THE DIARY OF CHARLES BLAGDEN: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND THE GENTLEMAN OF SCIENCE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Hannah Wills UCL Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 1 DECLARATION I, Hannah Wills, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am immensely grateful for the support of my supervisors, Simon Werrett and Keith Moore, whose encouragement has helped me to make this collaborative doctoral project my own. Simon’s guidance through my master’s thesis and this dissertation has been fantastic. His comments have greatly shaped this research, and have made the project more enjoyable. Keith’s knowledge of the Royal Society archives, and his enthusiasm for Blagden, has brought to light more interesting stories than I could ever have imagined, and I am thankful for his help. I would like to acknowledge funding for this project from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am also grateful to the British Society for the History of Science, the Royal Historical Society, the Department of Science and Technology Studies at UCL, and the Royal Society, for funding to travel to archives and conferences. At the Royal Society, I have benefitted from the knowledge and assistance of Rupert Baker and all the library staff, who have helped me to navigate the Society’s fantastic collections. I would also like to thank the staff of the following archives for their help and expertise: the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the British Library, Gloucestershire Archives, the Medical Historical Library at Yale, the Natural History Museum, and the Wellcome Library. Staff and graduate students in the History of Science and Medicine department at Yale made me feel very welcome during my archival visits, and I am thankful for all their help. From the beginning of this project, I have enjoyed the support and friendship of research students and staff in the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership consortium. Thanks especially go to my fellow finishing CDP-ers Anna Mckay, Gemma Almond, Hannah Mawdsley, and Rebecca Lawton for tea and cake, bastle visits, and moral support. I would also like to thank all the academic and administrative staff in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at UCL, who have made the PhD an enjoyable and enriching experience. The PhD student group, past and present, has been a great source of inspiration, without which my ideas would not have taken the form they have. I would like to thank you all. Special thanks 3 go to Claudia Cristalli, Edd Bankes, Erika Jones, Farrah Lawrence-Mackey, katherine cecil, Rebecca Martin, and Sadie Harrison, whose camaraderie during the final stages of the PhD has given me the encouragement and laughs needed to carry on. I am grateful to my family, who have always supported my historical interests, and especially to my parents and brother, who never cease to ask for the latest gossip from the diary. Above all, I am thankful to Ed Halford, for listening to every presentation at least ten times, reading every chapter and application several times more, and for knowing as much about Blagden now as I do. I look forward to our next adventure together. 4 ABSTRACT This thesis provides a transcription and examination of the diary of Charles Blagden (1748-1820), physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. The diary is here understood as a ‘paper tool’ for managing information, that assisted Blagden’s efforts in fashioning his identity as a gentleman. Informed by a variety of manuscript genres, the diary operated as an aide-memoire, in accordance with eighteenth-century understandings of associationism. Blagden used the diary to advance through patronage and emulation, by cultivating relationships with eminent male scholars—the chemist Henry Cavendish and president of the Royal Society Joseph Banks. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of alternative cultures of advancement that favoured meritocracy and scientific publication over displays of patronage. This thesis reassesses key events in Blagden’s career, in the priority dispute known as the ‘water controversy’ and the Royal Society ‘dissensions’ of the 1780s, as examples where such cultures of advancement conflicted. In building his career, Blagden undertook natural philosophical investigations with his patrons, supported by his diary. This thesis exposes Blagden’s scientific agenda, and his approach to record keeping, as examples of eighteenth-century ‘oeconomy’. Though Blagden had sought the patronage of Banks and Cavendish, this strategy did not furnish him with the gentlemanly status he desired. Dissatisfied by the rate of advancement and reward, Blagden increasingly attached himself to a community of socially elevated women in London in the 1790s, whose lifestyle he emulated in order to pursue his social ambitions, as seen in his diary for the year 1795. Exploring the development of Blagden’s diary reveals the role of a material object in assisting the self-fashioning of the identity of the gentleman of science in Britain, at the end of the eighteenth century. 5 IMPACT STATEMENT This thesis provides new insights into Georgian science in Britain, which will benefit the discipline and future scholarship. In examining Blagden’s diary, this thesis contributes a new source for understanding British science and its communities at the end of the eighteenth century. The diary has received little attention in the current scholarship, in part owing to its difficult handwriting and cryptic prose. One of the key impacts of this research is the annotated transcription it provides of a section of the diary, as a deciphered sample of Blagden’s difficult handwriting, making this source more accessible to historians. In exploring the development of Blagden’s career and processes of self- fashioning, the argument presented here draws attention to an overlooked community within the history of science, comprised of a network of influential women in London, who participated in natural philosophy. This research contributes to new scholarship on these neglected historical actors and will help to diversify the history of science and its representation in curricula, by broadening academic understandings of the communities engaged in scientific practice. This impact will be achieved by publishing in scholarly journals, which I have begun to do, and will feed into teaching by influencing the development of projects aimed at liberating the curriculum. Outside academia, this research may have a cultural impact in changing understandings of the kinds of communities engaged in science throughout history. This impact will be achieved through engagement activities, in the form of workshops, exhibitions, and talks, several of which I have already undertaken in the UCL museums. The insights into information management on paper presented in this thesis may contribute to contemporary discussions of memory and information overload. This impact could be achieved by making transcription of Blagden’s diary available to broader audiences by publishing online, in conjunction with other projects that explore manuscript notes and paper tools. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of figures 9 PART ONE PREFACE 11 I. A brief biography of Charles Blagden 11 II. A history of the diary and its provenance 15 III. Genres of clientage and patronage in 17 the eighteenth century INTRODUCTION 19 I. Natural philosophical diaries and 25 Georgian science II. Methodology: information management 32 and ‘paper tools’ III. Outline of the thesis 37 CHAPTER ONE: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND GENRE IN BLAGDEN’S DIARY I. Introduction 40 II. Blagden’s interest in memory and the 41 ‘association of ideas’ III. Medical practice and the art of 49 notetaking IV: Commonplace books as information 55 storage devices V. Voyage narratives, travel writing, and 61 Blagden’s early diary VI. Conclusion 66 CHAPTER TWO: PATRONAGE AND CULTURES OF ADVANCEMENT IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY I. Introduction 67 II. Blagden’s ambitions for status and 69 fortune III. Gifts, information, and the role of the 73 diary in securing patronage IV. Conflicting cultures of advancement and 80 the water controversy V. Professional cultures and gentlemanly 89 patronage during the Royal Society ‘dissensions’ VI. Conclusion 94 7 CHAPTER THREE: BLAGDEN’S ‘OECONOMIC’ NATURAL PHILOSOPHY I. Introduction 96 II. Defining ‘oeconomy’ 98 III. The ‘bookkeeping approach’ in 102 recordkeeping and oeconomy IV. Temperature, the body, and climate in 107 Blagden’s early investigations V. Agriculture, industry, and ‘improvement’ 112 in Blagden and Banks’s oeconomic agenda VI. Conclusion 119 CHAPTER FOUR: THE COLLAPSE OF BLAGDEN’S PATRONAGE RELATIONSHIPS I. Introduction 121 II. Expectations for work and reward in 123 Blagden and Banks’s relationship III. Closeness and distance in the 129 emotional role of Blagden’s writing IV. The absence of writing as an aid to 135 forgetting V. Physical distance and Blagden’s solution 138 to his ‘rupture’ with Banks VI. Conclusion 141 CHAPTER FIVE: ‘THE ELEVATED RANKS OF SOCIETY’: BLAGDEN BETWEEN FEMALE NETWORKS AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY I. Introduction 143 II. ‘Gay Circles’ and ‘Elevated ranks’ 145 III. Elegant life in ‘the town’ 151 IV. Blagden as a go-between among 156 female networks V. Blagden’s rewards and paying ‘attention’ 165 VI. Conclusion 169 CONCLUSION 171 PART TWO 1795: A YEAR TRANSCRIBED FROM BLAGDEN’S DIARY I. Note on the transcription 177 II. Note on annotations 178 III. Transcription 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 8 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Page from Blagden’s diary for the year 1795. Royal Society, CB/3/3, f. 73r. (Charles Blagden, diary entry, 27 Oct. 1795). Figure 2. Page from Blagden’s case notes recording the case of Mary Hay. The date is given in the left-hand margin. Alongside is a brief record of changes in symptoms and remedies.