Lockyer’s columns of controversy in Nature

Nature was founded in 1869 and was part of a mid-Victorian boom in periodical publishing stimulated by the abolition of newspaper taxation. Many of the thousands of new magazines and newspapers launched as a result included some scientific content, such as book reviews, but only about a dozen new journals devoted themselves to science for a general audience in the decade before Nature arrived on the scene; half of these survived to compete with Nature^1,2. Nature shared most of the aims of its competitors and borrowed much of their format, but the chief difference was that Nature encouraged vigorous controversy within its pages.

Science was increasingly being seen as important in daily life — railways, safe water supplies, new dyestuffs, beliefs about human origins, and the astounding sub-marine telegraph cable connecting the United Kingdom with North America, were all linked with science. Editors of the new science magazines were agreed that scientific men deserved greater respect, social distinction and financial support, calling for scientific education to be expanded and interest in science to be encouraged wherever it was found¹. Nature represented the interests of élite scientists to a greater extent than most of its competitors, but this did not prevent it from supporting lowlier enthusiasts and societies.

The publisher Alexander Macmillan took the lead in planning the new journal. He was instrumental in choosing the title ‘Nature’ and bore the venture’s financial risk. He chose Norman Lockyer as its founding editor (Lockyer had previously been science editor of The Reader: A Review of Literature, Science and Art from 1863 to 1867)^3–5. As a Christian socialist, Macmillan believed strongly that education contributed to social reform.

Then, as now, Nature attached great importance to its leading articles. Some writers signed their pieces; others spoke anonymously but with the authority of the journal and the community it was representing. Government, universities, scientific societies and public were advised, criticized or congratulated. Urging the government to greater support for science was a constant theme, strengthened on occasion by an aristocrat’s views (for example, Lord Derby on the Endowment of Research, 23 December 1875). The journal declared that wealthy Cambridge and Oxford colleges should consider the public good and use their endowments to support science (26 June 1873), and advised the Royal Agricultural Society to give scientific lectures in association with agricultural shows (16 July 1874). Such political and social comment was new to science journalism in the 1860s¹.

Nature also contained book reviews and reports of meetings of scientific societies, which were standard in popular science journals. Those covered by Nature — from monographs in German to introductory texts, from the Royal Society of London and Biblical Archaeology Society (5 June 1870) to the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club (24 March 1870) — indicate the breadth of the audience sought by Lockyer. Some articles, such as one on the geology of diamond fields (3 November 1870) and an experimental report on racial differences in intelligence (6 August 1874), probably interested the entire readership. Others, such as nine long articles on the polarization of light (starting 18 December 1873), may have been fillers when other material was short. Lockyer was a solar physicist and he indulged himself in his journal by enthusiastically publishing a wealth of articles on eclipses and sunspots.

In Nature’s news section (entitled ‘Notes’), the significant, the local and the trivial mingled: French copper workers seemed to be protected against cholera (3 March 1870); a large petroleum deposit had been found in the Caucasus (30 December 1870); the Newcastle College of Physical Science would admit ‘ladies’ to all its classes (2 November 1871); a living gorilla had been displayed in Liverpool (29 June 1876). The ‘Notes’ and the ‘Letters to the Editor’ opened wide the field of contributors. The ‘Letters’ in particular were often selected to provoke controversy.

Lockyer encouraged controversy^3–5. He published a leader by Alexander Williamson criticizing the way the Royal Society was run, then invited further discussion of the matter (3 November 1870). When the mathematician J. J. Sylvester criticized T. H. Huxley’s attack on the importance of mathematics in education, Lockyer asked Sylvester to write up his address for Nature (30 December 1869); numerous correspondents continued the debate. Lockyer did not allow the powerful network around Darwin to dominate debate. He gave space to Richard Owen and his British Museum associates to criticize J. D. Hooker’s schemes for reorganizing botany to the benefit of his own institution, Kew Gardens (3 October and 7 November 1872)³.

The most bitter exchange was between the physicists P. G. Tait, a regular controversialist from Edinburgh, and John Tyndall of London, whom Tait accused of scientific error in his Lectures on Light. Tyndall had won distinction as a popularizer but, according to Tait, at the cost of “martyring” his scientific authority. Tyndall retaliated, accusing Tait of lacking “manhood” (11 and 18 September 1873). The following year, Tait accused the renowned evolutionary philosopher Herbert Spencer of being confused about Newtonian mechanics (26 March 1874). The ensuing debate ran in Nature for five months, with contributors from three continents. Although such controversies probably boosted the journal’s circulation, Lockyer was rewarded with abuse from all sides^3,4.

Nature survived into the next century, but not because it was more successful than its competitors. Despite its entertaining debates and mix of popular and specialist material, Nature ran at a loss for decades⁴. It survived only because Macmillan was willing to carry the loss; he even turned down an offer from publishers Cassell & Co. in 1889. On the credit side, the government sometimes listened to Nature’s advice⁵ — for example, on the funding of meteorology in the late 1870s. The actual readership was much higher than its circulation implied because it was available in many libraries and gentlemen’s clubs and hence was widely read by the élites whom it sought to influence.