The Age of Wonder (97 page)

Robert, M. (Alexandre Charles’s ballooning assistant), 131-2

Roberts, Upton, 375

Robespierre, Maximilien, 247

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 348

Rodin, Auguste:
The Thinker
(sculpture), 404n

Roget, Dr Peter Mark, 264, 302, 402

Romain, Pierre, 153-4

Romanticism: supposed hostility to science, xv-xvii; and science biography, 94n; and scientific discovery, 208, 318; wanderers in Italy, 425

Rome: Davy’s old age in, 432

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: on Noble Savage, 3-4; on property and ownership, 16n; writes on South Seas, 46n

Rowlandson, Thomas, 291

Royal Astronomical Society: founded, xix, 393, 407; awards Gold Medal to Caroline Herschel, 410-11

Royal College of Surgeons, London, 308-9, 317, 336

Royal Geographical Society: merges with Africa Association, 58, 212

Royal Institution: foundation, xix, 199, 285; Humphry Davy at, 241n, 272, 277, 285, 291, 294; finances improve, 291; Coleridge lectures on ‘Poetry and the Imagination’ at, 295, 299-300, 467; deterioration in conditions, 348; Faraday appointed to, 348-9, 358; Davy appointed Vice-President, 359; service to British industry, 362; and Davy’s development of miners’ safety lamp, 370, 372-3; Faraday appointed Director, 405; Faraday’s electromagnetic researches at, 453; Christmas Lectures for Children, 454; atomic clock, 467-8; author lectures on Coleridge at, 467;
Proceedings,
467n

Royal Navy: commissions Davy to investigate corrosion of ships’copper hulls, 411-12, 414

Royal Society: supports
Endeavour
voyage, 9-10, 190; honours Banks and Solander, 43; Banks elected President, 54-5; moves to Somerset House, 55; and Herschel’s discovery of Uranus, 98-100; Herschel elected to membership and awarded Copley Medal, 102-3, 105; members sceptical of Herschel’s accomplishments, 108; and early ballooning, 133, 134, 147, 155; elects Jeffries to Fellowship, 152-3; adopts Caroline Herschel’s
Star Catalogue,
194; and scientific observation, 249; Beddoes applies to for financial support, 251-2; awards Copley Medal to Davy, 295; Davy delivers Bakerian Lectures, 295-9, 359; medical scientists in, 306-7; Davy reports to on safety-lamp investigation, 363-5; Davy’s prototype safety lamp presented to, 368; awards Rumford Medal to Davy, 369; Banks attempts to maintain pre-eminence and unity, 393-7; composition, 394; Davy succeeds Banks as President, 397-9; Davy’s unpopularity at, 412-13; Davy resigns presidency, 419; Davy sends late papers to, 431-2; Davy endows Medal, 434; role, 435; John Herschel’s presidential candidacy (1829), 436; elects Duke of Sussex President, 437; Babbage attacks, 438-9; fails to promote scientific endeavour, 438-9; Faraday delivers Bakerian Lectures, 453; John Herschel elected President, 465;
Philosophical Transactions,
61, 100, 121-2, 152, 173, 198, 274, 286, 307, 413

Royal Zoological Society, 404

Rumford, Benjamin Thompson, Count: visits Herschel, 199; demonstrates heating effect of friction, 250; interviews Davy, 277; and founding of Royal Institution, 285; attends Davy’s Royal Institution lecture, 286; and finances of Royal Institution, 291; in Gillray cartoon, 292; second marriage (to Marie-Anne Lavoisier), 384

Rumford, Countess
(formerly
Lavoisier)
see
Lavoisier, Marie-Anne

Rylands, Miss (of Bristol), 265

Sacks, Oliver:
Uncle Tungsten,
298n

Sadler, James, 144-5, 149, 156-8

Sadler, Windham, 158

Sage, Laetitia: makes first female balloon ascent, 141-3

Saint-Fond, Faujas de, 132, 196

Saint-Hilaire, Madame de, 129

Sandemanians, 352

Sandwich, John Montagu, 4th Earl of, 9, 43, 47, 50, 53

Sansanding, West Africa, 224, 226-7, 231

Satterley, John, 40

Saussure, Horace de, 12

Saxe-Gotha, Francis Frederick, Duke of, 168

Sceptic, The
(anon. pamphlet), 273

Schelling, Friedrich, 315, 322, 329, 410

Schiller, Friedrich, 315;
Wallenstein,
267

science: objectivity, xviii; dissemination of, xix; second revolution, xv-xvi; and error, 93, 94n; and biography, 94n; and observation, 249 & n; Coleridge defends, 267; Davy on philosophy and romance of, 288-90, 371; and religion, 312-13, 317-20, 449-50, 459; Davy writes on limits of contemporary knowledge, 355-6; rivalries and priority disputes in, 373 & n; application in British Empire and colonies, 386; and relations between master and apprentice researchers, 403 & n; debate on apparent decline in Britain, 435, 437-45; and feminism, 436n; Victorian expansion, 446, 468; and search for unifying laws, 458; continuation and global interest, 468-9

Science Museum, South Kensington, 404n

scientific instruments, xviii

scientist: as term, 253, 450

Scoresby, William, 455

Scotland: Davy honeymoons and holidays in, 346, 361

Scott, George: accompanies Park on second African expedition, 222; death, 224-5

Scott, Sir Walter: treated by Mungo Park, 221-2; Davy meets, 295; supposed authorship of
Frankenstein,
325; friendship with Jane Apreece, 338; earnings, 344; entertains Davy and Jane on holiday, 398; on Davy’s decline, 414; depicted in Davy’s
Salmonia,
417; reviews Davy’s
Salmonia,
423; unsuccessfully urges Jane to publish account of Davy, 434

Scrope, Paul, 455

scurvy, 1

Sedgwick, Adam, 446-7, 449-50, 460

Sego, West Africa, 217, 224

Seven Years War (1756-63), 68

Seward, Anna, 50

Shakespeare, William, 429, 431, 443-4

Sheffield, William, 47-8

Sheldon, John, 146, 155

Shelley, Clara (Mary’s daughter), 327

Shelley, Harriet, 158

Shelley, Mary: on solitary scientific genius, xvii; told of James Lind, 121n; on Hypatia of Alexandria, 248; departs for Italy, 311; hears Davy lecture, 325-6; in Switzerland, 326-7; conceives science-fiction story, 327; pregnancy and birth of baby, 327, 331; and Vitalism, 327; and German origins of Frankenstein experiment, 329-30; and development of Dr Frankenstein’s Creature, 331-3;
Frankenstein,
325-8, 456-7; stage and film adaptations, 334-5

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: taught by James Lind, 121n; and ballooning, 157-8, 162; on clouds, 160; and extraterrestrial beings, 167; treated by Lawrence, 311, 331; absent from Haydon’s ‘Immortal Dinner’, 318, 320; anti-Christian views, 320, 450; and authorship of
Frankenstein,
325; speculative scientific/psychological essays, 326-7; in Switzerland, 326, 457; incorporates Davy’s ideas into work, 344; in Naples, 378-80; on Lac Leman with Byron, 383; revolutionary and atheistical ideas, 390-2; appends Notes to poems, 391; contracts ophthalmia, 407; drowned, 355, 408; obituary, 408;
Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude,
233, 311; ‘Epipsychidion’, 379-80, 425; ‘Essay on the Devil and Devils’, 391; ‘Essay on a Future State’, 311, 391; ‘The Magnetic Lady to her Patient’, 315n; ‘Mont Blanc’, 327; ‘The Necessity of Atheism’, 390; ‘Ode to the West Wind’, 356; ‘Ozymandias’, 404;
Prometheus Unbound,
344, 391-3;
Queen Mab,
344, 391

Shepherd, Antony, 168

Sheridan, Elizabeth
(née
Linley; RBS’s first wife), 76

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 76

Shortland, Michael and Richard Yeo (eds):
Telling Lives in Science,
303n

Silla, West Africa, 218

Simond, Louis, 292

Sir Lawrence
(brig), 47

slave trade: Park’s influence on abolitionists, 233; Banks’s views on, 386-7

Slough: Caroline Herschel moves into rooms in, 188, 194-5;
see also
Grove, The

smallpox: inoculation against, 285

Smiles, Samuel, 372

Smith, Adam: on property, 16n;
Philosophical Enquiries,
172

Smith, Charlotte, 267

Smith, Robert, 61;
Compleat System of Opticks,
74, 79, 88;
Harmonics,
70, 74, 82

Smith, Sydney, 338, 341, 376

Snow, Stephanie J.:
Operations without Pain,
284n

Söderqvist, Thomas (ed.):
The Poetics of Scientific Biography,
94n

sodium: Davy discovers, 297-8

Soho Square, London: Banks’s house in, 54, 58, 381

Sokoto, West Africa, 230

Solander, Daniel: on
Endeavour
voyage, 1, 4, 9-10, 13-14, 23, 38n, 39; Banks nurses during illness, 40; advises Harriet Blosset to break with Banks, 42; celebrity on return from voyage, 42-3; journal appropriated, 44; helps Banks with publication of journal, 46; activities in London, 49; meets Omai, 50; in Parry portrait with Omai, 51; on Banks’s parting from Sarah Wells, 55; death, 56, 396

solar system: Herschel’s view of, 122

Somerset, Charlotte, Duchess of, 384

Somerset, Edward Adolphus, 11th Duke of, 393

Somerville, Mary, 179, 407, 447, 452, 454, 458;
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences,
394, 458, 459

Somerville, William, 447

Sotheby, William, 452

soul: concept of, 309, 311, 314, 316

South Africa: John Herschel sets up observatory in, 462-5

South America: Humboldt in, 406

Southey, Edith, 263

Southey, Robert: poems inspired by Bryan Edwards, 212; and Pantisocracy, 252, 259; edits
Annual Anthology,
259, 269, 275; experiments with nitrous oxide, 263-5; describes Valley of the Rocks, 266; on difference between scientific and artistic temperaments, 274; believes Davy abandoning poetry, 275, 320; Davy corresponds with, 293; Davy climbs Helvellyn with, 295; Anna Beddoes requests to write biography of husband, 302; quotes Wordsworth’s ‘The Tables Turned’, 320; Davy introduces Jane to, 340;
Thalaba the Destroyer,
232, 275

Southey, Thomas, 264

Spain: ship reaches Tahiti, 3

spectography, 440n

Sporcken, General A.F. von, 70

Spöring, Herman, 10, 14, 40

Sprat, Mrs and Mrs (of Slough), 188, 195

Spufford, Francis:
Cultural Babbage
(with Jenny Uglow), 438n

Staël, Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de:
Corinne,
338

Stansfield, Dorothy, 303n

steam power: development, 382

Steffens, Henrick, 315

Steiner, George, 429n, 469n

Stephenson, George: accuses Davy of plagiarising safety lamp, 371-5

Stock, John:
Memoir
on Beddoes, 302

Stowe, Misses (sisters), 182, 188

Strangelove, Dr (fictional figure), 465n

Stukeley, William, xviiin, 456

Styria, 377

Success colliery, Newbottles, 361

Sumatra, 214

sun, the: Herschel believes inhabited, 199, 391; Herschel on effects on political revolutions, 204

Sun Fire Office (Guildhall), 376

surgery: without anaesthetic, 283, 305-6

Sussex, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of, 436-7

Sydney Cove see Botany Bay

Tabourai (Tahitian interpreter), 6

Tahiti (Otaheite): Banks visits, xxi, 1-7, 10, 13-14; thieving, 4-6, 16, 24, 27-8; Cook’s security measures, 15-16; sexual practices, 17-18, 25-6, 37, 42, 44, 46n; venereal disease in, 18; language, 19; trading, 19-20; grief practices, 22-3; surfing, 24-5; ceremonies and customs, 26-7, 32, 37-8; violations in, 27-8; differences and disharmony in, 28-9; food and cooking, 28; Cook and Banks circumnavigate, 29-32; evidence of cannibalism, 30; native structures, 31-2; tattooing, 32-3;
Endeavour leaves,
35; Banks’s written accounts of, 36-7, 45; infanticide, 37-8; Parkinson’s published account of, 45; Omai returns to, 52, 54; as legend, 54; traditional ways destroyed, 59n

Tambora volcano (Indonesia): erupts (1815), 383

Tarróa, Tahitian king, 212

Tasmania: exploration, 10

Tayeto (Tupia’s son), 40

Taylor, William, 275

telescopes: Herschel constructs, 60-1, 77, 83-5, 94; refractor type, 77-8; reflector type, 78; Herschel constructs forty-foot Newtonian form model, 163, 176-7, 181-2; forty-foot instrument put into operation, 190-1; management and maintenance problems, 191; forty-foot instrument dismantled, 465-6

Telescopium Herschelii
(The Telescope; constellation), 409

Tennyson, Alfred, 1st Baron:
In Memoriam,
451n; ‘The Kraken’, 384; ‘Timbucto’, 227-9

Terapo (Tahitian woman), 22

Thelwall, John, 307, 316

Thénard, Louis-Jacques, 297

Thompson, Benjamin see Rumford, Count

Thompson, John, 40

Thomson, James:
The Seasons,
171, 172n, 243; ‘To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton’, 440n

Thornton, Dr Robert, 11, 41-2

Thrale, Susannah, 114

Ticknor, George, 359-60

Tierra del Fuego, 13, 15

Timbuctoo, 212, 215-16, 218, 220, 225, 227

Times, The:
on Mungo Park’s return, 220; attacks Davy for accepting Prix Napoléon, 353; obituary of William Herschel, 408; on deaths of leading scientists, 435; reports on meetings of British Association, 447, 453

Tissandier, Gaston:
Histoire des Ballons et Aeronauts Célèbres,
156

Tobin, James, 257, 431

Tobin, John, 431

Tonkin, John, 238-9, 241-4, 250, 253, 285

Tooke, John Horne, 307

Town and Country Magazine,
49

Trinity College, Dublin, 304

True Briton
(journal), 220

Tuareg tribesmen, 227-8

Tupia (Tahitian priest), 34, 40

Turner, Joseph Mallord William: cloud paintings, 160

Uglow, Jenny:
Cultural Babbage
(with Francis Spufford), 438n;
The Lunar Men, 2
46n

ultraviolet light, 329

Underwood, Thomas, 272

universe (celestial system): Herschel’s views on, 11-12, 122-4, 204, 208-10

Uranus: Herschel discovers, 96-106, 207; name, 97 & n, 102n, 103; international acceptance of, 101; earlier sightings and recordings, 102; as symbol of Romantic science, 106

utilitarianism, 435