From Practical Men to Scientific Experts: British Veterinary Surgeons and the Development of Government Scientific Expertise, C. 1878–1919

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONUsing veterinary surgeons as a case study, this paper aims to develop a new perspective on scientific expertise within late nineteenth and early twentienth century British government. The importance of such expertise - which was defined, by the 1880s, as special skill or knowledge,' is widely recognised by historians. First appointed as inspectors under reforming mid-nineteenth century legislation in public health, animal health, fisheries, factories, railways and mines, government experts grew more numerous over time as the state became more interventionist. Their roles included information gathering and reporting, research, inspection, the enforcement of legislation and provision of policy advice.2For administrative historians, the rise of the government expert is important in explaining the nineteenth century expansion of the state and its approaches to governance.3 For historians of science, technology and medicine, it illustrates the growth of new professional roles and specialisms, and the government's changing attitude to science and health.4 Their investigations have produced a rich body of literature that examines the growth of policy and administration, the biographies of key figures, the duties of experts, their professionalization and place within government, and the scientific aspects of their work.5 However these accounts have overlooked some important issues.Firstly, despite a growing body of work that examines expertise in a contemporary context, and in relation to the early modem state,6 accounts of the late nineteenth and early twentienth centuries are more concerned with experts than expertise, which is usually regarded as an unproblematic attribute of the expert. Secondly, when expertise is addressed it is frequently conflated with the conduct of scientific research. This privileging of research, particularly laboratory-based experimentalism, is a weakness found more generally in accounts of late nineteenth-century science. It has attracted criticism for emphasising the laboratory revolution at the expense of non-research science and the routine technical, advisory and administrative work commonly performed by scientific experts.7 Although some insights into this work are offered by Hamlin's account of chemical experts and Crooks's study of nineteenth-century nuisance inspectors, there is still a limited understanding of expertise required to perform it.8 Thirdly, scientific expertise has not been sufficiently contextualised. Little is known about how it shaped and was shaped by government policy, administrative structures, and experts' identities, roles, status and relationships. How scientists' expertise related to that possessed by the lay government officials they worked with is another neglected topic.9In addressing these issues, this paper aims to reach a better understanding of the nature of government scientific expertise, the reasons for its change over time, how it operated within government, and with what effects. Government veterinary surgeons offer an appropriate case study due to their important and expanding role in the state-led control of contagious livestock diseases. While this role has been studied in relation to the history of animal health policy, veterinary expertise has not been explicitly addressed.101 will analyse this phenomenon using two livestock diseases as a lens: contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP) and swine fever. The control of these conditions successively dominated state veterinary agendas over the period 1878-1919. They provoked numerous enquiries, debates, reports and correspondence, which I draw on to illustrate the nature of state veterinary expertise.The first half of the paper focuses on veterinary responses to CBPP, a severe and frequently fatal disease of cattle. Its control placed new demands on veterinary surgeons appointed by local and central government. Early failures resulted in the restructuring of veterinary services to privilege certain types of expertise, and the subsequent improvement of disease understandings and policy controls through experience of managing CBPP in the field. …