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The Road to Smith: How the Geological Society Came to Possess English Geology

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The Road to Smith: How the Geological Society Came to Possess English Geology Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 The road to Smith: how the Geological Society came to possess English geology SIMON J. KNELL Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7LG, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract: The modern image of the Geological Society owes much to William Smith whom the Society used, in 1831, to claim ascendency over European rivals. At its birth, however, the Society pursued a science adopted from the Continent, which privileged field data and saw mineralogy and chemistry as the sciences of the Earth. The Society’s birth mobilized the nation; its co-operative, mobile, investigative, subtly theoretical and didactic vigour materialized in the production of Greenough’s geological map of England. Yet Smith’s geology spread virus-like, converting the membership in various ways, some acknowledging Smith, others denying him. In possession of Smith’s geology, and impressed by his publications, the Society men emerged from a philosophical wilderness, only to break out in a competitive fever to write an Elements of Geology. The Society’s great supporter, John Farey, broke free, disillusioned and determined to destroy Greenough. Never- theless, Greenough pushed forward with his map, competing directly with Smith and intent on sur- passing him. However, following the development of a powerbase for his geology in Yorkshire, Smith rode into London to be crowned the father of a peculiarly English science. Smith’s map now became the national icon of English geology, less than a decade after the Society had rendered it obsolete. Next to it, Greenough’s map – the Society’s ‘glory’ – symbolized the Society’s co-operative spirit and political acumen, attributes no less important to the science’s advance. Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being this kind lies much of the image of the Society we to achieve a perfect understanding of another? We can know today. Of course, the political manipulation invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to of images such as these is an important role for a know another person, but in the end, how close can society such as this and long has it been so. But we come to that person’s essence? We convince our- selves that we know the other person well, but do we behind its carefully curated image lies a Society really know anything important about anyone? which is and was culturally fluid, adapting to the (Haruki Murakami 2003, The Wind-up Bird changing social, political and intellectual worlds Chronicle, p. 24)1 of which it is a part. Science and its learned societies are socialized Learned societies are both concrete and chameleon. worlds. In order to operate, they deploy scientific They are made material in their buildings, reports, and social values and processes. The breathtaking collections and other objects, but the meanings of intellectual transformation of geology in the early these things are at the command of an ever-changing nineteenth century was paralleled, in ways now cast of actors. As historians we add to a sense of largely invisible to us, by equally radical shifts in tangibility by converting this intangible element how the science was socialized. This paper con- into published sketches and portraits; we turn the siders the relationship between these two aspects ambivalent and ephemeral into a series of plausible of the science and does so by considering a very and persistent narratives. By such means a learned familiar story – that of Smith’s geology. It is a society acquires far greater material form than it story I intend to make more central to understanding has any right to claim. Indeed, the actuality of a the development of geology in Britain in the society comes to us as if the subject of an exhibition early nineteenth century by revealing its hidden of material objects. In the case of the Geological nuances. I shall do so in four ‘Acts’. The first con- Society of London, these objects might include siders the Society’s modern use of William Smith some of the science’s greatest heroes: William as an iconic image in British science, tracing the Smith (1769–1839), Roderick Murchison (1792– origins of this use to 1831 and the presentation 1871), Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873), Charles of the first Wollaston Medal. The second con- Lyell (1797–1875) and William Buckland (1784– siders the period before the Society fell in love 1856). In an arrangement of individual portraits of with Smith, when its own theoretical ideas and 1 Here Toru Okada considers how well he knows the wife who, within a few pages, will leave him. From:LEWIS,C.L.E.&KNELL, S. J. (eds) The Making of the Geological Society of London. The Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 317, 1–47. DOI: 10.1144/SP317.1 0305-8719/09/$15.00 # The Geological Society Publishing House 2009. Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 2 S. J. KNELL extraordinary dynamism proved a new and effective however, simply been an argument about priority; way to do geology in Britain. The third considers it has also been variously modelled as a battle on how Smith entered the Society’s thinking, behalf of the little man, and the practical and utilitar- suggesting that he did so at a time when the ian, and an argument against the power of social and Society itself was entering a period of social intellectual elites. turmoil. Perhaps he was the catalyst for this, for Few historical figures have attracted such com- he demonstrated that the geological wilderness, passion and support. Smith, we might believe, is which many Society men felt encircled them, was the patron saint and guardian of the true religion. not really there. The final part demonstrates that in ‘Any attempt to set him in his context is too order to possess Smith and his ‘English geology’, readily misinterpreted as an iconoclastic attempt to history itself had to be rewritten. At that moment, topple him from his pedestal’, Rudwick (2005, however, there was a developing sense that a p. 443) complained. If, then, an anti-Christ can be Society could not possess and control geology imagined, and it can be a society of individuals, anyway. then that society is the subject of this essay for, as The opening quote, taken from Murakami’s Torrens (2001, p. 61) has put it, in the baldest of acclaimed novel, offers a central theme for this terms: essay for, above all else, this is an essay about not knowing but nevertheless believing. In the political the founding fathers of the Geological Society were unconvinced of the reality or utility of Smith’s discov- turmoil of the Society’s early years, this indefinite eries. Its leaders at first did not believe he had uncov- aspect of life was hugely influential in shaping ered anything of significance and then simply stole relationships and spawning a culture of social inter- much of it. action that aided the science’s rapid advance. It has From his own point of view, and that of his suppor- also shaped the histories that have been written, ters, Smith was undoubtedly visible to the Society’s including those deployed by the Society to construct members, his proven ideas stolen by them for their its present-day image. It is with these points I own purposes, as Torrens has shown so well. shall begin. I have also argued for the pervasiveness of Smith’s influence in nineteenth-century England ACT 1. On the uses of history (Knell 2000). However, the challenge in this present essay is to see things from the other side: Histories of societies to see Smith through the window of the Geological Society. Might events look a little different from this In using William Smith as an avenue of approach to side of the glass? The Society was not born a den of understand the making of the Society, I have to take thieves and it did not pursue its goals at any cost; into account the considerable attention he has social mores, so important to the interactions that received from historians. Indeed, according to the characterize a new society, would, we might present incumbent, Hugh Torrens (2001, p. 62), imagine, have prevented this. Indeed, might it be every generation has had its Smith biographer: true, at least from the Society’s perspective, that William Stephen Mitchell (1840–1892), Arthur Smith was a relatively invisible figure or of no George Davis (1892–1957), Leslie Reginald Cox great significance, and the victim of no crime? (1897–1965) and Joan Mary Eyles (1907–1986), And might our answer change depending on the to name but a few. Each has felt it necessary to period of which we ask the question? The Society, fight for Smith against detractors and romantics. In locked in a reflexive relationship with the world doing so, these historians differ little from many around it, was bound to change. In doing so, the of Smith’s contemporary advocates who, in their meanings of people, ideas and objects also seemed different ways, fought battles for his recognition to change. It was these changing perceptions, I (most notably, John Farey (1766–1826), William shall demonstrate, which changed the way the Henry Fitton (1780–1861), Joseph Townsend science was socialized and in turn affected the (1739–1816), James Parkinson (1755–1824) and way the science progressed.2 By these means William Phillips (1773–1828)). Both historian and the Society came to perceive Smith as the embodi- advocate have used a rich empiricism to defend ment of English geology in a way it had not done their man.
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