I wish to thank Ana Carneiro, Graeme Gooday, Amalia Hatjievgeniadu, Pat and Dennis Marsden, Phil Shore,the archivists of the University of Glasgow, an anonymous referee and in particular Crosbie Smith for much valuable advice, criticism and assistance of various kinds. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the SERC/ESRC. For permission to quote from the Napier collection held at the University of Glasgow my thanks go to Major Andrew Napier. Other manuscripts are quoted from with the kind permission of the University of Glasgow, the Syndics of the University Library, Cambridge, and the University of St Andrews.

¹ I do not deal with mechanics institutes. For a study of the development of engineering education see Emmerson, George S., Engineering Education: A Social History, Newton Abbot, 1973.Google Scholar The first chair of engineering in Britain was established in 1840 at the University of Glasgow. See Institution of Civil Engineers, The Education and Status of Civil Engineers, in the United Kingdom and in Foreign Countries, London, 1870Google Scholar, for details of ten courses of academic engineering in Great Britain and Ireland.

² See Buchanan, R. A., The Engineers: A History of the Engineering Profession in Britain 1750–1914, London, 1989Google Scholar, particularly ch. 9, ‘Engineering education and training’, 161–79.

³ See Sanderson, Michael, The Universities and British Industry 1850–1970, London, 1972.Google Scholar

⁴ Hilken, T. J. N., Engineering at Cambridge University 1783–1965, Cambridge, 1967, 50–7Google Scholar; Willis, Robert, Principles of Mechanism, London, 1841Google Scholar; and ‘Willis, Robert’, DSBGoogle Scholar

⁵ Jenkin, Fleeming, A Lecture on the Education of Civil and Mechanical Engineers in Great Britain and Abroad, Edinburgh, 1868, 18.Google Scholar For a biographical memoir by R. L. Stevenson see Colvin, Sidney and Ewing, J. A. (eds.), Papers Literary, Scientific, etc. by the Late Fleeming Jenkin, FRS, 2 vols., London, 1887, i, pp. xi–clivGoogle Scholar; and also Hempstead, C. A., ‘An Appraisal of Fleeming Jenkin (1833–1885), Electrical Engineer’, History of Technology (1991), 13, 119–44.Google Scholar

⁶ See, for example, Lewis D. B. Gordon (first Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow), A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Edinburgh, 1841Google Scholar; and Jenkin, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

⁷ Jenkin, , op. cit. (5), 5.Google Scholar

⁸ When in 1868 Dundee industrialist Sir David Baxter offered £5000 towards the creation of the Edinburgh University engineering chair the government agreed that Baxter's own nominee should be appointed. He wished the Professor to bring students into direct contact with manufacturing industry, teaching them surveying ‘in the field’ and visiting workshops. Though W. J. M. Rankine applied, it has been suggested that Jenkin succeeded because he was expected to follow Baxter's wishes more closely. Birse, Ronald M., Engineering at Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, 1983, 94–5.Google Scholar

⁹ For biographical information see Tait, P. G.'s memoir in Millar, W. J. (ed.), Miscellaneous Scientific Papers of W. J. Macquorn Rankine, London, 1881, pp. xix–xxxviGoogle Scholar; and DSB.

¹⁰ Rankine's engineering science has received attention from D. F. Channell. I give a deeper analysis of the context surrounding Rankine's personal construction of engineering science, examining the ambient culture according to which it was fashioned and within which it held rhetorical coherence. See, however, Channell, 's ‘A Unitary Technology: The Engineering Science of W. J. M. Rankine’ unpublished PhD thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 1975Google Scholar, UM order no. 75–27896; ‘The harmony of theory and practice: the engineering science of W. J. M. Rankine’, Technology and Culture (1982), 23, 39–52Google Scholar; ‘Engineering science as theory and practice’, Technology and Culture (1988), 29, 98–103Google Scholar; and ‘The role of Thomas Reid's philosophy in science and technology: the case of W. J. M. Rankine’, in The Philosophy of Thomas Reid (ed. Dalgarno, M. and Matthews, E.), Dordrecht, 1989, 447–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Channell has also produced The History of Engineering Science: an Annotated Bibliography, New York and London, 1989.Google Scholar

¹¹ Channell, , ‘Unitary Technology’, op. cit. (10), 118–34.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., 117–18. Jenkin described Rankine, 's textbooks as ‘combining originality and sound practice more admirably than any I am acquainted with in any language’.Google ScholarJenkin, , op. cit. (5), 5.Google Scholar

¹³ See McCulloch, J. R., The Principles of Political Economy, Edinburgh, 1825, 129Google Scholar: ‘as a society is nothing more than an aggregate collection of individuals, it is plain that each, in steadily pursuing his own aggrandizement, is following that precise line of conduct which is most for the public advantage’. Also quoted in M. Norton Wise, with the collaboration of Crosbie Smith, ‘Work and waste: political economy and natural philosophy in nineteenth century Britain (I)’, History of Science (1989), xxvii, 263–301, on 288.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For a general study see Daub, Edward E., ‘The regenerator principle in the Stirling and Ericsson hot air engines’, BJHS (1974), 7, 259–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Napier worked closely with Rankine between 1853 and 1872. See, for example, their (appropriately titled) Shipbuilding: Theoretical and Practical, London, 1866.Google Scholar For information on the family see Napier, James, Life of Robert Napier of West Shandon, Edinburgh, 1904.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Letters from W. J. M. Rankine to J. R. Napier in DC90/3/1, Napier Papers, Glasgow University Archives. Hereafter Napier Papers.

¹⁶ Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (Devonshire), Minutes of Evidence, 23 02 1872Google Scholar (W. J. M. Rankine), question 9506.

¹⁷ The Engineer (1856), 1, 3Google Scholar; also quoted in Channell, , ‘Engineering science as theory and practice’, op. cit. (10), 99.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Fairbairn, William, Useful Information for Engineers, London, 1856Google Scholar, Lecture V: ‘On the Necessity of Incorporating with the Practice of the Mechanical and Industrial Arts a Knowledge of Practical Science’, reprinted in Science and the Rise of Technology Since 1800 (ed. Russell, C. A. and Goodman, D. C.), Bristol, 1972, 262–6Google Scholar, on 264; Pole, William (ed.), The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart, London, 1877.Google Scholar

¹⁹ I describe later how Rankine utilized caricatures of ‘theory’Google Scholar and ‘practice’ to further his academic aims.

²⁰ Quoted in Institution of Civil Engineers, A Brief History of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, 1928, 10–11.Google Scholar Palmer is described as the man ‘to whom more than to any other person the foundation of the Institution may be attributed’. Ibid., 12.

²¹ See Rankine, W. J. M., A Memoir of John Elder: Engineer and Shipbuilder, Edinburgh and London, 1871.Google Scholar

²² Rankine, 's lecture ‘On the Science of the Engineer’Google Scholar, quoted in Gordon, Lewis D. B., ‘Obituary notice of Professor Rankine’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1872–1875), 8, 296–306, on 302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ For a discussion of the kinds of analysis I attempt see, for example, the introduction to Jordanova, L. J. (ed.), Languages of Nature, New Brunswick, 1986, 15–47.Google Scholar

²⁴ Morrell, J. B., ‘Science and Scottish university reform: Edinburgh in 1826’, BJHS (1972), 6, 39–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²⁵ Morrell, J. B., ‘Thomas Thomson: Professor of Chemistry and university reformer’, BJHS (1969), 4, 245–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also his ‘Reflections on the history of Scottish science’, History of Science (1974), xii, 81–94Google Scholar for a discussion of related historiographical issues.

²⁶ For analysis of the political complexion and institutional structure of the University in this period see Smith, Crosbie and Wise, M. Norton, Energy and Empire. A biographical study of Lord Kelvin, Cambridge, 1989Google Scholar, especially 25–32.

²⁷ Morrell, , op. cit. (25), 253.Google Scholar See also Coutts, James, A History of the University of Glasgow: from its Foundation in 1451 to 1909, Glasgow, 1909.Google Scholar

²⁸ Glasgow University Minutes of Senate (1829–1845), 89, 252–3.Google Scholar For biographical details see Constable, Thomas, Memoir of Lewis D. B. Gordon, Edinburgh, 1877.Google Scholar

²⁹ Forbes, J. D. to Gordon, Joseph, WS, 6 07 1840Google Scholar, Forbes Papers, University of St Andrews Archives. See also Shairp, J. C., Tait, P. G., and Adams-Reilly, A., Life and Letters of James David Forbes, London, 1873CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly 139.

³⁰ Constable, , op. cit. (28), 8–14.Google Scholar During his Dundee apprenticeship Gordon must have become acquainted with the Stirling air-engine.

³¹ Gordon, Lewis D. B., application for membership, no. 352 (elected 16 02 1836)Google Scholar, Institution of Civil Engineers Archives.

³² He wrote to his sister, ironically, ‘there is a chance that I may have the honour of professing Engineering and Mechanics to the Glasgow students, and that they may have the honour and advantage of hearing me profess to them!… how excellently content I shall be! Absurdity laid aside for ever then – as it is now!’ Quoted in Constable, , op. cit. (28), 42–3.Google Scholar

³³ Gordon, , op. cit. (6); A Synopsis of Lectures to be Delivered, Glasgow, 1847Google Scholar; A Synopsis of Lectures on Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Glasgow, 1849.Google Scholar

³⁴ Glasgow University Calendar (1844/5), 21.Google Scholar

³⁵ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16), question 9509.Google Scholar

³⁶ Prize and Degree List of Glasgow College (1841/1842), 29Google Scholar, SirLarmor, Joseph and Thomson, James (eds.), Collected Papers in Physics and Engineering, Cambridge, 1912.Google Scholar

³⁷ Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Opening remarks on the objects of the [Mechanical Science] Section’, BAAS Report (1855), 25, pt 2, 201–2, on 202.Google Scholar

³⁸ Courts, , op. cit. (27), 390.Google Scholar

³⁹ Glasgow University Minutes of Senate (1829–1845), 89, 254–5 (10 November 1840).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid., 259 (4 December 1840).

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Accession 3409 (NCB), Glasgow University Archives.

⁴³ Channell, , ‘Harmony of theory and practice’, op. cit. (10), 43.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The Regius Chair may well have been ‘a bid to regain support’ in the University by the current Whig government. Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (26), 30.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Morrell, , ‘Thomas Thomson’, op. cit. (25), 254.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Wilson, George, What is Technology? An Inaugural Lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh on November 7, 1855, Edinburgh and London, 1855, 16–17.Google Scholar See also Birse, , op. cit. (8), 66–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Wilson, , op. cit. (46), 13.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Rankine's inaugural address, ‘De Concordia inter Scientiarum Machinalium Contemplationem et Usum’, or ‘The Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics’, was incorporated in part as an introduction to his Manual of Applied Mechanics, London, 1858.Google Scholar This introduction is reprinted in Russell, and Goodman, (eds.), op. cit. (18), 266–71Google Scholar (page references to this reprint). ‘Applied mechanics’ had a broad interpretation, encompassing, in particular, marine engineering.

⁴⁹ Rankine, , op. cit. (37).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibid., 202.

⁵¹ Rankine, , ‘Harmony of Theory and Practice’, op. cit. (48), 269.Google Scholar

⁵² Figures from BAAS Reports; there were forty-one papers published in Section G for 1840, compared with, for example, three in 1845 (Cambridge) and six in 1847 (Oxford). Forty-two papers were actually read in 1855 (Glasgow). Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1855–1860), 4, 1.Google Scholar

⁵³ See Morrell, Jack and Thackray, Arnold, Gentlemen of Science. Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford, 1981, 267–75.Google Scholar Natural Philosophy and Mathematics were Glasgow Faculty Professorships.

⁵⁴ Rankine wrote relentlessly about this distinction between types of knowledge: David Elder, father of the marine engineer Elder, John, ‘learnt the practical part of his trade as an apprentice to his father, and its scientific principles by the private study of mathematical books during intervals of leisure’.Google ScholarRankine, , op. cit. (21), 3.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Rankine, , op. cit. (37), 201.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See Davie, G. E., The Democratic Intellect, Edinburgh, 1961.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Whewell, William, Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 7th edn, H. G. Bohn: London, 1852Google Scholar, for example 91 and 114; 1st edn 1833. See also Smith, and Wise, , op. cit. (26), 89–99.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Rankine, , op. cit. (37), 201.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid., 202.

⁶⁰ Though Napier was scientifically literate, Rankine portrayed their relationship in this manner.

⁶¹ Rankine, to Napier, , 1 06 1853Google Scholar, with covering note. Napier Papers.

⁶² Ibid.

⁶³ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16)Google Scholar, question 9509.

⁶⁴ Rankine, , op. cit. (37), 201.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Ibid., 202.

⁶⁶ Ibid. Emphasis added.

⁶⁷ Rankine, to Napier, , 7 02 1853.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

⁶⁸ The concept of ‘waste’ is discussed later.

⁶⁹ Rankine, , ‘Harmony of Theory and Practice’, op. cit. (48), 267.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Rankine, to Napier, , 23 06 1853.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

⁷¹ Rankine, , ‘Harmony of Theory and Practice’, op. cit. (48), 268.Google Scholar

⁷² Ibid., 269. It was valuable, as part of a continuing lobby to have engineering fully recognized as a profession, to make the comparison with medicine.

⁷³ Ibid., 268.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 269.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 270.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Constable, , op. cit. (28), 44.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Gordon, to Thomson, , 27 04 1847Google Scholar, G118 in ADD MS 7342, Kelvin Correspondence, Cambridge University Library.

⁷⁹ Rankine, , op. cit. (37), 202.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Gordon, , op. cit. (22), 302Google Scholar; Rankine, W. J. M., Synopsis of Lectures on Heat-Engines delivered at Glasgow in March and April 1855, in connection with Professor Lewis D. B. Gordon's course of Civil Engineering and MechanicsGoogle Scholar (printed for private circulation). Copy in Napier Papers.

⁸¹ See the Glasgow University Prize and Degree Lists for these years.

⁸² Glasgow University Minutes of Senate (1845–1859), 90, 264–6Google Scholar (12 September and 5 November 1855). J. P. Nichol, Professor of Practical Astronomy, and Allen Thomson, Professor of Anatomy, dissented from a motion ‘that the endowment might with propriety be devoted to purposes of greater and more immediate importance in connection with the higher branches of University education’. Thomson was later an ally of Rankine within the University.

⁸³ Ibid., 273 (3 December 1855).

⁸⁴ Constable, , op. cit. (28), 44–5.Google Scholar A reproduced extract from Rankine, 's notebook reads: ‘I am in a great measure indebted to him [Gordon] for my success in obtaining the Professorship’.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Rankine, to Napier, , 7 11 1855.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

⁸⁶ Tail, , op. cit. (9), pp. xx–xxii.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Constable, , op. cit. (28), 226–7.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Rankine maintained a close friendship with the Blackburn family. His Songs and Fables, 2nd edn, Glasgow and London, 1874Google Scholar, are illustrated by ‘J. B.’, Hugh's wife Jemima.

⁸⁹ The distinction between Faculty and non-Faculty Professors was not abolished until the passing of the Universities Act of 1858. Coutts, , op. cit. (27), 342–3.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Letters from Rankine to William Thomson, R16–28 in ADD MS 7342, Kelvin Correspondence, Cambridge University Library.

⁹¹ A complete list of William Thomson's patents provides an appendix to Thompson, S. P., The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, 2 vols., London, 1910Google Scholar; see also Rankine, to Thomson, W., 19 06 1855Google Scholar, R1, Kelvin Papers, Glasgow University Library. The patent was abandoned.

⁹² Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1855–1860), 4, 1–3, on 2. Emphasis added.Google Scholar

⁹³ Coutts, , op. cit. (27), 390.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Dimensions 33 ft 3 in. × 17 ft 3 in., at front 11 ft high, at back 8 ft 4 in. high. From ‘Survey’ (26 12 1859)Google Scholar describing seventeen teaching rooms: an Appendix to the General Report of Commissioners under Universities, Scotland, Act, 1858, in Sessional Papers (1863), xvi, 335f.Google Scholar Rankine had ‘for some time carried on his lectures in the examination hall’. Coutts, , op. cit. (27), 390.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ See Prize and Degree Lists of Glasgow College.

⁹⁶ See Class Lists of Glasgow College (beginning 1863/4 session).

⁹⁷ Draft minute book of subcommittees on New College Buildings II, pp. 109–18, Accession 2202, Glasgow University Archives.

⁹⁸ Founded by the civil engineer James Walker.

⁹⁹ Glasgow University Calendar (1863/1864), 93–4.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., 97 and 101; Glasgow University Calendar (1864/1865), 99–100.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Fourier, Joseph, Théorie analytique de la chaleur, Paris, 1822.Google Scholar

¹⁰² See Glasgow University Calendar (1863/1864)Google Scholar, for full course details.

¹⁰³ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16)Google Scholar, question 9542, shows positions of Rankine's pupils by 1872: chief engineers of the ‘principal dockyard in India’ and of the docks at Pernambuco, Brazil; borough engineer at Liverpool; and ‘manager of the most important mechanical engineering works in London’. Henry Dyer (1869–71) played a vital role in the establishment of the Imperial College of Engineering, Tokyo. See Brock, W. H., ‘The Japanese connection: Engineering in Tokyo, London, and Glasgow at the end of the nineteenth century’, BJHS (1981), 14, 227–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰⁴ For example, during the buildings appeal of the 1860s. At the close of the winter session in 1872, the University Principal intimated that Mrs Elder had set aside £5000 ‘as a supplementary endowment in connexion with the Chair of Civil Engineering, in memory of her husband, Mr. John Elder’. The Times, 4 05 1872, 11.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Buchanan, , op. cit. (2), 162.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Jenkin, , op. cit. (5), 10.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Buchanan, , op. cit. (2), 166.Google Scholar The course was set up in 1838; accommodation and tuition costs were still relatively high at £80–£100 a year.

¹⁰⁸ ‘On science teaching in laboratories’ in Colvin and Ewing (eds.), op. cit. (5), ii, 183–90.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Introductory remarks [as President of the Institution]’, Transactions of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland (1869–1870), 13, 1–12, on 12.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16), question 9511.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ For a biography see Emmerson, George S., John Scott Russell: A Great Victorian Engineer and Naval Architect, London, 1977.Google Scholar

¹¹² Russell, to Rankine, , 24 06 1856Google Scholar, transcribed in Rankine, to Napier, , 27 06 1856.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

¹¹³ Rankine, to Napier, , 27 06 1856.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

¹¹⁴ Russell had earlier carried out a series of costly experiments ‘on the Form of Ships’ with support from the BAAS. Morrell, and Thackray, , op. cit. (53), 322–3.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Rankine, W. J. M., ‘On the power and economy of single-acting expansive steam-engines’Google Scholar, in Millar, (ed.), op. cit. (9), 288–99Google Scholar, on 299. Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1851.

¹¹⁶ For this reason, the laboratory, which Gooday has argued was increasingly becoming the domain of natural philosophy, was fundamentally inadequate, even for that part of engineering which might be portrayed as ‘scientific’. Gooday, Graeme, ‘Precision measurement and the genesis of physics teaching laboratories in Victorian Britain’, BJHS (1990), 23, 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹⁷ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 40f.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Ibid., 40–1. Emphasis added.

¹¹⁹ Rankine used this expression explicitly in relation to an earlier trial of the Constance and the Octavia. Ibid., 45–7.

¹²⁰ Daub, , op. cit. (14), 272–7.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Rankine, to Napier, , 7 02 1853.Google Scholar Napier Papers. In fact the ship failed.

¹²² Rankine, to Napier, , 27 01 1854.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

¹²³ Rankine, to Napier, , 17 07 1854. Napier Papers.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ Russell, and Goodman, (eds.), op. cit. (18), 264.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16), question 9544.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Letter from Rankine to Napier, , 17 02 1855.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

¹²⁷ Tait, , op. cit. (9), p. xxxiiiGoogle Scholar; details relating to the Admiral in Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Opening address [to the Institution of Engineers in Scotland]’, The Engineer (1858), 6, 327–8, on 327 (29 10 1858).Google Scholar Ironically, the formula was of such commercial value that on Napier's insistence it was announced publicly only in the form of an anagram. See Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Resistance of ships’, Philosophical Magazine (1858) IV, 16, 238–9Google Scholar (letter to the editors dated 26 August 1858).

¹²⁸ See Glasgow University Calendar (1863/1864), 34.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Institution of Civil Engineers, op. cit. (1), 9–10. Emphasis added.

¹³⁰ See in particular the numerous contributions to the Philosophical Magazine for the years 1853, 1854 and 1855.Google Scholar

¹³¹ Letters from Rankine to G. G. Stokes, R107, RS19–20 and RS31 in ADD MS 7656, Stokes Correspondence, Cambridge University Library. Forbes guided the publication of his former pupil Rankine's first papers on the mechanical action of heat by the RSE (Rankine to Forbes, 26 August 1849, Forbes Papers, St Andrews University Library). Smyth, Piazzi, ‘On a mode of cooling the air of rooms in tropical climates’, BAAS Report (1850), 20, pt 2, 188Google Scholar, gives one example of collaboration.

¹³² This area has been studied by Keith Hutchison: see, in particular, ‘W. J. M. Rankine and the rise of thermodynamics’, BJHS (1981), 14, 1–26.Google Scholar

¹³³ Quoted in Tait, , op. cit. (9), pp. xxvii–xxviiiGoogle Scholar; originally, ‘On the use of mechanical hypotheses in science, and especially in the theory of heat’, Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1864), 5, 126–32.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ See Wise, M. Norton and Smith, Crosbie, ‘Measurement, work and industry in Lord Kelvin's Britain’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences (1986), 17, 147–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gooday, , op. cit. (116).Google Scholar

¹³⁵ ‘MacNeill, John’, DNB.Google Scholar MacNeill was Professor of Engineering at Trinity College Dublin from 1842 and served as President of Section G of the BAAS in 1843 (Cork).

¹³⁶ Tait, , op. cit. (9), p. xxii.Google Scholar The scheme was originally proposed by Lewis Gordon and his business partner Laurence Hill, Junior.

¹³⁷ Rankine, W. J. M. and Thomson, John, ‘On telegraphic communication between Great Britain and Ireland, by the Mull of Cantyre’, BAAS Report (1852), 22, pt 2, 128Google Scholar; see also Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1845–1855), 3, 265–6.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ Napier, James Robert, Neilson, Walter and Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Report on the progress and state of applied mechanics’, Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1855–1860), 4, 207–30Google Scholar, on 219. Rankine was Convenor of this Committee.

¹³⁹ Rankine, , ‘Opening address’, op. cit. (127), 327.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ Gooday, , op. cit. (116).Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ Devonshire Commission, op. cit. (16), question 9506.Google Scholar

¹⁴² Wise, M. Norton (with the collaboration of Crosbie Smith), ‘Work and waste: political economy and natural philosophy in nineteenth century Britain’, three parts in History of Science (1989), xxvii, 263–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar; (1989), xxvii, 391–449; and (1990), xxviii, 221–61.

¹⁴³ Gordon, (12 1840)Google Scholar; Rankine, (02 1852)Google Scholar and later President (November 1861).

¹⁴⁴ Napier, , Neilson, and Rankine, , op. cit. (138), 208.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ See, for example, Cardwell, D. S. L., From Watt to Clausius. The Rise of Thermodynamics in the Early Industrial Age, London, 1971.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ Jenkin, , op. cit. (5), 3.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 47.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ Rankine, to Napier, , 7 02 1853.Google Scholar Napier Papers. Emphasis added.

¹⁴⁹ For example, Russell, John Scott, ‘Economical and effective proportion of engine power to the tonnage of the hull in steam vessels’, BAAS Report (1840), 10, pt 2, 188Google Scholar; Vignoles, Charles Blacker, ‘On the economy of railways in respect of gradients’Google Scholar, ibid., 193. Also Fairbairn, William, ‘On the economy of the expansive action of steam in steam-engines’, BAAS Report (1844), 14, pt 2, 98 (title only).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Rankine, , op. cit. (115), 288.Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ Many others contain references to economy and efficiency. For example, ‘On the economy of heat in expansive machines’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1853), 20, 205–10Google Scholar; and ‘The theoretical limit of the efficiency of propellers’, The Engineer (1867), 23, 25.Google Scholar

¹⁵² Napier, , Neilson, and Rankine, , op. cit. (138).Google Scholar

¹⁵³ Proceedings of the Glasgow Philosophical Society (1855–1860), 4, 41.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ Rankine, , op. cit. (48).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ Rankine, , op. cit. (21).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ Ibid., 11–12.

¹⁵⁷ Napier, , Neilson, and Rankine, , op. cit. (138), 208.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ Ibid., 225–6.

¹⁵⁹ Ibid., 208.

¹⁶⁰ Ibid., 228. If t and t ₁ are respectively the absolute temperatures of the source and sink, then the ‘efficier of the elastic substance’ is 1 – t ₁/t. Thus with either t or t ₁ fixed, the efficiency increases as the temperature difference (t–t ₁) increases.

¹⁶¹ Rankine, W. J. M., ‘On the means of realizing the advantages of the air-engine’, BAAS Report (1854), 24, pt 2, 159–60.Google Scholar

¹⁶² Combustion of fuel in the boiler, conversion of water into steam, mechanical friction and fluid friction associated with the propeller.

¹⁶³ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 10.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ Rankine, to Napier, , 7 02 1853. Napier Papers.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 10–11.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁶ Napier, , Neilson, and Rankine, , op. cit. (138), 208.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁷ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 9–10.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁸ Rankine, W. J. M., ‘Outlines of the science of energetics’, in Millar (ed.), op. cit. (9), 209–28.Google Scholar Read before the Glasgow Philosophical Society 2 May 1855. Cardwell, Donald S. L., James Joule. A biography, Manchester and New York, 1989.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁹ If i is the coefficient of imperfection, E _a the efficiency of an actual heat-engine, and E _p the theoretically determined efficiency of a perfect heat-engine, then E _a = (1 –i) E _p. Rankine, , op. cit. (80), 40: ‘Summary of principles’.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁰ See Millar, (ed.), op. cit. (9), Papers xiv–xvi, 234–99.Google Scholar

¹⁷¹ Rankine, , op. cit. (21), 27–8.Google Scholar

¹⁷² Rankine, to Napier, , 7 02 1853.Google Scholar Napier Papers.

¹⁷³ ‘On the turbine water-wheel’, BAAS Report (1840), 10, pt 2, 191–2.Google Scholar