Restoration Oxford science: Robert Plot, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Oxford Philosophical Society

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Oxford's chymical community came together in the Ashmolean Museum. Founded in 1683, the institution was part of Oxford University and home to the first official chair of chymistry in the country, with practical teaching directed by Robert Plot in the basement laboratory. The information at our disposal is scarce and Plot did not leave us detailed accounts of his laboratory work. However, a large assemblage of ceramic crucibles and distillation apparatus was recovered from the site where the laboratory once operated, an invaluable material perspective on the experimental agenda of one of the most important chymical laboratories in early modern Europe. The scientific analysis of the materials indicates that the work focused on technological innovation in the fields of glassmaking, specialised pottery, and zinc metallurgy, and shows how the laboratory kept close contact with some renowned artisan-entrepreneurs of the time. We argue that material culture offers an informative perspective on chymical practice in and beyond Oxford. The results provide fresh insight into the Old Ashmolean Museum, an institution that grew out of the Baconian spirit, where doing chymistry meant working at the intersection of artisanal and scholarly worlds.

DR. ROBERT PLOT (1640-1697) is a fairly important figure in the chemical history of the late seventeenth century. Accounts of his chemical work 1 at Oxford and of his life and scientific work 2 generally have been given by R. T. Gunther. We may recall here Plot's animadversions on chemical matters, contained in his Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677) and his Natural Hist01'Y of Staffordshire (1686), and the fact that he became in 1683 the first Professor of Chemistry in the University of Oxford, where he read the first chemical lectures and was responsible for the fitting out of the elaboratory in the vaults of the Ashmolean Museum. Among the manuscripts left by him, but now lost sight of, was a copy of his lectures, which bore the title Praelectiones Chymicae in Schola Naturalis Historiae Oxon. habitae: Gunther's statement S that samples of these are preserved in MS Rawlinson D 888, at the Bodleian, is incorrect, for this MS contains only the title in a list of Plot's MSS. We have therefore no direct evidence as to how far alchemy entered into Plot's lectures, but from his statement (p. 71) that he had kept his connection with the subject secret, we may infer that it did not. In fact Plot's connection with alchemy long remained unknown to his biographers, for the notice of the manuscript which affords the evidence thereof (Sloane 3646 in the British Museum) appeared in Ayscough's Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the British Museum (London, 1782, p. 491) as I ROB. PLOTT [Professor of Chymist~y, Oxon.] Collection of papers, chiefly chymical', without any reference to alchemy. Gunther consulted this MS, gave some account of it, and quoted two passages (op. elit. note 2, pp. 355-6, 411-3), but failed to point out the alchemical character of its contents or to mention the very interesting papers transcribed on pp. 70-74 below. It may be noted that Gunther commonly omitted to make any mention of the alchemical studies of his subjects, and his work therefore gives a somewhat misleading picture of such men as Fludd, Ashmole and Plot. For this reason it has been thought advisable to give some account of the above MS and to transcribe certain passages.

In late 1683, the physician and F.R.S. Martin Lister displayed to the Royal Society a new way of recording barometric observations, which amounted in all but name to the construction of line graphs. The innovation was communicated to the Oxford Philosophical Society, where Robert Plot used the method to display a year’s observations, published in the Philosophical Transactions early in 1685. At the Dublin Philosophical Society, William Molyneux displayed a month’s worth of observations kept in the same way during May 1684. Lister’s own engraved forms—what amounted to graph paper—circulated among these groups but are not known to survive; Molyneux had forms of his own engraved. Finally, the London instrument maker John Warner engraved his own version of a similar form for recording weather observations and offered it to Plot. Two exemplars survive, but neither Warner’s offer nor this graphical method itself seem to have been more widely taken up in this period. This paper reviews the evidence for this early interest in and promotion of line graphs and graph paper, a century before the wider uptake of these technologies.

Dr. Robert Plot (1640 - 1696) is perhaps best known as the first Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (opened in 1683), although he also served as Professor of Chemistry in the University and as Secretary and Editor to the Royal Society. Since Plot apparently had a reputation for greediness, it is arguably somewhat surprising that he accepted the Ashmolean Keepership; it was, as its second holder, Edward Lhwyd (1660 - 1709), pointed out, "a mean place, seeing that there is no salary" (Vernon and Vernon, 1909, p. 17). However, despite being described by Lhwyd as having "as bad morals as ever M. A. had, " Plot was a man of extensive learning and a prolific publisher. Probably his most famous work is The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677), which includes accounts of 'formed stones', many of which can easily be recognised as being fossils in the modern sense of the term. Plot, however, was no believer in the organic origin of even these. One of them, recognisable from Plot's illustration as an internal mould of the Upper Jurassic bivalve Myophorella hudlestoni, was described as "the most like to the head of a Horse as anything I can think of " and therefore given the name Hippocephaloides.

This paper is based on the archaeological and analytical study of the laboratory remains from the Officina Chimica of the Old Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Following a contextualisation of this laboratory, founded in the wake of Bacon’s utopian idea of Solomon’s Temple, it is argued that the assemblage is likely to date from the late seventeenth century and thus be connected to the work of Robert Plot, Christopher White, and, indirectly, Robert Boyle. The analytical study of the equipment reveals that the chymists at the Old Ashmolean obtained crucibles from the best manufacturers in Europe, and that they used these and other utensils for experiments involving mercury, sulphur, zinc, lead glass, manganese, and antimony. The importance of these elements for early modern chymistry is discussed in the light of relevant historical sources, including some of Boyle’s chymical texts. Altogether, these finds illustrate some of the rich diversity of experiments that took place in one of the most prominent laboratories of the period, showing strong connections with longstanding alchemical concerns as well as with cutting-edge research and development ventures.

near Oswestry but visited fairly frequently his mother and her family at Gogerddan in north Cardiganshire. He entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1682 and immediately attracted the attention of Dr Robert Plot, the Professor of Chemistry. He assisted him in his experimental work and later he became his assistant in the Ashmolean Museum. He followed Plot as the Keeper of the Museum in 1691 and until 1693 he

<i>The John Tradescants: Gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen</i>. Prudence Leith-Ross<i>Tradescant's Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean Museum, 1683; with a Catalogue of the Surviving Early Collections</i>. Arthur MacGregor<i>Elias Ashmole, 1617-1692: A Tercentenary Exhibition</i>. Michael Hunter<i>The Ashmolean Museum and Oxford Science, 1683-1983</i>. A. V. Simcock

In May 1685, John Beaumont, of Ston Easton in the Mendips region of Somerset, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He had already published several papers in the society’s Philosophical Transactions and Philosophical Collections and was a friend of leading Royal Society members such as Robert Hooke and Edward Tyson. His close observations of the geology of the Mendip hills and mines, and the specimens he collected from such studies, brought him praise from the new generation of natural historians such as Robert Plot and John Ray, and both the Royal Society and the Oxford Philosophical Society were keen to see him publish the natural history of Somerset, for which he issued proposals earlier in 1685. Although this history never materialised, there was praise for his most substantial work of geology, his 1693 Considerations on Dr Burnet’s Theory of the Earth, which offered a sustained critique of Burnet’s Cartesian account of the current earth as the ruins of a former perfect globe, of his account of how the deluge had produced such catastrophic change, and of his view of the future fiery destruction of the world. Beaumont used his own observational data, as well as arguments from biblical and classical scholarship and other natural histories, to argue for the evidence of design in the world as currently formed. Hence Beaumont earns his place in Roy Porter’s account of the earth sciences in this period as one of the best field workers, with a significant collection of fossils and stones, and as an effective theorist of the earth in the natural history (and natural design) tradition.1

A few years ago Paul Robinson of the Devizes Museum found a uniface medal for sale in a local market. It bears the name of the British Archaeological Association and its foundation date, 1843. Robinson asked this author about where and when it was issued. A search through the Association's Journal revealed several references to the Association having issued medals for some of its early annual meetings. Enquiries to the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, and to the Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, demonstrated the existence of four medals and another struck by the Association's first President, Lord Albert Conynham. Furthermore, the scrapbooks of Charles Roach Smith, the Association's first Honorary Secretary, in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, contain several documents which elucidate the history of the medals. These medals and that produced for the Reginald Taylor Essay Prize are of sufficient interest to warrant description as an interesting and largely unknown aspect of the Association's history. The Association's first congress, after its foundation in 1843, was held at Canterbury between 9 and 14 September 1844. To commemorate the visit, silver and bronze medals were struck by W. J. Taylor. A newspaper announcement mentions the medal: 'The figures on the obverse allegorically represent the society by a hand pouring oil from a Roman flask into a Roman lamp'.! The reverse is decorated with the arms of Canterbury. A printed announcement stated that 'Mr. W. J. Taylor begs to inform Members of the BRITISH ARCHiEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, this his Medal, struck to commemorate the FIRST ANNUAL MEETING of the Association, is on sale for a short time, at 6 shillings in bronze and 12 shillings in silver; if sent by post, prepayment, with an additional six pence, will be required. The Medals are only to be obtained of the Artist, and of C. R. SMITH, Esq., Honorary Secretary of the Association, who has kindly permitted a quantity to remain for distribution at his residence, 5, Liverpool Street, Cit. Ear{y application is requested.' The announcement is dated I October 1844, with the address 3 Litchfield Street, Soho.2 Roach Smith's scrapbook for the congress includes manuscript lists of subscribers for the medals, signed by the members, with the note 'The Secretary will receive the Subscriptions and give a Voucher for the delivery of the Medal'; the medals, presumably available for members at the congress, were priced at four shillings, case included. The lists, headed by the President, Lord Albert Conynham, with six medals, have some sixtynine individuals ordering eighty-six medals, only two of them in silver.3 Several complimentary medals were despatched, for the scrapbook contains three letters of thanks: one from the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, dated I October 1844, 'for a Bronze medal struck on the anniversary of the meeting of the British Archaeological Society'; one from the Herefordshire Natural History, Philosophical, Antiquarian and Literary Society, dated 4 November 1844; the other from Les

Essay Review: “A World of Wonders in One Closet Shut”: Elias Ashmole 1617–1692: The Founder of the Ashmolean Museum and His World, Tradescant's Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean Museum 1683 with a Catalogue of the Surviving Early Collections, the Ashmolean Museum and Oxford Science 1683–1983

The work offers a view of the social and cultural context for collecting of natural history in late seventeenth-century England. It seeks to show the continuing intrinsic connection between chorography, antiquarianism, natural history, and even applied mathematics, and the interest of such matters for the University of Oxford. An introductory chapter places chorography in its European cosmological context before looking at details of its study—in both its antiquarian and practical aspects—in Early Modern England, and the methods by which it was pursued there. Parallels are drawn with similar activity in France and Germany. In the following chapters, through an account of the work of Robert Plot, the way in which his writings established a new form of chorographical natural history investigation and writing is described, and how this work fed into, and in part provoked, the foundation of the Ashmolean Musæum as a non-collegiate, university institution, in Oxford. Activity in the Musæum during its early years is described as is the work of the Philosophical Society that met within it. The composition of this body is analysed. A final chapter describes Plot’s influence, and his successors up to the very early eighteenth century. The eight appendices supply an essential documentary underpinning for the work offering new material on the burial of Plot, the bibliography of his works and his portraits, and supplies hitherto unpublished documents concerning the Oxford Philosophical Society and science lectures.

This chapter surveys works on the natural and physical sciences, geography and mathematics, and discusses how from the mid-seventeenth century new scholarship worked to capitalize on the opportunities provided by the emerging press and analyzes the difficulties of publishing and selling such material. The work of Robert Plot, first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and secretary of the Royal Society, and John Wallis, the first president of the Philisophical Society, established the Learned Press as a centre of scientific publishing. The chapter focuses on books concerned with the history and investigation of the natural world, providing detailed accounts of their inception and publication and considering their wider scholarly significance. The scientific endeavours of the Press are situated in the wider context of English and, more significantly, Dutch and other European scientific publications.

Although discoveries of big bones from Stonesfield are recorded, records from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are sparse. In 1677 Robert Plot, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, described a dinosaur bone from another north Oxfordshire locality. His description of the specimen as the remains of a formerly living animal rather than a formed stone or sport of nature indicates an advance in the understanding of the true nature of fossils. Further bones were discovered in the eighteenth century but naturalists struggled to identify which animals they might have come from. The giant jaw bone purchased by Christopher Pegge in 1797 roused the curiosity of Oxford Professor of Geology William Buckland and stimulated him to acquire more material from the Stonesfield workers. His good working relationship with these individuals gave him access to tacit knowledge gleaned in the course of their work which may provide clues to some of the unanswered questions about the Stonesfield finds.

Regarded by many as a leading thinker of the twentieth century, Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) was an Oxford philosopher who specialized in the history of ideas, the philosophy of history, and moral and political philosophy. As a child he witnessed a scene of brutality during the Russian Revolution that had a great impact upon him, leaving him with a life‐long wariness toward the potential of ideologies such as communism to lead people to commit great cruelties; indeed, Berlin was later to become an important “Cold War liberal.” With respect to ethics, he is chiefly of interest for his doctrine of value pluralism and the related account of liberty as presented in his famous 1958 essay, “Two Concepts of Liberty” (Berlin 2002). How the two are related has been a matter of considerable controversy.

Regarded by many as a leading thinker of the twentieth century, Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) was an Oxford philosopher who specialized in the history of ideas, the philosophy of history, and moral and political philosophy. As a child he witnessed a scene of brutality during the Russian Revolution that had a great impact upon him, leaving him with a life‐long wariness toward the potential of ideologies such as communism to lead people to commit great cruelties; indeed, Berlin was later to become an important “Cold War liberal.” With respect to ethics, he is chiefly of interest for his doctrine of value pluralism and the related account of liberty as presented in his famous 1958 essay, “Two Concepts of Liberty.” How the two are related has been a matter of considerable controversy.