Abstract
FOR his inaugural address as regius professor of natural history in the University of Aberdeen, delivered on April 21, Prof. L. Hogben took for his subject “The Theoretical Leadership of Scottish Science in the English Industrial Revolution”. In this he showed how eminent men trained in the biological sciences stimulated the progress of chemistry and physics, and thereby influenced the growth of various industries at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The Industrial Revolution was, of course, bound up with the development of the textile, iron and coal industries, but more especially with the introduction of the steam engine and to a lesser extent with the rise of the chemical industry. The part played by Watt and Murdock in the improvement of the steam engine is well known, but Prof. Hogben showed how to men such as Joseph Black, James Keir, John Roebuck and Francis Home all graduates of medicine can be traced some of the advances in industry. Black's connexion with Watt is familiar to all, while Roebuck not only endeavoured to assist Watt, but also had a principal share in establishing the Carron Iron Works, and was a pioneer in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. The address contains some interesting notes on the early members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh when James Hutton and John Playfair were leaders of Scottish science, and it recalls that Hutton, though generally regarded as one of the fathers of modern geology, yet is also remembered as the founder of a manufactory for sal ammoniac. In concluding his review of the subject, Prof. Hogben said that “The restricted class basis of English education could not supply the theoretical leadership which its industrial expansion demanded. It had to rely largely on a fund of personnel from Scotland”.
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Scottish Science and the Industrial Revolution. Nature 139, 918 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139918c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139918c0