Science in provincial society: the case of Liverpool in the early nineteenth century.

Abstract

Summary This paper seeks to describe the attitudes to science of the higher classes of Liverpool in the early nineteenth century. It does so by examining the roles which science played in the town's major cultural institutions. Consideration of the membership and activities of these societies suggests that most of Liverpool's wealthier citizens saw science as merely one component of a general literary culture; a polite, recreational form of science was best suited for this role. A small group of middle-class men held science in much higher esteem, valuing it particularly as an educational tool. This function was best fulfilled, they believed, by a mathematical and experimental form of science, but few of their fellow citizens shared their opinions and successive attempts to teach this form of science foundered.