Augustin Fresnel and François Arago are typically credited with jointly establishing the wave theory of light in early nineteenth-century France. Yet the two men, working in different traditions, brought to their collaboration vastly different conceptions of what light was and how it should be studied. This paper traces the work that went into co-ordinating these disparate approaches into a united front, as well as the dissolution of the alliance after 1821. Although the fruits of their alliance proved remarkably stable, in fact agreement between them was never more than partial.

Intellectual and professional reforms in evolutionary studies between 1935 and 1950 included substantial expansion, diversification, and realignment of community infrastructure. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley and Alfred Emerson organized the Society for the Study of Speciation at the 1939 AAAS Columbus meeting as one response (among many coming into place) to concerns about ‘isolation’ and ‘lack of contact’ among speciation workers worried about ‘dispersed’ and ‘scattered’ resources in this newly robust ‘borderline’ domain. Simply constructed, the SSS sought neither the radical reorganization of specialities nor the creation of some new discipline. Instead, it was designed to facilitate: to simplify exchange of information and to provide a minimally invasive avenue for connecting disparate researchers. Emerson served as SSS secretary and was its principal agent. After publishing one block of publications, however, the SSS became ‘quiescent’. Anxious to promote his own agenda, Ernst Mayr tried to manoeuvre around Emerson in an effort to revitalize the project. After meeting impediments, he moved his efforts elsewhere. The SSS was too short-lived to merit a claim for major impact within the community; however, it reveals important features of community activity during the synthesis period and stands in contrast to later efforts by George Simpson, Dobzhansky, and Mayr.

Before the Second World War, few scholars knew how to incorporate science, technology and medicine into social, political or economic history. Nowadays many historians know the methods: university courses, books and (some) museums manifest their skills. For the ‘greats’ of science, and for many lesser figures and groups, we are able to relate scientific ‘works’ to ‘lives’, contexts and audiences, with an analytical sophistication matching the best of current intellectual and cultural history. This progress in historiography owes much to the intellectual and institutional bases built in the 1950s and 1960s, not least in the universities of northern England. Among the pioneers, Donald Cardwell was a perspicacious and persistent innovator, especially in Manchester, where he helped develop both a school of historians and a marvellous museum of science and industry.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night…

John 3: 1–2

A lady asked the famous Lord Shaftesbury what religion he was of. He answered the religion of wise men. She asked, what was that? He answered, wise men never tell.

Diary of Viscount Percival (1730), i, 113

NEWTON AS HERETIC

Isaac Newton was a heretic. But like Nicodemus, the secret disciple of Jesus, he never made a public declaration of his private faith – which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs. His one-time follower William Whiston attributed his policy of silence to simple, human fear and there must be some truth in this. Every day as a public figure (Lucasian Professor, Warden – then Master – of the Mint, President of the Royal Society) and as the figurehead of British natural philosophy, Newton must have felt the tension of outwardly conforming to the Anglican Church, while inwardly denying much of its faith and practice. He was restricted by heresy laws, religious tests and the formidable opposition of public opinion. Heretics were seen as religiously subversive, socially dangerous and even morally debased. Moreover, the positions he enjoyed were dependent on public manifestations of religious and social orderliness. Sir Isaac had a lot to lose. Yet he knew the scriptural injunctions against hiding one's light under a bushel. Newton the believer was thus faced with the need to develop a modus vivendi whereby he could work within legal and social structures, while fulfilling the command to shine in a dark world. This paper recovers and assesses his strategies for reconciling these conflicting dynamics and, in so doing, will shed light on both the nature of Newton's faith and his agenda for natural philosophy.

In May 1862 Desmond G. Fitzgerald, the editor of the Electrician, lamented that

telegraphy has been until lately an art occult even to many of the votaries of electrical science. Submarine telegraphy, initiated by a bold and tentative process – the laying of the Dover cable in the year 1850 – opened out a vast field of opportunity both to merit and competency, and to unscrupulous determination. For the purposes of the latter, the field was to be kept close [sic], and science, which can alone be secured by merit, more or less ignored.

To Fitzgerald, the ‘occult’ status of the telegraph looked set to continue, with recent reports of scientific counterfeits, unscrupulous electricians and financially motivated saboteurs involved in the telegraphic art. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald reassured his readers that the confidence of ‘those who act for the public’ had been restored by earnest electricians, whose ‘moral cause’ would ultimately be felt and who ‘may be safely trusted even in matters where there is an option between a private interest and a public benefit’. As a prominent crusader for the telegraph, Fitzgerald voiced the concerns of many electricians seeking public confidence and investment in their trade in the wake of the failed submarine telegraphs of the 1850s. The spread of proper knowledge about the telegraph would hinge on securing an adequate supply of backers and the construction of telegraphy as a truly moral cause – an art cleansed of fraudsters, ignoramuses and dogmatists.

BSHS members might be interested to learn that an organization named the ‘A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund’ has recently been established in order to restore and protect the hitherto neglected grave of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), one of the greatest tropical naturalists of the nineteenth century. Wallace is best known as being the co-originator, with Charles Darwin, of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and for his book The Malay Archipelago, which is regarded as one of the most important of all Victorian travel works.

Wallace is buried together with his wife Annie in Broadstone Cemetery, Dorset. The grave is marked by an unusual and striking monument: a seven-foot tall fossilised conifer trunk from the Portland beds mounted on a large cubic base of Purbeck stone. Unfortunately, the monument has not been properly maintained for many years and it is now in poor condition. Furthermore, the lease on the grave has only fourteen years left to run before it expires, after which there is a danger that the plot could be used for another burial.

The primary aims of the Wallace Memorial Fund are to restore the monument, apply for it to be officially listed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and to extend the lease on the plot. A. R. Wallace's grandson Mr Richard Wallace (who is the treasurer of the Fund) plans to transfer the lease to the Linnean Society of London once the restoration work has been completed. This will ensure the grave's long-term protection.

A secondary aim of our project is to commission English Heritage to produce a commemorative ceramic plaque and install it on ‘The Dell’ (Grays, Essex), where Wallace lived from 1872 to 1876. This is the only surviving one of three houses which Wallace built (it is currently a convent) and he wrote his important book The Geographical Distribution of Animals there. It is also notable in being one of the first houses in Britain to have been constructed of concrete.

The total cost of the project will be approximately £4955. Contributions to date total £3000 leaving £1955 still to be raised. If any members of the Society would like to make a donation then cheques should be made payable to ‘The A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund’ and sent to Dr G. W. Beccaloni, A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund, c/o Entomology Department, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD (Tel. 0207 942 5361, E-mail: g.beccaloni@nhm.ac.uk).

In late 1916 the British Government finally bowed to pressure from scientists and sympathetic elements of the public to organize and fund science centrally and established the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Since just before the turn of the century state funding for science had steadily increased: the National Physical Laboratory was established in 1899, the Development Commission in 1909 and the Medical Research Committee in 1913. The establishment of the DSIR marked an end to piecemeal support and it was therefore a watershed when the state

finally accepted its responsibility to fund science properly, to develop a coherent science policy and thus recognise that science and scientists were crucial components of modern national life; not just in wartime, but in the development of the peacetime economy as well.

At least this is how the history of the DSIR is currently still represented. The following analysis is more sensitive than previous treatments as it points out that the state's organization of a centrally planned and funded national policy for science began before the DSIR, and that this new body (in its support of pure research) reflected priorities established before the outbreak of the war. In previous accounts the DSIR was presented as a total break with the laissez-faire past. So, as historians we no longer follow the special pleading of the contemporary science lobby in arguing that the state was deaf to the needs of modern science. However, I want to argue that we are still deaf to the wider concerns of this contemporary pro-science rhetoric, which argued not only for centrally planned and funded science, but also often that scientists themselves should make policy for science.

The three books reviewed in this essay all cross disciplinary boundaries. The first book illustrates, and argues for, the importance of history of technology and science for general history, for instance by looking at the linkages between technology transfer and agricultural reform in the late eighteenth century. The second book combines art history with history of technology: a painting is examined with a view to learning about networks among men of industry. The third book could be said to argue for the relevance of the private in the history of science by rendering theoretical innovation dependent upon resources gained outside public scientific life.

I have been careful not to mention the most important commonality of these books first, because I am aware of the general disinterest which reigns about most peripheral places. The three books are all about Denmark and written in Danish. But they should not be placed in the drawer labelled ‘ethnographic oddity’. Quite apart from their relevance under the rubric of centre and periphery, each one has a historiographical point rendering them more generally relevant. They probe historiographical boundaries and provide incentives for thinking about historical resources that have not been tapped. It should also be mentioned that all three books are beautifully illustrated. Danish academic books are cushioned from the stringencies of the market through the existence of a variety of funds. The market of Danish readers is too small to sustain a market of its own and so the infrastructure for the support of books which will inevitably make a loss is substantial. By tapping into these resources, the authors have managed to make all three books more appealing than an anglophone reader has come to expect.

It is with deep regret that we record the death of John Anthony Chaldecott on 2 May 1998 at the age of 82. He was a founder member of the BSHS and served as Honorary Secretary and as President.

After graduating in physics at London University, John took up teaching and lecturing, but this was interrupted by war service in the RAF Meteorological Branch. In the fighting in the Netherlands, he was mentioned in despatches. In 1949, he joined the Science Museum as Assistant Keeper in the Physics Department. There, he was in charge of the Optics Collection and also the Heat and the George III Collections, for which he produced catalogues. For some years, he acted as Secretary to the Museum's Advisory Council.

In 1961, John became Keeper of the Science Museum Library, a post he held until his retirement in 1976. His time there was active and eventful. First, the transfer of the Library's nation-wide loans service, together with many of its periodicals, to the National Lending Library of Science and Technology in 1962 entailed a redirection of the Library's resources and services. Then, he was closely involved in the planning of the present Library building on the Imperial College campus in South Kensington, opened in 1969. He made a thorough study of the latest library design and equipment, so as to incorporate as many modern features as possible within a very tight budget. The success of the building owed much to his untiring and meticulous attention to detail.

While building was in progress, his attention was assailed from a fresh quarter, this time from the National Libraries Committee. Their conclusions disconcerted the Science Museum and the fact that the Library remained under the Museum's wing, with a redefined role, owed much to John's skill and determination in negotiation. The Library was to specialize in the history of science and he did much to turn the Library towards the new direction. It was his decision to assemble the Library's scattered books and periodicals in this field and house them in a special history of science reading room. All this chimed in with his own interest in this subject. He had gained an M.Sc. in the history and philosophy of science at University College London in 1949, followed up later with a Ph.D. He was active in the BSHS from the beginning and he was Honorary Secretary during 1963–68. He was elected President for the year 1972–73; his presidential address was entitled ‘Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795), scientist’. He published a number of papers on historical subjects, but his abiding interest lay in scientific instrument makers; he formed a massive record of information about those active in London from 1750 to 1840, now deposited in the Science Museum Library Archives Collection. Soon after his retirement, he was responsible for a major exhibition at the Science Museum illustrating Wedgwood's life and work and he published an accompanying monograph.

Throughout his life, John preserved that calm and even-tempered manner which made him such a pleasant colleague and genial, good-humoured friend. He was always fair and even-handed in his dealings with others.

One of the challenges for historical biographers is to decide how far it is appropriate or legitimate to try to psychoanalyse their subject. On the face of it, such analysis might seem an obvious part of the biographical enterprise in a twentieth-century context. We are all heirs to the revolution in thought brought about by Freud's discovery of the unconscious in the nineteenth century, since when it has become commonplace that beneath people's conscious thoughts and statements lie deeper, more fundamental drives and motives, of which they are not aware and which are not under their conscious control. Indeed, speculation about such subconscious desires and impulses is normal in day-to-day conversation: this reflects and is reflected by the fact that words that originated as technical, psychoanalytical terms have become part of the general language, such as ‘neurotic’, ‘paranoid’, or even ‘death wish’ and ‘Oedipus complex’.