REPORT the History of Science, Medicine and Technology at Oxford
Downloaded from http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on June 10, 2016 Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2006) 60, 69–83 doi:10.1098/rsnr.2005.0129 Published online 18 January 2006 REPORT The history of science, medicine and technology at Oxford Robert Fox*, Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BD, UK The history of science came early to Oxford. Its first champion was Robert T. Gunther, the son of a keeper of zoology at the British Museum and a graduate of Magdalen College who took a first there in the School of Natural Science in 1892, specializing in zoology (figure 1). As tutor in natural science at Magdalen (and subsequently a fellow) from 1894 until his retirement in 1920, at the age of 50, Gunther showed himself to be a fighter, both for the cause of science in the university and for the preservation of Oxford’s scientific heritage. His first work, A history of the Daubeny Laboratory (1904), reflected his devotion to the memory of the laboratory’s founder and Magdalen’s greatest man of science, Charles Daubeny, who had held chairs of chemistry, botany and rural economy at various times, for long periods simultaneously, between 1822 and his death in 1867.1 Supplements, bearing the main title The Daubeny Laboratory register, followed in 1916 and 1924,2 but it was Gunther’s Early science in Oxford, published in 14 substantial volumes between 1920 and 1945, that signalled his definitive move from science to history.3 World War I brought home to Gunther the vulnerability of Oxford’s scientific collections, in particular the many early instruments that survived, largely disregarded, in the colleges.
[Show full text]