Assistants to enlightenment: William Lewis, Alexander Chisholm and invisible technicians in the Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Artisans, assistants and technicians in laboratories remain largely anonymous amid the rapidly expanding experimental practice of the eighteenth century. Where their activities can be traced, it is apparent that the binary conceptions of scholar and craftsman, of philosopher and practitioner, hardly held during the first industrial revolution. Who actually did the work in the early-modern laboratory remains an important issue. In the case explored in this article, William Lewis, chemical lecturer, and Josiah Wedgwood, pottery manufacturer, both employed the skill and expertise of Alexander Chisholm. Chisholm moved among industrial innovators, gathering the knowledge of workmen, and promoted the experimental method ultimately employed in the Wedgwood manufactory.