Colonial Scientists Research Articles

American colonial scientists who published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Our knowledge of the subsequent course of science clouds analysis of historical scientific activity. We know which lines of investigation stimulated further research and which sank into oblivion. Hindsight allows us to marvel at the brilliance of one scientist and chuckle at the naivety of another with an assurance that was not available to contemporaries. The present study of American colonial science just prior to the American Revolution attempts to avoid this type of bias with a two step method. The first step analyses all communications written by Americans and published in the leading scientific periodical, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These publications are classified and compared to the contributions of scientists who were not Americans. The second step collects the American authors of these papers, defines them as publishing scientists, and examines some characteristics of their personal and professional lives.

Local and District Councils – Should They Be Forgotten?

Local and district councils as institutions of democratic representative government have enjoyed a brief and fragile life in Commonwealth Africa. Furthermore, throughout the period of their existence they have never been a priority concern for either colonial rulers, African leaders, or social scientists, and their very existence has been recently challenged. In a number of countries, particularly those which have experienced military take-overs, the councils have been abolished; where they remain in existence they have been transformed with few exceptions into bodies with even more limited powers and autonomy. Nevertheless, their activities, even if greatly curtailed, still offer a focal point for the study of certain questions of representation and administration in the context of political change in independent black Africa.

Colonial fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661-1788

I. Statutes relating to the admission of Fellows of the Royal Society. That inhabitants of the British colonies in America were sometimes elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London has been known since the foundation of the Society, but no one has attempted to prepare from the Society’s original records a complete list of colonial Fellows. 2 Such a list, as it may indicate the names of those colonial scientists, both amateur and professional, who, by constant intercourse with Fellows of the Royal Society in England and with the Society itself as a corporate body, contributed most to the introduction and development of * 34 experimental philosophy ’ in the New World, it is the purpose of this paper to supply. From the aims and practices both of its immediate predecessors, the groups that met in Oxford and in London, and of a number of its earliest Fellows, the Royal Society inherited as a prime motive of its existence the accurate collection, classification, and interpretation of scientific data from all parts of the world. Such an undertaking required collaborators in remote places, and in the first charter of the Society (15 July 1662),4 for the improvement of the experiments, arts, and sciences of the aforesaid Royal Society/ Charles II granted to the President, Council, and Fellows of the Society, and to their successors, the privilege `. . . to enjoy mutual intelligence and knowledge with all and all manner of strangers and foreigners, whether private or collegiate, corporate or politic, without any molestation, interruption, or disturbance whatsoever: Provided nevertheless, that this our indulgence, so granted as it is aforesaid, be not extended to further use than the particular benefit and interest of the aforesaid Royal Society in matters or things philosophical, mathematical, or mechanical.’ 3

Colonial Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661-1788

I. Statutes relating to the admission of Fellows of the Royal Society. That inhabitants of the British colonies in America were sometimes elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London has been known since the foundation of the Society, but no one has attempted to prepare from the Society’s original records a complete list of colonial Fellows.2 Such a list, as it may indicate the names of those colonial scientists, both amateur and professional, who, by constant intercourse with Fellows of the Royal Society in England and with the Society itself as a corporate body, contributed most to the introduction and development of * 34 experimental philosophy ’ in the New World, it is the purpose of this paper to supply. From the aims and practices both of its immediate predecessors, the groups that met in Oxford and in London, and of a number of its earliest Fellows, the Royal Society inherited as a prime motive of its existence the accurate collection, classification, and interpretation of scientific data from all parts of the world. Such an undertaking required collaborators in remote places, and in the first charter of the Society (15 July 1662),4 for the improvement of the experiments, arts, and sciences of the aforesaid Royal Society/ Charles II granted to the President, Council, and Fellows of the Society, and to their successors, the privilege `. . . to enjoy mutual intelligence and knowledge with all and all manner of strangers and foreigners, whether private or collegiate, corporate or politic, without any molestation, interruption, or disturbance whatsoever: Provided nevertheless, that this our indulgence, so granted as it is aforesaid, be not extended to further use than the particular benefit and interest of the aforesaid Royal Society in matters or things philosophical, mathematical, or mechanical.’ 3

Penn, Collinson and the Royal Society

PENN, COLLINSON AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY By Henry J. Cadbury IN WRITING on "William Penn and the Royal Society" in this Bulletin,1 Luella M. Wright referred to a forthcoming article by Dr. Raymond P. Stearns of the University of Illinois on "Colonial Fellows of the Royal Society in London, 1661-1788." That article was set in type in 1939 at Bruges, for publication in the eighth volume of Osiris. When the Germans overran Belgium it was supposed that the plates were destroyed. Therefore after a time Dr. Stearns's paper was offered to The William and Mary Quarterly where it was published in 1946.a Now word is received3 that Osiris was not destroyed but that the eighth volume will appear shortly containing the same article.4 This article adds nothing significant about Penn's membership and it lists apparently only one other colonial Fellow who was a Friend, John Coakley Lettsom, M.D. (1744-1815), elected in 1773, who "though he resided in England for most of his life, always considered himself a West Indian and was well-known to many colonials who visited London, particularly Benjamin Franklin." It does, however, underline the influence of an English Quaker Fellow in fostering the growth of colonial scientific interest . Dr. Stearns says: Last to be listed herein and probably the most influential of the Fellows of the Royal Society who encouraged scientific investigations in the American, colonies was Peter Collinson. A wealthy business man with extensive mercantile connections in the New World, Collinson devoted much of his energy and wealth to the collection and classification of scientific data from all parts of the world. His early religious affiliation with the Society of Friends appears to have stimulated scientific intercourse with Quakers in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but his insatiate desire for accurate information led him to correspond with many others as well. He was financial benefactor of the Library Society of Philadelphia [sic: should be Library Company of Philadelphia] and friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose interest in electrical experimentation he greatly 1 Bulletin of Friends Historical Association, vol. 30 (1941), pp. 8-10. 2 Third Series, vol. 3 (1946), pp. 208-268. 3 Ibid., p. 457. 4 Vol. 8, pp. 72-121. 19 20 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION stimulated. Collinson's colonial correspondents included nearly all the most prominent colonial scientists, both amateur and professional, of the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Besides Franklin, James Logan, Christopher Witt, Dr. John Mitchell, William Byrd, Dr. John Kearsley, Isham Randolph, Dr. Cadwallader Colden, and John Bartram were Collinson 's regular correspondents in scientific matters over a period of about twenty-five years. The Royal Society had no other member so active in promoting the introduction and development of scientific learning in the New World ; and many colonial Fellows of the Royal Society in the list which follows immediately owed their election entirely or in part to Peter Collinson's efforts on their behalf.5 As for William Penn's membership some further remarks may be added. The Record of the Royal Society of London on page 384 of its list of Fellows, published in 1940, duly notes Penn's election thus: 1681 9 Nov. Penn, William (Founder of Pennsylvania). Similar was the entry in the third edition, 1912, but the second edition of 1901 did not contain the words "Founder of Pennsylvania " and the first edition of 1897 published no list of Fellows at all. Norman Penney writing in 1909 used the 1901 edition of the Record and was therefore justified in asking who this William Penn was.8 There was, however, even then in print an early identification of the name. "Brief Lives," chiefly of Contemporaries , set down by John Aubrey between the Years 1669 and 1696 includes under the year 1681 in its valuable brief life of William Penn this sentence, He was chosen (ballotted) November 9th, nemine contradicente, admitted Fellow of the Royal Societie, London, with much respecte.7 This interesting life of Penn was not included in the earlier less complete and less accurate publication of Aubrey's Lives in the second volume of Letters Written by Eminent Persons . . . and Lives of Eminent Men (London, 1813). John...

Colonial Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661-1788

I. Statutes relating to the admission of Fellows of the Royal Society. That inhabitants of the British colonies in America were sometimes elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London has been known since the foundation of the Society, but no one has attempted to prepare from the Society’s original records a complete list of colonial Fellows.2 Such a list, as it may indicate the names of those colonial scientists, both amateur and professional, who, by constant intercourse with Fellows of the Royal Society in England and with the Society itself as a corporate body, contributed most to the introduction and development of * 34 experimental philosophy ’ in the New World, it is the purpose of this paper to supply. From the aims and practices both of its immediate predecessors, the groups that met in Oxford and in London, and of a number of its earliest Fellows, the Royal Society inherited as a prime motive of its existence the accurate collection, classification, and interpretation of scientific data from all parts of the world. Such an undertaking required collaborators in remote places, and in the first charter of the Society (15 July 1662),4 for the improvement of the experiments, arts, and sciences of the aforesaid Royal Society/ Charles II granted to the President, Council, and Fellows of the Society, and to their successors, the privilege `. . . to enjoy mutual intelligence and knowledge with all and all manner of strangers and foreigners, whether private or collegiate, corporate or politic, without any molestation, interruption, or disturbance whatsoever: Provided nevertheless, that this our indulgence, so granted as it is aforesaid, be not extended to further use than the particular benefit and interest of the aforesaid Royal Society in matters or things philosophical, mathematical, or mechanical.’ 3