This study approaches the issue of the professionalization of Victorian science by analysing the language that members, would-be members, and observers used to identify and categorize the scientific community. My dissatisfaction with professionalizing interpretations of Victorian science stimulated this study, therefore some of the questions addressed concern the categories of amateur and professional: What kinds of people were identified as 'professionals' or as •amateurs'? What were their places in the scientific community? But, as my initial hypothesis was that categorization as professional/amateur was not particularly important to Victorian men of science, my more constructive aim has been to find what categories were used when describing the scientific community: What language did members use to identify boundaries between insiders and outsiders? What distinctions were considered important within the scientific community? My method is to pay close attention to the language of self-description.Two initial examples illustrate both the reasons for my dissatisfaction with dominant professionalizing interpretations of Victorian science and my method of analysis.' William Spottiswoode, of Eyre and Spottiswoode, Queen's Printers, who identified himself as "outside the sphere of professional science" (see epigram) occupied the highest positions in British science in 1878. Not only was he President of the British Association, but in November 1878 he was elected President of the Royal Society of London. Moreover, Spottiswoode was a member of the X Club, and he was being pushed for the presidency of the Royal Society by his fellow X Club members in opposition to G. G. Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Claims about the professionalization of Victorian science and the X Club as professionalizers must be assessed against Spottiswoode's self-identification.'This first example shows that 'amateurs' could be included; the second example is about exclusion. In January 1854 the Westminster review published a derogatory review of G. H. Lewes's exposition of the philosophy ofAuguste Comte. Lewes had sought to bring his account completely up-to-date by illustrating Comte's principles with examples from contemporary science. The anonymous reviewer was the ambitious young T. H. Huxley. The exposition of Comte was excellent, wrote Huxley, but
‘Our’ included not only Hooker and Huxley but their fellow-members of the X-Club. ‘Our time’ had been the 1870s and early 1880s. For a five-year period from November 1873 to November 1878 Hooker had been President of the Society, Huxley one of the Secretaries, and fellow X-Club member, William Spottiswoode, the Treasurer. Hooker was followed in the Presidency by Spottiswoode, and on Spottiswoode's death in 1883 Huxley was elected President. During this period other X-Club members—Edward Frankland, John Tyndall, George Busk, Sir John Lubbock, and Thomas Hirst—were ordinary members of the Council of the Society. As the Table below (p. 60) shows, there were at least three members of the X-Club on the Council of the Royal Society from November 1870 until November 1882. On eight occasions in this period there were four or more X-Club members on the Council. ‘Our time’ came to an end in 1885 when ill-health forced Huxley's retirement after only two years in the Presidency, and G. G. Stokes at last became President.
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