CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL FOR UNDERGRADUATES
HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN 19TH CENTURY LONDON
Key Information
Module code
Taught during
Module workload
Module leader
Department
Credit
Level
Pre-requisites
Assessment
ISSU1007
Block One: Monday 4 July - Friday 22 July 2016
45 teaching hours plus approximately 100 study hours
Professor Joe Cain
Science and Technology Studies, Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences
0.5 UCL credits, 7.5 ECTS, 4 US
Level 1, first year Undergraduate
Standard entry requirements
3,000-word research paper (100%)
Module Overview
Science rapidly expanded in nineteenth century Britain. This module explores that expansion through the lens
of London, the great metropolis. We explore different settings: museums, laboratories, lecture halls, publishing
devices, parlours, and private collections. We also explore different communities: professional societies,
amateur clubs, working men’s clubs, and ephemeral consumer activity. How did these many venues come
together to create an integrated world for science? How the relationship between science and the public
evolve over this period? Does it matter that these took place in London, rather than anywhere else?
Week One
 Seminar: London is a Metropolis
 Site visits: The Natural History Museum and The Science Museum, Docklands Museum, National
Maritime Museum, British Museum
Week Two
 Seminar: Science in a Gentleman’s Club
 Site visits: Royal Society, Royal Institution, Burlington House (Linnean Society and Geological Society),
Florence Nightingale Museum, Oxford or Cambridge
Week Three
 Seminar: Science meets Society
 Site visits: Grant Museum of Zoology, Royal College of Surgeons, Down House (Charles Darwin’s home)
or Royal Botanic Gardens Kew or Highgate Cemetery
Specific visits may vary each year, as we adapt to special events and student interest. These are indicative.
Please note that this module description is indicative and may be subject to change.
1
Module Aims
Science rapidly expanded in 19th century Britain. This module explores that expansion through the lens of
great metropolis that was London. We examine a variety of settings, including museums, laboratories, lecture
halls, publishing devices, parlours, and private collections. We also examine a variety of communities, including
professional societies, amateur clubs, working men’s clubs, and ephemeral consumer activity. How did these
many venues come together to create an integrated world for science? How the relationship between science
and the public evolve over this period?
This module includes visits to some of London's main attractions related to 19th century science. Specific visits
may vary, but possible options include: Natural History Museum and The Science Museum, Crystal Palace Park,
Downe House, Royal Institution, Royal College of Surgeons, Docklands Museum, Royal Botanic Garden Kew.
We also will travel either to Oxford or Cambridge to visit their museums, and we will have at least one walking
tour to visit some of the scientific clubs near Piccadilly Circus.
Teaching Methods
This class combines classroom seminars and site visits around London with site-related project work.
seminars
Seminars run 2 x1hr sessions per week for 3 weeks for one term. They will involve group discussions based on
assigned readings as well as presentations by the module leader. The goals of these seminars are to cover basic
intellectual frameworks for the module and to focus attention on assessment. Students will have a bibliography
of supporting readings.
site visits
The module will have three site visits per week, one per day, over the three weeks. These will be to publicly
accessible venues in London, primarily museums. For London venues, students will be expected to travel on
their own resources to the specified meeting point. Students will be directed to suitable transport to return to
campus. (Cain has more than two decades experience leafing walking tours and site visits. All these venues
have been visits by his tours with UCL students before, and alternatives with accessibility issues or more-thanminimal risk concerns have been excluded.)
research paper
•
3,000 word project
The briefing note will be due before the end of the module and it will focus on one of the site visits. In essence,
students will be asked to prepare a descriptive paper about the locality in preparation for the visit.
The research paper will engage key analytical questions associated with the themes of the course, such as
professionalization, biography, science and religion, knowledge in transit, and popular science. The research
report will be due shortly after the module ends.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this module, students will:
 Demonstrate knowledge about the origins of science in its modern, professional sense
 Demonstrate knowledge about key individuals, institutions, and themes of 19thC science
 Relate the geographical landscape of London to the intellectual and social landscape of science as it
developed over the 19th century
 Demonstrate an ability to research historical topics, including collecting and assessing primary sources
 Relate geographic and architectural knowledge to other types of historical artefacts
 Approach new material about the geography of science from a historical perspective
 Demonstrate critical analysis of science communication and public engagement over a variety of
venues
Please note that this module description is indicative and may be subject to change.
2
Assessment Methods

3,000-word research paper (100%)
Key Texts
Explore a tourist guide and map of London
Stanford, Edward. 1860. Stanford's new London guide: with two maps. London: Edward Stanford.
<tinyurl.com/sts368>
Cary. 1837. "Cary's New Plan of London and its Vicinity, 1837. Shewing the Limits of the Two-penny Post
Delivery. Published by Authority of His Majesty's Post Master General.". Cary.
http://mapco.net/cary1837/cary.htm
Some key primary sources
Acland, Henry W., and John Ruskin. 2008 [1859]. The Oxford Museum. London: Euston Grove Press.
<tinyurl.com/sts367>
Babbage, Charles. 1830. Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of its Causes. London:
Fellowes. <tinyurl.com/sts365>
Faraday, Michael. [1861]. The Chemical History of a Candle. London: Chatto and Windus.
<tinyurl.com/sts369>
Hunt, Robert. 1851. "The Science of the Great Exhibition." In Industry of All Nations Exhibition: The Art
Journal Illustrated Catalogue, edited by AJ. London: The Art Journal. <tinyurl.com/sts364>
Mantell, Gideon. 1851. Petrifactions and Their Teachings, or A Hand-Book to the Gallery of Organic Remains.
London: Henry G. Bohn. <tinyurl.com/sts362>
Roscoe, Thomas. [1839]. The London and Birmingham Railway; with the Home and Country Scenes on Each
Side of the Line. London: Charles Tilt.
UoL. [1826, 1828] 1991. "UoL 1826 University of London Prospectus, with medical classes 1828 File " In The
Wrord of UCL 1828-1990, edited by Negley Harte and John North, 17-19, 32. London: University
College London. < tinyurl.com/sts361>
Waterhouse Hawkins, Benjamin. 1854. "On Visual Education As Applied to Geology, Illustrated By Diagrams
and Models of the Geological Restorations at the Crystal Palace." Journal of the Society of Arts 2
(78):443-449. <tinyurl.com/sts360>
Some key secondary sources
Barton, Ruth. 1990. "An Influential Set of Chaps: The X-Club and Royal Society Politics, 1864-85." British
Journal for the History of Science 23:53-81.
Bellon, Richard. 2007. "Science at the Crystal Focus of the World." In Science in the Marketplace: NineteenthCentury Sites and Experiences, edited by Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman, 301-335. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Ouellette, Jennifer. 2011. "Christmas with Faraday: The Chemical History of a Candle."
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/christmas-with-faraday-the-chemicalhistory-of-a-candle/.
Please note that this module description is indicative and may be subject to change.
3