp. Vol.-Letters 143, 144, and 154). 256 Wilson Lowry (1762-1824). A distinguished engraver who was a GSL member of council 1810- 12. F.R.S. 1812. Woodward, op. cit.(note 58), p. 36. 257 R. Bakewell, An Introduction to Geology, London, 1813. 258 R. Bakewell to GAM, Folder 6, 12 April 1834, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 6. 259 “I thought you informed me he had £250 for his first volume beside what he was paid for the other 2 Vols & the small edition. £250 is a large sum for 1 Volume of a scientific work”. R.

240 by Mantell in three weeks during December 1832 and January 1833:

every moment not engaged in my profession has been devoted to my book, which I have this moment completed in less than 3 weeks – I have written (much of course compiled from former volumes) 280 pages, and drawn 130 subjects for wood cuts.260

In preparing this work Mantell had several objects in mind. First, it was a means of updating his two earlier works on the geology of Sussex261 that were out of print, and second, it could incorporate Mantell’s memoir on the Hylaeosaurus that he had earlier planned to publish in the GSL’s Transactions. Thus, as Mantell stated in his preface, the book was aimed at both “the natural philosopher and general reader”. Mantell initially approached Lyell’s publisher, John Murray, but he declined to publish this work.262 Largely due to Bakewell’s assistance, an agreement was reached with Longmans, two weeks later, whereby that firm and Mantell would share any profits from the book, after all publishing costs had been recovered.263 Although the book was well written and had a relatively wide market, it was not a resounding financial success. Three years later Mantell noted in his Private Journal:

Recd. from Messrs Longman 60 copies of the Geology of the South-east of England and thus close the account of the first edition – when these 60 are sold at 20/- each I shall clear about £100 by the work – the only money I ever obtained from any literary production.264

The other two books that Mantell produced during the 1830s were entirely orientated to the ‘popular’ market. The first, Thoughts on a Pebble or a First Lesson in Geology,265 was a pocket-sized booklet of 23 pages dedicated to Mantell’s youngest son, Reginald Neville, ‘the little geologist’. It ran through eight editions, Messrs Reeve paying Mantell £25 for the last

Bakewell to GAM, 16 November 1834, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 6. 260 GAM-PJ, entry 10 January 1833. 261 Mantell, The Fossils of the South Downs, 1822 and Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, 1827. 262 GAM-PJ, entry 21 January 1833. 263 A copy of this agreement is contained in the printers proof of The Geology of the South-east of England, dated 14 March 1833, ATL-NZ. 264 GAM-PJ, entry Friday November 1836. 265 G.A. Mantell, Thoughts on a Pebble or a First Lesson in Geology, Relfe and Fletcher, London, 1836.

241 edition in 1849.266 The second, The Wonders of Geology,267 was based on Mantell’s Brighton lectures, and also had eight editions. Despite the relative market success of these ‘popular’ books on geology, Mantell was unable to achieve a significant financial return from any of these works, thus bearing out Bakewell’s earlier dictum.268 This unsatisfactory pattern continued during the next decade. Because of his failure to resolve his career clash between medicine and geology, combined with the disastrous move to Brighton, Mantell was poorly positioned to make any significant contributions to geology during the 1830s. Nevertheless, the ebullience and driving ambition of the man were not curtailed, as indicated by the following entry in his Private Journal in August 1839:

Received the sum of £4000 from the Trustees of the British Museum for my collection. And so passes away the labour of 25 years!!! But I will begin de novo!!

There was one bright note for Mantell in the 1830s. In 1835 the GSL council awarded Mantell the Wollaston Medal for his work on the comparative anatomy of fossils, and in particular, for discovering the two new genera, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus. Mantell’s was the second such award, the first being to William Smith in 1831. Throughout the 1830s there is no mention in Mantell’s Private Journal or in his known correspondence, that he intended to exploit the ‘taxonomic’ domain of British fossil reptiles suggested to him by Lyell in 1829 and Bakewell in 1832.

(3) LYELL

In contrast to Mantell, the 1830s proved to be years of achievement for Lyell. Although he had resolved his career-choice clash during the late 1820s, Lyell had not finally or securely positioned himself at the commencement of the new decade. However, this situation was rectified following an appropriate marriage and his decision to supplement his income

266 GAM-PJ, entry 10 August 1849. 267 Mantell, op. cit. (note 252). 268 R. Bakewell to GAM, 12 April 1834, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 6.

242 through writing, rather than lecturing. In an unpublished letter dated September 1831 Lyell advised Mantell that he was betrothed to Mary Elizabeth Horner, the eldest daughter of Leonard Horner:

The lady is 10 years younger than me & altho’ I shd. fully agree with you that this is more disparity than may be desirable for one who lives so quiet & secluded a life as a geologist ought to do at home yet I know you do not prohibit such a difference in your rules, & would grant that the disposition of the lady in these respects is of more importance than the age, & it is in this that I feel quite at ease. I shall have no money with her at all, which is certainly an act of imprudence on my part, but I feel confident that my wife will be satisfied to live in a very quiet way & I know that I shall.269

Lyell was not entirely accurate when he informed Mantell that his future wife would “have no money with her at all”. Under the marriage settlement Lyell’s father-in-law, Horner, gave his daughter Mary £4000, which would have yielded an annual investment income of £120.270 Nevertheless, Lyell had advised his future wife that although their style of living would be somewhat modest, he hoped to supplement their income:

Not that I am at all sanguine about the pecuniary profits that I shall ever reap, but I feel that [if] I could have fair play for the next ten years, I could gain a reputation that would make a moderate income for the latter part of my life, yield me a command of society, and a respect that would entitle me to rest a little on my oars, and enable me to help somewhat those I love.271

The success of Lyell’s marriage is another contrasting feature with Mantell. In addition to being his constant companion, Lyell’s wife acted as his assistant and amanuensis, and there were no ‘distractions’ due to children. Additionally, Mary Lyell made up for her husband’s social shortcomings, as attested by Silliman, one of the Lyell’s hosts during their first visit to the U.S.A. in 1842:

269 CL to GAM, September 1831. Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63, (Supp. Vol.-Letter 87). 270 Wilson, op. cit. (note 27), p. 361 271 CL Journal to Miss M.E. Horner, 23 April 1831; quoted in K.M. Lyell, op. cit. (note 2), p. 326.

243 It is fortunate for Mr L. that he carried with him a brilliant letter of introduction wherever he went in that winning lovely wife who made all his peculiarities pass. People did not always know what to make of his apparent coldness & absence of mind & I might have been embarrassed by some of his queer ways had you not put me right in the beginning. 272

Fifteen months before his marriage, Lyell had sought and obtained the position of professor of geology at the newly established King’s College, London.273 Despite the social success of his lectures at this institution,274 he quickly realised that they were “far less profitable for purse, & surely for solid fame than writing”.275 As a comparison, by the end of 1832 Lyell had received a total of £588 from his publisher, John Murray, for the first two volumes of his Principles of Geology, and the third volume was yet to come. It is not surprising that on 16 September 1833 Lyell advised Mantell that he had resigned his professorship. Lyell was now well positioned to consolidate his geological domain and pursue his chosen career in geology. Geological writing would supplement his private income. The indicative annual budget for Lyell and his wife amounted to £875 (Table 4.1), £255 more than their combined private incomes. During the 1830s Lyell was able to make up this deficit through his earnings from Principles of Geology. An analysis of the ledger accounts at Lyell’s publisher, John Murray,276 shows that he received the following payments for the various editions of this work and for his Elements of Geology, during the period 1830-40.

TABLE 4.2 - LYELL’S EARNINGS FROM WRITING, 1830-1840

Year Principles Elements Edition Volume of Geology of Geology

272 B. Silliman to GAM, 13 July 1842, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ. 273 Details concerning the circumstances of Lyell’s appointment to King’s College, London, and the social success of his lectures there are contained in Lyell’s letters to Mantell, dated 16 March and 21 April 1831. Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63. (Supp. Vol.-Letters 78 and 81). 274 In his letters to GAM dated 16 May and 14 June 1832, Lyell described with obvious delight the number of lords, titled ladies and coronetted carriages who attended his lectures. 275 CL to GAM, 14 June 1832, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 63. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 92) 276 Archives John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 50 Albermarle Street, London.

244 1830 £210 - 1st ed. vol. 1

1831 - - - -

£168 1st ed. vol. 2 1832 £105 - 2nd ed. vol. 1 nd £105 2 ed. vol. 2

1833 £294277 - 1st ed. vol. 3

1834 £315 - 3rd ed. one vol.

1835 £225 - 4th ed. one vol.

1836 - - - -

1837 £420 - 5th ed. one vol.

1838 - £352 1st ed. one vol.

1839 - - -

1840 £294 - 6th ed. one vol.

The average earnings for each of the above 11 years is £229.278 A perusal of Lyell’s letters to Mantell indicates that he was a shrewd commercial negotiator with a firm understanding of the economics of book publishing.279 A breakdown of the main production cost categories of the first two editions of Principles of Geology shows that Lyell’s earnings from each book exceeded Murray’s profits.

277 Lyell’s original payment for this edition was to have been £444 but since there were 462 unsold copies when this account was closed on 21 May 1834, Lyell repaid Murray £150. 278 During the next decade, 1841-50, Lyell’s earnings from new editions of these two books declined to an average of £65 p.a. because only one edition, the seventh, of Principles of Geology was printed during this period. However, this was offset by the printing of authorised American versions of the books and the release of his two travel books on North America in 1845 and 1849. 279 A good example of Lyell’s understanding of the practicalities and commercial aspects of publishing is contained in his letter to GAM, dated 9 November 1835, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 134).

245 TABLE 4.3 - UNIT PRODUCTION COSTS OF LYELL’S PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY ( first and second editions )

(costs are indicated in shillings and pence)

P.O.G. P.O.G. P.O.G. P.O.G. P.O.G. vol.1 vol.1 vol.2 vol.2 vol.3 1st ed. 2nd ed. 1st ed. 2nd ed. 3rd ed.

No. of Copies 1500 1000 1500 1000 2500

Average whole -sale price.280 9s.3d. 9s.0d. 7s. 9d. 7s.4d. 10s.4d.

Paper/Printing 3s.6d. 4s.4d 2s.5d. 2s.7d. 3s.11d Illustrations 1s.3d. 2d. 1s.0d. 4d. 1s.8d. Advertising 9d. 4d. 3d. 9d. 9d. Direct Costs of Production 5s. 6d. 4s.10d. 3s.7d. 3s.7d. 6s.4d.

to Lyell 2s.10d. 2s.1d. 2s.3d. 2s.1d. 2s.4d. to Murray 11d. 2s. 1d. 1s.11d. 1s.8d. 1s.8d.

9s 3d. 9s.0d. 7s.9d. 7s.4d. 10s. 4d.

This break-down of the direct costs of publishing Principles of Geology illustrates several aspects of the economics of book publishing in the first half of the nineteenth century. First, the major cost component was the cost of paper and printing, which made up more than 60% of all direct production costs due to the relatively high cost of paper. Another significant cost component were the illustrations, which typically comprised 25% of the

280 Based on the total print run. No adjustment has been made for free copies given to the author and

246 direct costs of the first edition of each volume. However, since these costs are mainly of a ‘one-off’ nature, and can be amortised in the first-edition print run, these costs decline to 5-10% in any second or subsequent edition. (4) REVIEW OF THE YEARS 1830 - 1840

The contrasting case histories of Lyell and Mantell during the 1830s again highlight the importance of appropriate positioning in terms of income, time, location and domestic circumstances in order to establish a geological domain. In the ideal case this would have entailed a London base and an annual private income in the range £500-£1000 – certainly not less than £430 for a married man with children. The attainment of such an income level would not have constituted a significant problem for an ambitious and able medical practitioner like Mantell, provided he maintained his professional practice on an ostensibly full-time basis. However, this pattern would not have been suitable or applicable for an ambitious person who wanted to achieve eminence in geology; sufficient time for serious geological investigations would not have been available. In attempting to combine medicine and geology at Brighton, Mantell encountered the worst of both worlds. His failure to resolve this career clash also precluded him from obtaining a lectureship in comparative anatomy in London, where he was only known as a geologist. If Mantell had chosen science in preference to medicine, then his standard of living would have declined markedly. Although he was an accomplished speaker and writer, lecturing on geological topics in London was unlikely to bring in more than £100-£200 a year, and earnings from writing ‘popular’ geological books were also unlikely to exceed this range. Producing a serious reference book on, say, the fossil reptiles of Great Britain, would not have been practicable under these circumstances, because there would not have been sufficient time for the necessary investigations. In this regard Mantell’s case history is of particular interest, since a surgical apprenticeship and associated medical training was one of the few ways in which a talented young man from a humble background could gain an entry into the world of science during the first half of the nineteenth century.

4.3.4 1840-1850: BEGINNING ‘DE NOVO’ AND MATURITY to reviewers.

247 Following his relocation to Clapham in 1839, Mantell had to re-establish both his professional and geological careers, as well as his domestic base, a daunting task for a 50 year old with failing health and limited capital. Consequently, positioning again comprises a major underlying theme. In the case of Lyell, this period can be described as one of maturity; his career glided on predictably and successfully, despite the disappointment of not inheriting his father’s estate in 1849. (1) MANTELL

In several respects the decade started well for Mantell. In 1840 he became a member of the Athenaeum Club, albeit 16 years later than Lyell, and in December, he was elected to the GSL council, 15 years after his first, one year term as a member of council in 1825-26. Some of the benefits of a London base became evident. Mantell was to serve on the GSL council from 1841 to 1844 and from 1847 to 1852. He also served as a GSL vice-president from 1848 to 1850. Additionally, Mantell was elected to the council of the Royal Society of London for one-year terms in 1843 and 1850. Another development was that during the 1840s Mantell entered into a discreet, and perhaps platonic relationship, with a Miss Foster, first mentioned in his Private Journal in April 1840. In subsequent entries Miss Foster was usually described by Mantell as “my kind friend”, and there are circumspect entries concerning the interchange of birthday gifts, quiet dinners and outings, until Mantell’s death in 1852.281 This relationship has been largely ignored in the literature, though noted by Dell.282 There were also some ominous developments. On 12 March, 1840, Mantell’s youngest daughter, Hannah Matilda, who lived with him at Clapham, died aged 17 years and 3 months after a distressing three-year illness.283 Difficulties arose with the Clapham medical practice purchased from Sir William Pearson for £1500, compelling Mantell to take legal

281 Typical entries concerning Miss Foster are: 6 October 1842. Drove Miss Foster to Norwood & visited the grave of my beloved Hannah Matilda; 3 February 1846. My birthday. A present from my kindest friend Miss Foster ushered in the day; 1 October 1846. Presents from my kind friend Miss Foster as usual….Presented Miss Foster with a pearl brooch on her birthday; 22 January 1851. Yesterday Miss Foster dined with me: took her through the Park to see the grand Exhibition house. GAM-PJ. 282 S. Dell (ed.), ‘Gideon Algernon Mantell’s unpublished Journal, June-November 1852’, The Turnbull Library Record, 1983, 16, pp. 77-94, p. 79.

248 action.284 Moreover, his health continued to decline, having been aggravated by a spinal injury from a carriage accident. The following typical entries in Mantell’s Private Journal indicate the extent of his suffering throughout the decade:

27 October 1841. Ill with symptoms of paralysis arising from spinal disease brought on by over exertion in stooping over my poor girl…in 1839 and 1840.

4 May 1842. Confined to my bed – very ill with neuralgia of the heart. Took 75 drops of laudanum and 12 drops of prussic acid before any relief was obtained.

21 March 1843. Very ill.

27 February 1844. Nothing can exceed my sufferings the last 3 weeks, except for short intervals.

3 April 1846. So ill I was obliged to go to bed and take large doses of opium which as usual made me sick incessantly for several hours.

19 March 1848. Dreadful suffering all night: took ether – of no avail whatever. Then inhaled chloroform

22 July 1849…severe paroxysm of neuralgia.

13 February 1851. Suffering intensely from neuralgia in the sciatific [sic] nerve.

Mantell’s correspondent and friend, the Pulborough medical practitioner and amateur geologist Martin,285 was sufficiently alarmed at Mantell’s health and appearance to write to him in the following manner on 30 June 1846:

Dear Mantell,

Notwithstanding that I have been pretty well haunted by the recollection of my recent misfortune, I have found my mind frequently intruded by the image of your emaciated frame – animated as it is still by a “spirit that o’er tenements its clay” – and painfully spirited by the melancholy anticipations of an impending fate.

283 GAM-PJ, 12 March 1840. 284 GAM-PJ, December 1840. 285 Peter John Martin (1786-1860). Studied medicine in Edinburgh and at London hospitals and then joined his father’s practice at Pulborough, West Sussex. He wrote various geological and archaeological papers. DNB.

249 Recollect that a dead philosopher is of no use but to swell the obituary notices of the periodicals (impertinent Rascals)….286

One of the conspicuous characteristics of Mantell was that he did not succumb to his physical disabilities. His drive and determination to achieve success remained undiminished. During this period of his life Mantell had four papers published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, two in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London; and he completed five geological books. He also ventured into the relatively new scientific field of microscopy. In addition to his health, family and medical-practice problems, another development had an adverse impact on Mantell during the 1840s, the emergence of Richard Owen as a major English figure in comparative anatomy and vertebrate palaeontology. Owen, who was fourteen and a half years younger, had some background factors in common with Mantell. Neither was a gentleman by birth, and both were apprenticed to provincial surgeons in their mid-teens, although Owen also studied at, but did not graduate from, Edinburgh University. In 1826, one of Mantell’s former teachers at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, John Abernethy,287 arranged for Owen to be appointed assistant- conservator of the Hunterian Collection. Eight years later he married the only daughter of the conservator, William Clift.288 Unlike Mantell, Owen did not have the dilemma of a career-choice clash between science and medicine. Owen chose science and the salaried life of a comparative anatomist and museum conservator. In 1836, he was appointed Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1844 was also appointed conservator, holding both positions until 1856.289 At the time of his appointment as conservator, Owen’s annual salary was increased to £500, but the College also provided free living quarters.290 Consequently, Owen was able to maintain the minimum lifestyle appropriate for a ‘gentleman-specialist’, and more importantly, was suitably positioned by the early 1840s to establish himself as England’s premier vertebrate palaentologist.

286 P.J. Martin to GAM, 30 June 1846, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 68. 287 John Abernethy (1764-1831). Surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 1787-1827. DNB. 288 William Clift (1775-1849). Osteologist and medical draftsman. Conservator of the Hunterian Collection 1793-1844. DNB. 289 The summary details concerning Owen’s background and career were obtained from the DSB. 290 Rupke, op. cit. (note 59), pp. 19-20.

250 During the 1840s Mantell’s medical practice at Clapham did not prove a great success. He summed up his overall position in a letter to Silliman, dated 2 February 1846:

In the new edition of ‘Wonders’ I shall feel it a duty to omit the passage relating to the desirableness of medical men cultivating science. I now feel in all its force the remark of Sir Astley Cooper,291 that I should find my high scientific reputation an injury to my professional success. It is my present intention to go on quietly here for a while, finish my two works now in hand – the Nervous System and the Isle of Wight – then work up my lectures to a serviceable state – and if my health is neither better or worse, then attempt a change of air for a month; and by its effects determine my future career; for I am now sadly wasting away my little capital, though I live most plainly. But my profession compels me to keep a carriage and appearance, which are not otherwise necessary to me.292

Mantell’s conception of living plainly illustrates the relativity of that term. After spending five years at Clapham, Mantell moved to a house at 19 Chester Square, Pimlico, on 23 September 1844. This residence, which he described as “a small, very pleasant and convenient house” situated “in the heart of the most aristocratic part of London”, had six floors, besides a basement,293 and the household comprised a total of seven people.294 The annual rent was £160.295 Additionally, Mantell at least partially supported his wife,296 and so his annual expenditures can be estimated as follows:

MANTELL’S ESTIMATED ANNUAL EXPENDITURES 1845-1852 (pounds)

Food and Household Provisions 180 Entertainments and Misc. Expenses 35 Clothes 60

291 Sir Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841). Eminent London surgeon. DNB. 292 GAM to Silliman, 2 February 1846; quoted by Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 184. 293 Curwen op. cit. (note 42), in a note on p.188. 294 Mantell’s household comprised Mantell, his youngest son Reginald (while completing his clerkship with the engineer, Brunel), his sister Mrs West, an assistant and coachman, and 2 female servants. GAM to Silliman, 17 October 1844 and 2 December 1844; quoted by Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), pp. 166-168. 295 GAM-PJ, entry 5 October 1852.

251 Rent and Taxes 190 Coach and 2 horses 100 House servants 120 Club and Society Fees, Books 60 Contingencies 55 Sub-total 800 Possible Allowance for wife 100 ESTIMATED ANNUAL EXPENDITURE £900

Even a cursory review of Mantell’s Private Journal during the years 1840 to 1852 indicates the declining attention given to his medical practice. In brief, Mantell supplemented his income through a combination of lecturing, writing popular geological books, sales of fossils, and receiving interest from investments. On his death Mantell left a capital sum of £6500297 that would have yielded approximately £210 a year when invested in ‘consols’ at 3-3.5 per cent. Income from this source appears to have exceeded his earnings from a combination of writing, lecturing and fossil sales. Mantell’s earnings from his geological books averaged less than £100 a year, as indicated on the following page. MANTELL’S EARNINGS FROM GEOLOGICAL BOOKS, 1844-1851298

1844 Medals of Creation (1st Ed.) (£30) 1846 Thoughts on Animalcules £100 1847 Geological Tour of the Isle of Wight £100 1848 Wonders of Geology (6th Ed.) £105 1849 Thoughts on a Pebble (8th Ed.) £ 25 1851 Petrifactions and their Teachings £105

Mantell’s income from lecturing activities during the latter half of the decade could not have averaged more than £50 a year, judging from his

296 GAM to B. Silliman, 2 December 1844; quoted by Spokes, op. cit. (note 38), p. 168. 297 Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 121. 298 The net indicated earnings have been obtained from the following entries in GAM-PJ: 21 September 1844; 9 December 1845; 21 May 1846; 1 May 1848; 10 October 1849; and 21 November

252 Private Journal entries. As Lyell had indicated ten years earlier,299 lecturing in London was less remunerative and more dispiriting than in the provincial cities, as illustrated by the following Private Journal entries concerning lectures given by Mantell in London and Leeds:

25 March 1848. Delivered a lecture at the Mary-le-bone Institution on the fossil bones of New Zealand, at three in the afternoom. Only about 50 persons: my loss will be nearly [£]6-10- 0. So much for my chance of profit from lectures – this will not do.300

5 April 1852. (Monday) A fine day, left with my footman, for the Great Northern Station at King’s Cross. Started at eleven; reached Leeds before seven and drove to lodgings. 6 April (Tuesday) To the Mechanics Institution and had the diagrams fixed up. Gave my first lecture from 8 to 9½ to a large audience; passed off very well. 7 April Sauntered about this horribly carboniferous town. 8 April My second lecture: room crowded capitally: a most attentive auditory. 12 April Lectured from 8 to 9½. capital audience. 14 April (Wednesday) My fourth and last lecture from 8 to 9¾. The President and Managers were much pleased: it appeared no scientific lectures had been so successful. 15 April (Thursday) Mr Train called and paid me £52-10-0 for my course of lectures. 19 April (Monday) My trip to Leeds York &c cost about twelve pounds: add to this £5 I gave my brother for staying here in my absence, and £3 for diagrams = £20 : so I clear about £32-10-0.301

Fossil sales proved to be even less rewarding and comprised sundry sales to the British Museum for sums in the range £10-25.302 It is therefore likely that Mantell was not able to supplement his income by more than £150 through his writing, lecturing and fossil sale activities. Assuming dividends of £200 from his investments, and annual capital depletions of perhaps £250, Mantell’s income from his medical practice would have been around £300. Thus Mantell’s decision to combine a scientific career with the practice of medicine resulted in him being no better off than Owen.

1851. 299 CL to GAM, 3 March 1836, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 139). 300 GAM-PJ, entry 25 March 1848. 301 Ibid., entries 5-19 April, 1852. 302 Ibid., entries 4 April 1847; 1 May 1848; 31 October 1850; 5 November 1850.

253 Moreover, Owen had the time and opportunity to conduct serious palaeontological investigations. Mantell was much more restricted in his options. A further feature of Mantell’s career in the 1840s is that he does not appear to have lost any social status because of his lecturing and fossil sale activities. In fact, one of Mantell’s consolations during the last decade of his life must have been his participation in the London social scene. The pleasure with which he recorded the following journal entries is almost palpable.

15. Saturday [June 1844] – Visited Sir Robert Peel, who had sent me a very kind invitation to an evening party to meet the King of Saxony. Arrived there before ten, and was received by Lady Peel. A brilliant but select company. Sir Robert received me very courteously, and expressed how delighted he was with my new book, which he had been reading that morning. Introduced me to the King of Saxony who conversed with me some time on my specimens in the British Museum….The Marquess of Northampton, Dr Buckland, Mr Whewell, Sir B. Brodie, Sir John Herschel, and numerous other scientific friends were of the party; together with the foreign Ambassadors, Lord Lyndhurst, etc….

June 13 Wednesday [1849]. – Dined with Earl and Countess of Rosse, M. Guizot, Lords Northampton and Holland, Sir H. De la B., Rennie and C. Lemon were of the party.

March 12 [1852]. – Dressed with difficulty and at ½ past ten went to the soiree of the Duchess of Northumberland at Northumberland House….Met many persons I knew: grouped with Sir John Herschel, Brande and others. The Duke of Wellington was there …..all the elite of nobility and fashion and a good sprinkling of the aristocracy of science.303

Another triumph for Mantell during this decade was the award of the Royal Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1849, despite vehement objections from Owen. Lyell, in particular, was one of Mantell’s staunchest supporters in ensuring that Mantell received this honour304 for his palaeontological papers published in Philosophical Transactions,305 and in

303 Ibid., entries 15 June 1844, 13 June 1849 and 12 March 1852. 304 GAM-PJ, entries 18 October and 26, 29 and 30 November 1849, and CL to GAM, 29 and 30 November 1849. (Supp. Vol.-Letters 215, 216). Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 65. 305 G.A. Mantell,i‘Memoir on a Portion of the Lower Jaw of the Iguanodon and on the Remains of the Hylaeosaurus and other Saurians’, PTRSL, 1841, 131, pp. 153-158;i‘On the Fossil Remains of

254 particular for his 1848 paper ‘On the Structure of the Jaws and teeth of the Iguanodon’. Mantell also received strong support from Buckland, Murchison and Horner.306 On 27 June 1852 Mantell was able to record another acknowledgment of his scientific work:

To my astonishment recd. a note from the Earl of Rosse informing me that at his suggestion the Minister, Lord Derby, had offered me an annuity of £100: as an expression of respect from the Crown for my scientific labours!307

Mantell was not to enjoy the benefit of this annuity for long. He died on 10 November 1852 as a result of an overdose of opium, taken to relieve the suffering from his spinal disorder.308

(2) LYELL

In 1841 Lyell was invited to give a series of 12 lectures at the Lowell Institution in Boston for a fee of 2000 dollars, “a striking contrast to the remuneration that he had any prospect of obtaining in this country”.309 In fact, Lyell received double this amount, equivalent to £800. Silliman, who was one of Lyell’s hosts, commented on this visit in a letter to Mantell:

To be invited in a professional character to visit a foreign country, to be everywhere canvassed and pioneered by scientific men, to have a years range of thousands of miles of diversified geological structures and to be paid four thousand dollars (profits of extra courses included) is a rare chance, and if he does not go back in good humour with the country, it would be useless to attempt to please any future scientific visitor.310

Lyell indeed came back in good humour with North America, and made the Soft Parts of Foraminifera’, PTRSL, 1846, 136, pp. 465-472;i‘On the Structure of the Jaws and Teeth of the Iguanodon’, PTRSL, 1848, 138, pp. 183-202;i‘Observations on some Belemnites and other Fossil Remains of Cephalopoda, discovered by Mr Reginald Mantell, C.E. in the Oxford Clay’, PTRSL, 1848, 138, pp. 171-182. 306 W. Buckland to GAM, 22 November 1849, and R.I. Murchison to GAM, 26 November 1849. Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folders 22 and 74. 307 GAM-PJ, entry 27 June 1852. 308 Vallance, op. cit. (note 44), p. 98. 309 E.H. Bunbury, op. cit. (note 25), p. 120.

255 another successful visit in 1845-46.311 In addition to the substantial boost to his income as a result of his American lectures, Lyell also negotiated the printing of authorised American editions of Principles of Geology and Elements of Geology,312 and subsequently wrote two travel/geological books describing his first two visits to North America.313 Silliman also discerned another reason for Lyell’s success, his single- mindedness.

Geology seemed to be the primary orb around which other subjects revolved. I wrote them a warm farewell when they were going away but the only letter that we received was of August 1 to B.S. [Benjamin Silliman] junior concerning several papers for publication or replication in the American Journal and the only personal allusion to us was in a single line at the close of the letter.314

Things did not change during Lyell’s second trip to the United States in 1845-1846.

I think you will obtain very little from him as regards our personal, those particulars of position, person, manner, house &c home &c which would interest you as a warm friend: he is so absorbed in things that were: that those that are – at least the human, seem to attract him but little altho he appears & I believe is kind in his feelings; he is in a state of Geoll. abstraction too prevailing to admit of much social sympathy which you will find in a much higher degree in his amiable and lovely wife.315

Lyell was granted a knighthood in 1848, Mantell being one of the first to congratulate him.316 At this stage Mantell must have realised that he had little chance of receiving such an honour. However, Lyell did face one disappointment during this decade. Following his father’s death on 8

310 B. Silliman to GAM, 13 July 1842, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Silliman letters. 311 Accounts of Lyell’s lecturing and geological visits to the U.S.A. in 1841-42 and 1845-46 are given by R.H. Dott, Jr., ‘Lyell in America – His Lectures, Field Work, and Mutual Influences, 1841-1853’, Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society, 1996, 15, pp. 101-140, andiRobert H. Silliman, ‘The Hamlet Affair: Charles Lyell and the North Americans’, Isis, 1995, 86, pp. 541-561. 312 Dott, ibid., p. 102. 313 C. Lyell, Travels in North America, with Geological Observations on the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia, 2 vols, Murray, London, 1845 and A Second Visit to the United States, 2 vols, Murray, London, 1849. 314 B. Silliman to GAM, 4 September 1843, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Silliman letters. 315 B. Silliman to GAM, 18 July 1846, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Silliman letters. 316 GAM to CL, 23 September 1848, Kinnordy mss, Kirriemuir. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 199).

256 November 1849, Lyell unexpectedly discovered that he was not the principal heir to the family estate:

Instead his father’s will established a trust, from which the eight Lyell children were to receive equal shares of the income. Sir Charles Lyell would continue to receive 500 pounds annually that he had received since his marriage. In addition he was to receive the rent from the home farm of the Kinnordy estate, plus his one eighth share of the trust income. Lyell’s income was thus increased after his father’s death, but much less so than if he had been his father’s principal heir.317

(3) OVERVIEW OF THE YEARS 1840-1852

Although Mantell’s scientific achievements during the 1840s must be regarded as meritorious, if not valiant given his personal circumstances, the underlying theme that emerges is the difficulty faced by anyone trying to achieve eminence in science, while still obliged to maintain a different occupational activity. In this regard the contrast between Mantell’s and Owen’s positioning is pertinent. One trend that can be discerned during this decade concerns the emergence of some aspects of professionalisation. Mantell does not appear to have experienced any social bias as a result of his lecturing and fossil-sale activities. Nor did Lyell as a result of his lecturing visits in the U.S.A. To some extent these incipient changes are reflected in a comment made by Lyell to Mantell in a letter of 1847 thanking him for a copy of Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight:318

The way in which you have for the first time recorded my earliest work to all others hitherto unknown at p. 135 gives me a kind of mixed pleasure which I cannot easily describe or define. At that time I would have willingly devoted myself vigorously and exclusively to the science & tho’ 8 years of law reading which followed against my natural bias would not have been lost to geology had I been able to see as a young man now can the rank which in spite of all untoward circumstances, our studies have forced their return into in this country.319

317 Private communication to the author from Professor L.G. Wilson, 7 November 1996. Information based on Kinnordy mss. 318 G.A. Mantell, Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight and along the Adjacent Coast of Dorsetshire illustrative of the most Interesting Geological Phenomena and Organic Remains, Bohn, London, 1846. 319 CL to GAM, 9 March 1847, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 65. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 193).

257 This is one of the few letters in which Lyell exhibited a sense of warmth and nostalgia.

4.4 CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter the analysis of the various social and other factors that affected the careers of Lyell and Mantell focused on the question of how an ambitious person, with gentlemanly pretensions, could establish the necessary base to achieve elite status in English geology during the period 1815 to 1850. To this end the contrasting backgrounds of the two men are particularly apposite; Lyell’s career is quintessentially that of a ‘gentleman- specialist’, and Mantell’s that of an ambitious ‘outsider’. Mantell’s career is especially instructive, since it goes beyond the conventional case history of illustrating how an intelligent and socially disadvantaged young man could use medicine and natural history to ‘rise’ in the world. In his quest for social status and geological eminence, Mantell encountered almost every social barrier.320 Moreover, his geological achievements were significant and almost matched his aspirations. Consequently the case histories of the two men provide a broad appreciation of, as well as some fresh insights into, the social nuances and practices of English geology in the first half of the nineteenth century. The analysis of the years to 1820 necessarily concentrates on Mantell, who overcame the social barriers pertaining to a relatively humble family background, whose father was both a political radical and religious dissenter, and who was prevented from attending the local grammar school, let alone university. The crucial step in Mantell’s advancement was his apprenticeship to a Lewes surgeon at the age of fifteen, and then being able to proceed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. His subsequent success in building up a medical practice at Lewes is almost predictable, given his ambition, intelligence, and willingness to work long hours. It is also not surprising that during this period Mantell espoused moderate and not radical whig opinions in public, and that he and his family re-joined the Established Church. However, these particular measures were insufficient to give Mantell his

320 Although racial and gender barriers existed in nineteenth-century England, they are not pertinent

258 desired professional and social entrée into the circles of the Sussex gentry. This mechanism was provided through the cultivation of his interest in local antiquities and natural history. As a result of these interests and early enthusiasms, Mantell was able to build up relationships with influential county land-owners and potential patrons such as Davies Gilbert and John Hawkins. Additionally, he entered into correspondence on geological matters with comparably important contacts beyond the environs of Lewes, such as Greenough and Benett. Although Mantell’s initial letters clearly indicate his socially subservient status and eagerness to please, the resulting exchange of information developed into a virtual training and research programme for him. In this respect Mantell differed from the normal, amateur enthusiast who was content to exchange specimens and data with other amateur enthusiasts. Mantell also proved adept in establishing new contacts with selected notables, such as Buckland, by sending parcels of rare fossils. By the close of 1820 Mantell was a member of both the Linnean and Geological Societies of London, and these memberships alone provide a measure of his success in overcoming early social handicaps. However, such achievements cannot be regarded as singular or remarkable in England during this period of social flux and change. Mantell’s history up to this stage essentially illustrates how an able and ambitious youth from a humble background could rise in provincial society by building up a medical practice and cultivating natural history interests. Mantell still had a long way to go to attain the status he so strongly desired. As yet he was only partly aware of the problems of a provincial base, let alone the need to be correctly positioned to take full advantage of a major geological opportunity. It was Mantell’s responses to these key barriers and challenges which makes an analysis of his career informative, and provide fresh insights into the difficulties of establishing a geological career in the first half of the nineteenth century. Mantell had hopes that his 1822 publication, Fossils of the South Downs, would bring him both geological status and “that introduction to the first circles in this neighbourhood which I had been led to expect it would have done”.321 Although this lavishly illustrated book was not a failure, it did not fulfil Mantell’s expectations. It also made him aware of the to the context of this thesis. 321 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1822.

259 disadvantages of his provincial location322 – no geological or social networks, the absence of a reference library, the time and cost restraints in visiting London, and experiencing the envy of jealous and resentful neighbours, besides the sneers of the ‘metropolitan monopolists’.323 These difficulties and frustrations would have been accentuated following his election to the GSL council in 1825-26. His election as a member of council at this time was the most noteworthy provincial appointment in the GSL during the period 1807 to 1850. Mantell would have been even further frustrated after Lyell and Bakewell pointed out in 1829 and 1832 respectively that the time was right for him to produce a major work on ‘British Fossil Reptiles and Fish’. In Lyell’s words:

By this you may render yourself truly great which without much travelling you will never become in general geol.y. The field is yours - but might not remain open many years. It is worthy of ambition & the only one which in an equally short time you could make your own in England for ever.324

However, at this stage Mantell was not well positioned to take up this particular challenge. He was married with four young children, and in order to find time for such a task he would have had to curtail his medical practice, and hence his income. In his career to date Mantell had been essentially single-minded in his pursuit of social status and in the fashioning of his image, rather than in geological achievement. His end-of-year Private Journal entries focus on his social standing and not on resolving geological or palaeontological questions. Mantell’s assumption of arms, visions of restored family grandeur, and yearning for a knighthood are indications of how he modelled his self-image around the concept of an aristocratic, cultivated, whig ‘gentleman of science’.325 Consequently, it is understandable that Mantell was not prepared to reduce his stylish standard of living, which was dependent on the earnings from his medical practice. In any case, he did

322 “If I fail this year, I will then remove elsewhere”. GAM-PJ, entry 1 January 1823. 323 Lyell used this term in his letter to GAM , 23 March 1829. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 55). 324 CL to GAM, 23 March 1829, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 62. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 59). 325 The concept of modelling a self-image has been adapted from Shortland’s analysis of Hugh Miller and his contention that Miller self-modelled his image around the concept of manliness, from which he derived his sense of self-worth. M. Shortland, ‘Bonneted mechanic and narrative hero: the self- modelling of Hugh Miller’, in M. Shortland (ed.), Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996, pp. 14-75.

260 not have the capital sum of £13,250 that would have provided the minimum income of £430 required for a gentlemanly life-style. Moreover, there were few, if any, socially acceptable positions in natural science that offered an income near this salary level. Instead, Mantell made his disastrous move to Brighton, where he naively assumed he would be able to combine three major activities: a fashionable medical practice, the establishment of a natural history museum and the pursuit of his geological interests. Although Mantell was able to begin ‘de novo’ at Clapham in the 1840s, his fundamental positioning problem remained unchanged. He was not disposed to follow Lyell’s dictum of “all medicine or all science”.326 Because of this failure to resolve his career-choice clash, as Lyell did with law in the late 1820s, Mantell was never properly positioned to establish a major geological domain. After 1830 this required a virtual full-time commitment to the discipline. During the 1830s Mantell’s geological work was essentially restricted to the publication of popular books on geology. In the 1840s, when Owen claimed the domain of ‘British Fossil Reptiles’, Mantell’s geological work comprised a diverse mix of popular and serious work. Mantell’s strategy of combining medical and geological careers was essentially self-defeating and non-synergistic. In short, patients would not go to a doctor because of his non-medical scientific attainments or reputation. This problem of identity also affected Mantell’s ability to obtain a medical lecturing position in London, where he was known as a geologist and not as a comparative anatomist. Furthermore, it proved very difficult to offset a decline in earnings from the practice of medicine by geological lecturing and writing. During the 1840s Mantell did not earn more than £150-200 a year from both these activities, and in the 1830s Lyell’s average annual earnings from his publications were only £229. In comparison to Mantell, Owen was much better positioned to conduct palaeontological investigations in his capacity as conservator of the Hunterian Collection on a salary of £500, plus free housing. Unlike Mantell, Lyell did not have to bother with self-modelling his image. As a gentleman there was simply no need. However, Lyell was single- minded about fashioning his geological career and in this regard he

326 CL to GAM, 3 March 1836, Mantell mss, ATL-NZ, Folder 64. (Supp. Vol.-Letter 139).

261 demonstrated his understanding of the key factors involved in his quoted letter to Mantell of 23 March 1829. Unlike Mantell, Lyell followed these precepts. Other factors that had an influence on the geological careers of the two men were health, domestic circumstances, and personal qualities. Although Mantell suffered from almost continual ill-health during the last 20 years of his life, it had little bearing on his key problems of provincialism and the resolution of his career-choice dilemma. On the other hand, Lyell used the weakness of his eyes as an argument to foresake law for geology. The domestic circumstances of Lyell and Mantell provide another contrast between the two men. However, the respective roles of their spouses does not appear to have been a significant factor, even though Lyell benefited from having a socially adroit ‘helper’ as his wife. The correspondence between Lyell and Mantell reveals that the two men exhibited markedly different personal qualities. Lyell was reserved, ruthless, and hard-headed, in contrast to Mantell’s ebullience, romanticism, and commercial naiveté. Nevertheless, besides intelligence and ambition, both men had an extremely important quality in common, single-mindedness. However, as a final contrast Mantell’s single-mindedness was primarily directed to fashioning his self-image, Lyell’s to fashioning his geological career. CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

In this thesis the central question of why Mantell did not achieve the status of an elite geologist has been approached by examining three aspects of English geology on a decade-by-decade basis. The first aspect encompassed questions concerning the emergence of an elite group of geologists in England during the first half of the nineteenth century and the number and nature of its members. To this end prosopographic and ‘screening’ techniques were used to categorise the social status of members of the GSL council and to identify those who met stipulated criteria relating to institutional power and contemporary geological achievement. The next aspect involved an investigation into the nature, scope, and timing of the geological work

262 carried out by the identified elite, with particular emphasis being given to the work of Lyell and Mantell. In order to analyse the investigations of the 15 identified geologists, the technique of using four different kinds of geological domain was adopted, each of which could be sub-classified in terms of their relative importance. The results from the application of these methodologies then provided a framework for examining the effect that various social and other factors had on the geological careers of Lyell and Mantell. In this concluding chapter the decade-by-decade findings from each of the three main chapters are related to each other and then overall conclusions are drawn.

5.1 1807 - 1820

The prosopographic and ‘screening’ studies for the period 1807 to 1820 indicate that during these years the council was not dominated by any one specific group of members. Although 49% of the 61 GSL members who served on the council for at least one year belonged to the upper class, social category one, their numbers were almost matched by those belonging to the middle class grouping of social category two. The breakdown of these members into occupational categories better illustrates the varied nature of council membership in the 1810s: 25% were gentlemen of independent means and a further 5% ‘gentleman or clergyman-specialists’, 38% engaged in the recognised professions of the law, established church, medicine and the army, 18% were business proprietors, and 8% museum curators and lecturers. In contrast to the 1830s, these percentages did not change markedly when the analysis was restricted to those members of council with more than three years service, including election to one of the senior offices, such as vice- president or secretary. In summary, the GSL council ‘mix’ of aristocratic ‘gentleman-amateurs’, clergymen, successful Quaker manufacturers, ambitious businessmen, army officers, physicians, diplomats, and curators, reflects the varied motivations and interests of those participating in English geology during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ had not yet emerged as a distinct group. Nor were any members of council for the period 1807 to 1820 identified in the final screening list of an identified geological elite. Moreover, only one member appears on the penultimate listing, Wollaston, whose research focused on physiology and metallurgy, rather than geology.

263 The fact that the screening analyses did not designate any members of an identified geological elite in the 1810s is matched by the paucity of geological domains fashioned during this period. In fact Greenough, one of the two ‘exceptions’, was the solitary member of council who had established a domain by 1820, an idiosyncratic ‘modal’ domain characterised by a sceptical attitude to most, if not all, aspects of geological theory. Buckland’s domain of diluvialism was only in the process of being established in the late 1810s. At the close of this period Mantell was 30 years of age, married with two children. He had built up a successful medical practice at Lewes, established a local reputation in natural history, and had been a member of the GSL for two years. In attaining this position Mantell exploited two key opportunities. First, he was fortunate that his dissenting, radical whig father could afford to pay 200 guineas (£220) for his surgical apprenticeship. Second, his enthusiasm and interest in antiquities, fossils, and geology enabled him to cultivate mentors and patrons such as John Hawkins and Davies Gilbert from the local gentry, Etheldred Benett in Wiltshire, and Greenough in London. During these years Mantell also returned to the fold of the established church, assumed the armorial bearings of presumed forebears, and subdued his political beliefs. In short, his career to this stage represents a conventional case history of how an ambitious young man of modest means could use a surgical apprenticeship and an interest in natural history to climb the provincial social ladder. Nevertheless, Mantell was acutely conscious of the disparity between the status of his present position and his aspirations. Few of his patients were members of the Sussex gentry, and his role as a geologist was essentially restricted to describing local phenomena and sending information and samples to London. Lyell was 22 years of age when he joined the GSL in 1819, the year he came down from Oxford after obtaining second class honours in classics as a gentleman commoner. His privileged background illustrates a different conventional ‘norm’, that of a future ‘gentleman-specialist’. His only misfortune was a weakness in his eyes, which became inflamed after prolonged reading. Both Lyell and Mantell joined the GSL at a felicitous time in the late 1810s. The society was ready for ‘new blood’, there was no rigid research programme, and major investigative opportunities were yet to be determined

264 in most areas of the new discipline.

5.2 1820 - 1830

In most respects the basic pattern indicated in the prosopographic and ‘screening’ analyses of the 1810s continued throughout the 1820s. The occupational composition of the 71 members of council who served from 1820 to 1830 approximates that of the 1810s, as do the relative proportions of the two social status categories. However, some trends can be detected when the members of council are restricted to those with more than three years service, including a term in one of the elected offices. Using these more stringent criteria, the percentage of members of council belonging to social category one increased from 48 per cent in the 1810s to 58 per cent in the 1820s. More significantly, a decline in the percentage of ‘independent gentlemen’ from 32 to 15 per cent was offset by an increase in the percentage of ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ from 4 to 19 per cent. The process whereby this distinctive group came to dominate the activities of the GSL was therefore underway in the 1820s. Nevertheless, Buckland is the only member listed in the identified elite for the decade, while the anomalous figure of Wollaston again appears on the penultimate list. A feature of the ‘screening’ analyses for the period 1820 to 1830 is that Mantell is highlighted as the singular ‘provincial’ member of the GSL council following its foundation in 1807. In this context the term ‘provincial’ has pejorative as well as geographical connotations, provincial members being defined as those situated in the country with no London base, and who could not afford to be absent from their occupational duties for long or frequent periods. The definition excludes Oxbridge academics and established clergymen with a country living. Again, there is a close correspondence between members identified in the screening tests for the 1820s and those instrumental in establishing a geological domain. Buckland, the solitary member identified in the final screening list, successfully fashioned the only major domain, diluvialism. Greenough, one of the two exceptions, maintained his ‘modal’ domain, despite criticisms of his sceptical approach from some of his GSL peers. Additionally, Conybeare, Sedgwick, and Whewell, who were on the penultimate or final ‘screening’ lists for the 1830s, were in the process of

265 developing their joint ‘modal’ domain of the English school, in conjunction with Buckland. Of the others on the selected lists for the next decade, Lyell’s geological investigations became increasingly focused on causal geology throughout the 1820s, although he did not crystallise his concept of absolute actualism until 1829. Murchison, De la Beche, and Sedgwick had not identified their separate future domains, but were well positioned to exploit any suitable opportunities. In particular, their geological ‘apprenticeship’ gave them an understanding of the formations above the Carboniferous system, and an awareness of the potential domain or domains beneath it. Neither Fitton nor Mantell was included on the penultimate or final lists for the 1820s and 1830s, though they were listed on the penultimate list for the 1840s. Both men fashioned minor ‘taxonomic’ domains in the 1820s. Fitton’s stratigraphic domain was maintained over the next two decades, but Mantell’s minor domain, the fossils of Sussex, was too broad and not sustainable, except in the immediate short term. Lyell recognised the situation, and in 1829 strongly urged Mantell to fashion an outstanding major domain – British fossil reptiles. On the personal side, the 1820s were years of both frustration and achievement for Mantell. His two major books, The Fossils of the South Downs and Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, published in 1822 and 1827 respectively, did not give him his intended “introduction to the first circles of the neighbourhood”.1 This yearning appears to reflect Mantell’s priorities in the 1820s: high social status was more important than scientific achievement. Nevertheless, he had some measure of success. The discovery of the Iguanodon gave him recognition, and led to his election to the Royal Society of London in 1825, and to the GSL council in 1826. At this stage of his career Mantell regarded his provincial location at Lewes as the major obstacle to both his social and geological ambitions. He wished to pursue these two goals concurrently and was not well positioned to do so. If he had decided to forge the identified domain of British fossil reptiles, then his most practicable alternative would probably have been to stay at Lewes and curtail his medical practice by limiting the number of patients, or enlisting the services of another practitioner. In this way Mantell could have had sufficient time for his palaeontological investigations, but it would have also entailed a significant reduction in his style and standard of living. However,

266 this was not a sacrifice that Mantell was willing to make. At the end of the decade Mantell therefore faced the problem of how to achieve fame through geology, without compromising his fashionable mode of living – a formidable task. During the 1820s Lyell also faced a crossroads in his career. Having decided on a gentlemanly career in geology, and being financially dependent on an annual allowance of £400 from his father, Lyell’s problem was how to gain his father’s acceptance, if not approval, for his intended career change from the law. By the end of the decade Lyell had achieved this goal, using his weak eyes as a major argument. Additionally, he had also proved that he could supplement his allowance through writing. By 1830 Lyell was therefore reasonably, but not ideally ‘positioned’, to fashion his identified ‘causal’ domain. The 1820s was not a decade for establishing major new domains, and in particular, ‘taxonomic’ domains. Instead, it was a decade for solving stratigraphic anomalies above the Carboniferous; for finding and describing, but not classifying, monstrous fossil reptiles; for substantiating the use of particular fossils in stratigraphic correlation; for developing and broadening the scope of the English school’s approach to geology; and for new members such as Lyell, Murchison, and De la Beche to complete their ‘geological apprenticeship’. In essence, it was a decade for positioning: attaining sufficient geological experience and knowledge to be able to identify a major new domain, and then being in an appropriate position to exploit it.

5.3 1830 - 1840

The prosopographic and ‘screening’ analyses for the 1830s indicate that the incipient trends detected in the previous decade became pronounced during this period. In particular, the GSL council became increasingly dominated by members belonging to the upper class, social category one.

Members of council with min. of one years service 1807-20 1820-30 1830-40

Number of councillors 61 71 60 – Social category 1 49% 53% 68%

1 GAM-PJ, entry 31 December 1822.

267 – Social category 2 43% 41% 29%

– Gentleman and clergyman-specialists 5% 11% 23% – Independent gentlemen 25% 21% 27%

In part, the above trends reflect the retirement of the middle class Quakers, most of whom had been members of the former Askesian Society before they played a significant role in the founding of the GSL. Another factor was the social ‘advancement’ to category one of some of the successful professionals and business proprietors, such as Lyell’s father-in-law, Leonard Horner. More pertinently, control of the GSL council in the 1830s passed to the ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ because Buckland, Sedgwick, Fitton, Lyell, Murchison, De la Beche, Egerton, Conybeare, and Whewell were generally well positioned at the start of the decade in terms of available time, location, inclination and geological experience to effectively ‘take-over’ the society. This development is illustrated below, where the analysis is confined to those members of council with a minimum of three years service, including election to one of the society’s senior offices.

Members of council with minimum of 3 years 1807-20 1820-30 1830-40 service plus election to senior GSL office

Number of councillors 25 26 19

– Social category 1 48% 58% 84% – Social category 2 52% 42% 16%

– Gentleman and clergyman-specialists 4% 19% 47% – Independent gentlemen 32% 15% 32% – Recognised professions 28% 35% 16% – Business proprietors and manufacturers 24% 23% -

– Also served on the Royal Society council 4% 8% 53%

Only two members of council appeared on the penultimate ‘screening’ list for the 1820s, and one on the final list of the identified elite. During the 1830s these numbers increased to seven and five respectively. All were ‘gentleman or clergyman-specialists’. These figures suggest that it was not until the 1830s that a geological elite emerged or could emerge. Furthermore, with the exception of De la Beche who was on the

268 penultimate but not final list, all members identified in the final two ‘screening lists’ for the 1830 to 1840 decade fashioned a diverse range of major geological domains. De la Beche’s, ‘modal’ domain at the Geological Survey was in the process of being established. Additionally, the two ‘exceptions’, Greenough and Phillips, respectively maintained and forged their domains. A further point in common is that all of these geologists were in a position to engage in geological activities on a virtual full-time basis if necessary, or alternatively, were employed on a full-time basis in a geological capacity. In this respect Mantell was the exception. During the 1830s he was so beset by financial problems and the failure of his Brighton medical practice that he failed to capitalise on his discoveries of the Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus and fashion a domain. In fact his position retrogressed; in the latter half of the decade Owen moved into the area of British fossil reptiles. Mantell’s intentions, when deciding to move to Brighton, were to forsake the provincialism of Lewes, obtain a ‘higher’ class of patient, maintain his income, and enhance his geological reputation through his museum. He envisaged that the Brighton public would regard him as both a medical practitioner and cultivated man of science, and that his geological and fossil collection would attract the ‘right’ type of patient. In essence, his strategy focused on the enhancement of his social, rather than geological status. The necessity of making a firm decision concerning choice of careers was brought home to Mantell after the failure of his Brighton venture in the mid-1830s. In his letters Lyell succinctly summed up the choices open to Mantell: “I believe there is no alternative but all medicine or all science”, and with the wisdom of hindsight, “I went through the same struggle when I cut law”.2 Mantell’s dilemma was that he was only recognised as a medical practitioner in Lewes; in London, he was known as a geologist and was therefore precluded from obtaining a lecturing position in comparative anatomy. On the other hand, it was unlikely that Mantell could have earned more than £100-£200 a year from lecturing on geological topics in London, and his earnings from writing ‘popular’, yet successful scientific books, never exceeded £105 a publication. Even after he sold his collection to the British Museum for £4,000, Mantell’s capital barely totalled £6,000 – sufficient to provide a private annual income of £175 if invested in ‘consols’.

269 The total of these three potential streams of income would have approximated £430, the figure required to maintain the minimal life-style of a married ‘gentleman-specialist’. However, in this instance the required lecturing and writing activities would have left insufficient time to devote to serious geological investigations. The situation might have been different if he had been able and prepared to take up a curator’s position in the country, but Mantell was not a John Phillips, prepared to bide his time and carry out his investigations from the modest base of a Yorkshire museum. In contrast to Mantell, the 1830s proved to be years of achievement for Lyell. Although he had resolved the key question of his future career choice during the previous decade, Lyell was only moderately well positioned by its close. However, after making a judicious marriage and lecturing at King’s College, London, for two years, Lyell found that he could adequately supplement his income by regularly updating his Principles of Geology and to a lesser extent, the Elements of Geology. As a result of these measures Lyell’s annual income increased by an average of £229 to around £850, a figure that enabled him to enjoy a modest, but not lavish life-style, as a ‘gentleman-specialist’. In summary, the late 1820s and early 1830s marked a significant period, if not a watershed, in the development of English geology. Enough of the distinctive group of ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ had so positioned themselves that not only did they effectively take-over the running of the GSL, but on an individual basis they fashioned a wide and important range of new geological domains. Mantell was never a member of this particular social category and his failure to suitably position himself in the 1830s highlights the advantages enjoyed by the ‘gentleman-specialists’.

5.4 1840 - 1850

The marked trends revealed in the prosopographic and ‘screening’ analyses for the 1830s continued into the 1840s. Eleven members were identified in the penultimate and seven in the final list for the decade, against seven and five members respectively for the 1830s. However, the basic pattern of the geological work carried out by the identified geologists during the 1840s was

2 CL to GAM, 3 and 18 March 1836, (Supp. Vol.-Letters 139 and 140).

270 one of consolidation and retention of domains, rather than the fashioning of new ones. The only new major domains were claimed by De la Beche and Owen, while Egerton established a minor domain in the taxonomic field of fossil fish. Even so, the basis of each of these three domains was established in the latter half of the previous decade. Mantell and Owen were included on the penultimate list for the period 1840 to 1850, the only two such members from social category two.3 Neither man made the final ‘screening’ list of seven, primarily because they were not elected to the GSL presidency. The final list of seven members was exclusively occupied by ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ who had met this requirement. This point raises the question of whether Mantell, or others in his position, could have achieved the status of an elite geologist by election to the GSL presidency, rather than through the fashioning of a geological domain. Two points can be made in this regard. First, it is difficult to envisage some of the members who served as GSL president as having elite geological status. During the 1840s, for example, Warburton4 was president from 1843 to 1845, and Leonard Horner5 from 1845 to 1847. Neither of these men were the recipients of any medal for scientific achievement from the GSL or Royal Society, and their geological publications were of limited significance. Moreover, neither man fashioned a domain. Second, the primary focus in this thesis has been on the nature of an English geological elite, as distinct from an elite based on institutional or social status. The fact that all members listed in the final ‘screening’ lists for the 1830s and 1840s were ‘gentleman or clergyman-specialists’ who had also fashioned a geological domain, indicates at least a tenuous connection between social, institutional, and geological status. It is concluded that this connection was only causal in an indirect, and non-exclusive sense. Unlike Mantell, ‘gentleman and clergyman-specialists’ had the time and financial circumstances to devote themselves full-time, if necessary, to geological investigations and allied institutional matters. Major ‘taxonomic’ domains, in particular, could not be

3 The ‘exception’, John Phillips, would also have been regarded as having category two social status in the 1830s. 4 Henry Warburton (1784?-1858). Educated Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. FRS 1809. Timber merchant. Political radical. MP for Bridport 1826-41 and for Kendal 1842-47. Member of GSL council 1812-38 and 1842-47, President 1843-45. Published four geological papers 1817-1845. 5 Leonard Horner (1785-1864). Member of GSL council 1809-10, 1810-14, 1828-32, 1837-64. GSL president 1845-47 and 1860-62. FRS 1813. Published 13 geological papers during the period 1811- 1860 which had no specific theme and were mainly descriptions or notes on varied geological phenomena.

271 fashioned on a part-time, ad hoc basis. Even so, not all ‘gentleman- specialists’ had the ability or inclination to identify and then establish a significant domain. Mantell again stands out as the major anomalous figure during the 1840s. He was the only member in the identified group of thirteen (including the two exceptions, Greenough and Phillips) who had not established a domain by the end of the decade. By the time he was able to re-enter the field of British fossil reptiles in the late 1830s, it was too late. Owen had seized the opportunity. Nevertheless, Mantell’s wide range of palaeontological investigations throughout the decade was remarkable, and he was successful in re-instating his geological career and reputation. He was not suitably ‘positioned’ though, in terms of health and available time, to fashion a major new domain. In several respects the end of the first half of the nineteenth century marked the close of a particular phase in English geology. Fitton, Whewell, Darwin, Buckland, and Greenough were no longer active in geological investigations. Mantell died in 1852, De la Beche and Greenough in 1855, and Buckland a year later. There were also other changes. ‘Gentleman- specialists’ could not match the more detailed and exacting mapping standards of the Geological Survey. Few major, grand domains such as the Silurian system or British fossil reptiles were waiting to be identified. Geology was to become increasingly specialised.

5.5 OVERALL SUMMARY

5.5.1 METHODOLOGY

It is concluded that the ‘screening’ criteria adopted in chapter two provided a rational basis for identifying members of an English geological elite during the first half of the nineteenth century. The various analyses indicate a good but not exceptional degree of correspondence between members who established a geological domain and those included on the final and penultimate screening lists. However, pre-determined screening criteria cannot be applied too rigidly. Flexibility and judgement are required to ensure that members who greatly exceed the requirements for one of the criteria, but fall short in regard to another, are taken into account.

272 The alternative methodology of using domains to identify members of a geological elite must satisfy two requirements. Domains need to be suitably differentiated in terms of importance, and the net must be cast sufficiently widely. Here the spread of the cast was restricted to senior GSL members of council, although exceptions were taken into account. The table on the following page lists the members of council who fashioned or maintained a major geological domain during the period from 1820 to 1850. This listing comprises three members in the 1820s, nine in the 1830s and ten in the 1840s. It further illustrates the watershed in English geology that occurred after the late 1820s. All members identified in the final ‘screening’ lists for each of the decades are included in the table with the exception of Fitton, who established a ‘minor’, rather than a ‘major’ stratigraphic domain. Inclusions who were not listed in the final ‘screening’ lists are Darwin, Greenough, Owen and Phillips, although Darwin and Owen were on the penultimate list for the 1840s.6 The listing in Table 5.1 supports a key conclusion of this thesis. During the period 1820 to 1850 any aspirant to elite status in English geology needed to fashion a significant geological domain. TABLE 5.1 FOUNDERS OF MAJOR DOMAINS (including joint domains)

1820 - 1830 1830 - 1840 1840 - 1850

BUCKLAND BUCKLAND BUCKLAND (Diluvialism and the English (English school – joint ‘modal’ (English school – joint ‘modal’ school – joint ‘modal’ domains) domain) domain)

CONYBEARE CONYBEARE DARWIN (English school – joint ‘modal’ (English school – joint ‘modal’ (Crustal stability – ‘causal’ domain) domain) domain)

GREENOUGH DARWIN DE LA BECHE (Geological scepticism – (Crustal stability – ‘causal’ (Geological survey – ‘modal’ ‘modal’ domain) domain) domain)

GREENOUGH GREENOUGH

6 It is noteworthy that the founders of the major domains listed in Table 5.1 essentially corresponds to the elite geologists designated by Rudwick in his analysis of the Devonian controversy. See Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy, 1985, on p. 421. Rudwick identified his list of elite geologists by a third and more informal method; he used his judgement and historical expertise to ascribe degrees of attributed competence to the various members of the English geological community.

273 (Geological scepticism – (Geological scepticism – ‘modal’ domain) ‘modal’ domain)

LYELL LYELL (Absolute actualism – ‘causal’ (Absolute actualism – ‘causal’ domain) domain)

MURCHISON MURCHISON (Silurian System –‘taxonomic’ (Silurian System –‘taxonomic’ domain) domain)

PHILLIPS OWEN (Yorkshire geology – (British fossil reptiles – ‘taxonomic’ domain) ‘taxonomic domain)

SEDGWICK PHILLIPS (Cambrian System – (Regional geology – ‘taxonomic’ domain) ‘taxonomic’ domain)

WHEWELL SEDGWICK (English school – joint ‘modal’ (Cambrian System – domain) ‘taxonomic’ domain)

WHEWELL (English school – joint ‘modal’ domain)

5.5.2 MANTELL

Mantell did not fashion a major domain and in a simplistic sense this fact accounts for his perceived failure. Such an explanation, however, does not provide a meaningful understanding of his career. In this regard two key obstacles were identified in the various analyses – he was the most noteworthy, if not unique, provincial member of the GSL council during the first half of the nineteenth century, and of the 15 identified geologists, Mantell alone was dependent on non-geological activities for his livelihood. Both of these ‘positioning’ problems essentially relate to his relatively disadvantaged background. Nevertheless, these two critical obstacles were surmountable by others at this time. Phillips lived modestly in Yorkshire when he established his

274 stratigraphic domain. The other non-gentleman by birth, Owen, resolved any potential career conflict at the age of 23 years, when he abandoned medicine and accepted a salaried position where he could develop his skills in comparative anatomy. The geological and palaeontological work of both these men ultimately brought them the status and accolades that Mantell yearned for. Both Phillips and Owen resolved their respective career positioning issues at an early stage in their careers. In contrast, Mantell did not face a major positioning crisis until the early 1830s, when he was 40 years of age with four children aged between three and twelve years. By Mantell’s reckoning, his major problem was the provincialism of Lewes, and at this stage of his career he was not willing to sacrifice his fashionable mode of living in order to forge the major taxonomic domain outlined by Lyell. In hindsight, this could have been achieved by staying at Lewes and reducing the scale of his medical practice. For Mantell, fashioning his social status had higher priority than fashioning his geological career. He failed to realise that cultivating his image as a ‘gentleman of science’ did not lead, per se, to the status that resulted from fashioning a major domain.

275