Science and engineering: a case study in British experience in the mid-nineteenth century

Abstract

By 1870, civil and mechanical engineers had both achieve a substantial measure of institutional and professional recognition in Britain. The great boom in industrial development and the construction of transport systems had ensured them places of importance and honour in mid-Victorian society. Several engineers had received knighthoods and become members of parliament. Many had grown rich from the practice of their skills, and had acquired large houses and landed estates (1). Yet behind this new-found panoply of power and influence, the great engineers of nineteenth century Britain remained essentially the same as the diligent artisans, millwrights, surveyors, and craftsmen, from whom the engineering profession had sprung in the previous century.