Dissertation Research: The Country House as Laboratory

University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

This is a dissertation research study of science and scientific practices within and beyond late-Victorian and Edwardian country houses. Country house laboratories, observatories, botanical gardens, and museums thrived well into the last third of the nineteenth century, challenging in some ways the middle class visions for professional science put forth in mid-century by figures such as T.H. Huxley, J. Tyndall, and N. Lockyer. The production of scientific knowledge in these private contexts involved a complex network of aristocratic intellectuals, distinct country house values shaped by characteristic religious, political, and social norms, and a social process of research involving collaboration of family members, hired staff, and visiting scientific colleagues. The results of research in these sites contributed significantly to scientific knowledge whilst earning practitioners high reputations among their peers. Despite the political and social conservatism often found in these circles, gentlewomen experienced a high degree of flexibility to pursue their intellectual interests and make original contributions in science during a time when new professional norms, undervalued their participation in more public arenas. Rich collections of documents pertaining to the work and affairs of scientific aristocratic families reveal in detail the operations of these country house laboratories amidst domestic and professional norms. Several well-documented cases demonstrate how such contexts proved to be crucial both for the construction of scientific knowledge and the influence of aristocratic values on new institutions of science. Particularly influential were the scientific households managed by the Rosses, Balfours, Rayleighs, and Sidgwicks. The research funded allows the researcher to undertake a detailed analysis of these cases, as well as several others involving families in related same circles, in order to demonstrate the complicated networks of scientific practices shaped by country house norms which had significant consequences for gender roles and scientific institutional developments. This study thus reinterprets our historical understanding of the developments in late-Victorian science, about which historians have more often emphasized new university and industrial research facilities. The study will show the continuing importance of privately sponsored research well into the Edwardian period. It promises a broader impact both for the public understanding of science, as in the museums at Darwin's Down House and Lord Rosse's Birr Castle, and for a fuller understanding of the way in which the sciences-especially the physical science-have become gendered, relevant to initiatives that encourage women's successes in the sciences. Funds will allow the researcher to conduct archival research of collections still largely unexplored in England, Scotland, and Ireland.