Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX87475.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 493-532).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 493-532).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Art History, December 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The late seventeenth century was the golden age of the printed descriptive catalogue. Nehemiah Grew’s 1681 catalogue, Musæum Regalis Societatis, printed for London’s Royal Society, exemplifies this elaborate published genre of early museum literature during a particular moment in time when collecting and ordering were methods of understanding the world. This thesis explores the importance of ephemeral texts in historical study by analyzing the prose used in Grew’s catalogue. Musæum Regalis Societatis opens a window onto late seventeenth-century English culture, providing insight into Grew’s opinions about contemporary religious and political debates and illustrating trends within scientific thought; most notably, the influence of Francis Bacon’s new empirical methods on Grew’s object descriptions. This results in a densely descriptive catalogue with vivid object descriptions, creating a virtual guide to the Repository. However, with the eighteenth-century development of museums as sites of leisure and the rise of experts and professionals in the burgeoning scientific disciplines, there is a noticeable decline in this genre of descriptive catalogue. Thus, Grew’s catalogue exemplifies a critical moment in the late seventeenth century in which scientific catalogues were published for a broad general public. / Graduate

The Royal Society of London, the English scientific society founded in 1660, was involved in a number of disputes in the seventeenth century concerning who was the first person to make an invention or discovery. These priority disputes had a significant effect on the careers of most of the prominent figures in the early Royal Society, including Newton, Boyle and Hooke. Inventions and discoveries were the foundation of the Royal Society?s reputation, and thus needed to be claimed and protected in priority disputes. The subjects of these disputes ranged from solutions to mathematical problems to high-profile experiments. Such disputes frequently pitted Fellows of the Royal Society against intellectuals from the Continent. They were occasions for polemics framed in nationalistic terms, despite the collaborative spirit with which the transnational Republic of Letters purported to operate. This thesis examines how the Royal Society?s priority disputes began, how they functioned once underway, and how they concluded. It focuses on disputes between the Royal Society and its continental rivals, seeking to determine the extent to which nationalism was a factor. It argues that Society members, who were always guided by multiple loyalties, valued their loyalties to themselves, to the Society and to the English nation more than their loyalty to the Republic of Letters. Other social factors that motivated the disputants are also explored, including honour, credibility, and the Society?s ideal of aversion to conflict. This thesis highlights patterns in the behaviour of the participants of seventeenth-century priority disputes. It draws on methodology used in the sociology of science to analyze these patterns, examining the social construction involved in invention and discovery. Case studies are used to illustrate how the participants in priority disputes redefined several entities in ways that suited their own claims to priority: the invention or discovery being disputed, the etiquette of the Republic of Letters, the distinction between invention and innovation, and priority itself. Particular attention is paid to the activities of Henry Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal Society, who communicated on behalf of the Royal Society through his correspondence network and the journal he edited, the Philosophical Transactions. This thesis argues that the Royal Society valued Oldenburg in part for his role in instigating priority disputes with non-English intellectuals, a role to which he was well-suited on account of his many contacts in England and on the Continent, his rhetorical skills, and his experience as a diplomat. It also analyzes the roles of experts like John Wallis and Timothy Clarke in priority disputes, arguing that Oldenburg could call upon them to defend English priority. However, it is noted that these figures (especially Wallis) sometimes abandoned the façade of English unity in favour of causes that affected them more personally, including their own priority claims. Accordingly, they employed the same polemical style in domestic priority disputes that they did in international ones. This study concludes with the suggestion that the polemics of figures like Oldenburg, Clarke and Wallis were crucial to the program of the seventeenth-century Royal Society because conflict, the idea of aversion to conflict notwithstanding, was an acknowledged and valued part of early Royal Society culture.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Warburg Institute, University of London, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-383).

This thesis shows that despite the rhetoric of universalism and internationalism used by the Royal Society, especially after the onset of Cold War, its policies and actions in the period 1945-75 remained closely allied to the interests of the British state. More specifically, in its foreign relations the Society mainly operated within a network of Western intergovernmental organisations that were a response to, and operated in similar ways, to Eastern Bloc organisations. While financially dependent on a Parliamentary grant-in-aid, they effectively carved out a role in the sphere of international scientific relations which was built upon an image of independence from the state. Thus, Society Officers and staff were able to mobilise a double-sided discourse of utility to, and independence from, the state. The association between the government of the day and the Society was at its most effective when a consensus existed between like-minded government administrators and Officers of the Society. A culture of collaboration and informal networks allowed them to build relationships and share ideas. The Society was perfectly designed to facilitate this culture, as its Fellows permeated government networks as individuals as much as they did as direct representatives of the Society. The status of Fellows conferred on them eligibility for a variety of positions, both formal and informal, within the elite infrastructure of national life. The thesis also shows that party political and ideological motivations often prefaced associations between Fellows and like-minded politicians or civil servants, but these associations were principally between economic liberals to the exclusion of far left scientists. However, the Society’s connections with the government were also motivated by reasons beyond party politics. The Society had an overarching aim to preserve the United Kingdom’s position as a scientific ‘Mecca’. In the shifting post-war landscape, in which the country became more dependent on outside help and conscious of its relative decline in economic and political power, the Society looked beyond national borders to stay in the competition. The thesis shows that Officers of the Society responded creatively to the changing geopolitical landscape as old spheres of influence waned, such as the Empire-Commonwealth, and new ones opened up, such as the European Community and the special relationship with America. The Society pursued these new opportunities with patriotic ambition, often prioritising relations that promised scientific rather than political gains, but always within a Western framework.

No description available.

The rise of English Protestantism produced a curious phenomenon in early modern England: the silencing of pipe organs in cathedrals and parish churches across the land. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this ecclesiastical instrument figuratively embodied and literally gave voice to the Roman Catholic Church. Because this ancient technology was perceived to be emblematic of much that was despised in Catholic ritual, it came under assault by the Anglicans, the Puritans, the Monarchy, the Parliament, Oliver Cromwell's army, and even the militant rabble-rouser in the street. My dissertation shows that it was the symbolic role played by the organ that bore the responsibility for this violence. My hypothesis is further enhanced by an investigation of the events immediately following the Commonwealth Era, when the Restoration of the Monarchy resulted in the restoration of the pipe organ. In this detailed case study, I examine the role of the organ as a stable technology in the unstable society of early modern England. During the time that the ecclesiastical organ personified the Roman Catholic Church, it was persecuted. As soon as the balance of power shifted, this symbolism was no longer significant and the King of Instruments was restored to its long-accustomed place in the service of worship in English society. My analysis of the multifaceted relationship that existed between this well-established, essentially transparent technology and the diverse social structures that attempted to annihilate it shows the significance of using the concept of technology as symbol as an appropriate analytical category for interpreting the history of the organ in early modern England. / Ph. D.