Abstract
Historians of science find little to like about England’s two universities, Cambridge and Oxford, in the eighteenth century. A distinguished scientist and historian of science passes harsh judgment on Cambridge University and in particular its treatment of John Michell: “The century which elapsed between the death of Newton and the scientific activity of Green was the darkest in the history of the University. …” This bleak assessment was made in a later time, when the teaching of science was done by professional scientists, and when a university’s scientific research was the measure of its standing in the world of learning. From that perspective, English universities in the eighteenth century fell woefully short. We take a different perspective. We look at the intended place of science in the universities, which were very different institutions than ours today. For most tutors, preparing candidates for Anglican livings and generally serving the wants of Georgian society took precedence over advancing natural knowledge. Michell himself, so far as we know, was reasonably content with Cambridge as he found it.
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Notes
- 1.
Sir E.T. Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, vol. 1: The Classical Theories (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 153.
- 2.
Gilbert Michell to Gertrude Savile, 18 April 1747.
- 3.
9 May 1749, Oaths of Allegiance and Fellowship Elections, Queens’ College Archives, Bk 86A
- 4.
Handbook to the University of Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 26–27. Christopher Hobshouse, Oxford: As It Was and As It Is Today (London: B. T. Batsford, 1941–42), 59–60.
- 5.
Gilbert Michell to Gertrude Savile, 18 April 1747. In 1696, Sir George Savile, seventh baronet, entered Christ Church College, Oxford University. Alumni Oxonienses (1500–1714) 4:1319.
- 6.
Michell was admitted to his college in Cambridge on 17 June 1742. Geikie, Michell, 4.
- 7.
Gilbert Michell to Gertrude Savile, 23 December 1743, NA DD/SR 221/87.
- 8.
Since no other John Michell is known to have used books like this, we assume that the subscriber is our John Michell.
- 9.
W.W. Rouse Ball, A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889), 253–54.
- 10.
John Gascoigne, “Mathematics and Meritocracy: The Emergence of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos,” Social Studies of Science 14 (1984): 547–84, on 571.
- 11.
Mordechai Feingold, “The Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies,” in The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 7: Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. N. Tyacke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 359–448, on 440.
- 12.
John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 170–74. John C. English, “John Hutchinson’s Critique of Newtonian Heterodoxy,” Church History 68 (1999): 581–97, on 593.
- 13.
Feingold, “Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies,” 447–48.
- 14.
John Michell to Charles Mason, 23 May 1751, Gentleman’s Magazine 69 (1751): 112–13. Denys Arthur Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 206–7.
- 15.
John Twigg, A History of Queens’ College, Cambridge, 1448–1986 (London: Boydell, 1987), 1–4. A History of the Counties of England. Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, ed. J.P.C. Roach, vol. 3: The City and University of Cambridge (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 408.
- 16.
The Victoria History of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of the Ely, vol. 3: The City and University of Cambridge, ed. J. P. C. Roache (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 409–10. Hereafter cited as History of Cambridgeshire. J.H. Gray, The Queens’ College of St. Margaret and St. Bernard (London, 1899), 242.
- 17.
Bux, “Herschel.”
- 18.
The design and model of the bridge were attributed to “Etheridge,” who was paid £21 in October 1748. James Essex, the architect for the College at that time, was paid £100 in September 1749 for building the bridge. Journal, Queens’ College Archives, vol. 7. Robert Plumptre, “Notes for and History of the College,” Queens’ College Archives, Book 73.
- 19.
John Michell to Sir George Savile, 1 February 1759, Berkshire Record Office, D/EHY 047.
- 20.
John Michell to Sir George Savile, 7 August 1772, NA DDF J 11/1/7/249.
- 21.
A.W. Skempton, “Smeaton, John,” DNB, new ed. 50:981–85; DNB., original ed. 18:393–95, on 394.
- 22.
In 1753, the year after Michell received his M.A., Queens’ membership was about sixty. Gray, Queens’ College, 233.
- 23.
From the Queens’ section, University Matriculations, Cambridge University Archives, vol. 3. Brief biographies for these and other students at Cambridge are given in Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900, compiled by J. A. Venn. Part 1: From the Earliest Times to 1751, 4 vols. Part 2: From 1752–1900, 6 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–54). For eleven of the fifty-eight Queens’ students, the information given in Alumni Cantabrigienses is scant, and for one of them, I have been unable to find any information.
- 24.
Four students entered Queens’ as pensioners, then changed their status to fellow commoners.
- 25.
Of Michell’s contemporaries at Queens’, thirty-two were pensioners, or thirty-six if we include pensioners who subsequently became fellow commoners; in the University at large, 70% of pensioners graduated.
- 26.
Of Michell’s contemporaries, fifteen were sizars, some of whom received scholarships; in the University at large, 80% of sizars and scholars graduated.
- 27.
Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 49–50.
- 28.
Peter Searby, A History of the University of Cambridge, vol. 3: 1750–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 159.
- 29.
Ball, Mathematics at Cambridge, 254.
- 30.
The quotation continues: “several of this number, they tell you, are no strangers to the Higher Geometry and the more difficult parts of Mathematicks; and others who are not of this number, are yet well acquainted with the Experiments and Appearances in natural Science.” J. Green, bishop of Lincoln, in Academic,1750; quoted in R.T. Gunther, Early Science in Cambridge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 59. Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, trans. A. Motte in 1729 from the 3rd ed. 1726, rev. trans. F. Cajori (Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962).
- 31.
John Lewis.
- 32.
Henry Newcome and Thomas Thwaytes.
- 33.
John Greene and Francis Coventry.
- 34.
John Carter.
- 35.
“Gordon, John,” Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. 1, vol. 2, 240.
- 36.
Gilbert Michell to Gertrude Savile, 28 May 1748.
- 37.
Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 63–66.
- 38.
Ibid., 64–68.
- 39.
Ibid., 72–73.
- 40.
Steegman, Cambridge, 33.
- 41.
Oaths of Allegiance and Fellowship Elections, Queens’ College Archives, Bk. 86A. Twigg, Queens’, 185. History of Cambridgeshire 3: 411.
- 42.
Twigg, Queens’, 189.
- 43.
Steegman, Cambridge, 33.
- 44.
Information on fellows from Alumni Cantabrigienses.
- 45.
Twigg, Queens’, 185.
- 46.
Ibid., 157, 180.
- 47.
Plumptre, “History of College,” f. 147.
- 48.
Hutton sold unbound copies of the book to a publisher for 9s. 8p. each. Jean Jones, Hugh S. Torrens, and Eric Robinson, “The Correspondence between James Hutton (1726–1797) and James Watt (1736–1819) with Two Letters from Hutton to George Clerk-Maxwell (1715–1784): Part II,” Annals of Science 52 (1995): 357–382, on 379.
- 49.
James Sime, William Herschel and His Work (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 104–5. A.J. Turner, Science and Music in Eighteenth Century Bath (Bath: University of Bath, 1977), 53.
- 50.
William Herschel to Mr. Shairp at St. Petersburgh, 9 March 1794, copy, Herschel MSS, Royal Astronomical Society, W 1/1, 202–4.
- 51.
To give a rough idea of the cost of instruments: in 1765–66, Harvard University acquired 123 items from London instrument-makers, a mix of instruments, apparatus, tools, and parts such as glassware, all of high quality. The bill was £544, which comes to between £4 the £5 per item on the average. David P. Wheatland, The Apparatus of Science at Harvard, 1765–1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), 5–6.
- 52.
Twigg, Queens’, 187.
- 53.
53These are the known posts for which Michell received payment. They run from Michaelmus to Michaelmus, the reason for double-years in the dating.
- 54.
The following salaries are from Collect. Admin. 19(i), Cambridge University Archives. This is a volume of University Statutes, but it contains all kinds of detail.
- 55.
Information on Michell’s University appointments are in Grace Books, Liber Gratiarum, Cambridge University Archives, K (1772–74).
- 56.
Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 22–27, 41–48.
- 57.
History of Cambridgeshire 3: 127.
- 58.
Conclusion Book, Queens’ College Archives.
- 59.
Journals, Queens’ College Archives, vols. 7–8. History of Cambridgeshire 3: 411.
- 60.
General Acquittances, Queens’ College Archives, vol. 22, 1682–1783.
- 61.
“Special Foundations: Sir Robert Rede’s Lecturer,” The Historical Register of the University of Cambridge, Being a Supplement to the Calendar with a Record of University Offices, Honours and Distinctions to the Year 1910 (Cambridge, 1910), 147–49.
- 62.
Geikie, Michell, 5. A search of the Conclusion Book at Queens’ and other College records deposited in the University Library has failed to turn up any mention of payment to him as tutor. Admission Registers sometimes give tutors of undergraduates, but those for Queens’ give only students’ names and counties of origin. According to Twigg, Queens’, 189, Owen Manning was tutor at Queens’ in 1749, and we assume he continued as such until his resignation in 1755. According to Alumni Cantabrigienses, Robert Barker was tutor at Queens’ in 1760. Geikie states that Michell was “Tutor of the College” from 1751 to 1763, years which overlap the above. Even the large colleges had only two tutors for all of their students, according to Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 270.
- 63.
Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 269–70.
- 64.
In 1767, tutors petitioned for an improved schedule of payments for students other than sizars: noblemen £8, fellow commoners £4, pensioners £2, sizars 15s, and B.A.s 15s. University Archives Collect. Admin. 19 (i).
- 65.
History of Cambridgeshire 3: 412.
- 66.
Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge, 279–80.
- 67.
Twigg, Queens’, 186.
- 68.
J.L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 1979), 153.
- 69.
The Leeds portrait was contributed by Lady Amcotts Ingilby of Ripley Castle, North Yorkshire. National Exhibition of Works of Art at Leeds, 1868. Official Catalogue (Leeds, 1868). The collection was assembled by the Yorkshire antiquary Edward Hailstone, who published a descriptive catalog, Portraits of Yorkshire Worthies, 2 vols. (London, 1869). Many of the portraits in the collection were photographed and published in the catalog, but Michell’s was not among these.
- 70.
Cole Diary, Cole’s MSS, Cambridgeshire Record Office, Add. MS 5834 f.156; and quoted in Geikie, Michell, 8.
- 71.
Ball, Mathematics at Cambridge, 74.
- 72.
William Ludlam, The Rudiments of Mathematics; Designed for the Use of Students at the Universities … , 2nd ed. (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1787), 4.
- 73.
Waterland, quoted in Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae, 366.
- 74.
Ibid., 3.
- 75.
Christoph J. Scriba, “Wallis, John,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 16 vols, ed. C.C. Gillispie (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1970–80), 14:146–55; hereafter cited as DSB.
- 76.
A. Rupert Hall, “Vigani, John Francis,” DSB 14: 26–27.
- 77.
Richard Davies, “Tables of Specific Gravities, Extracted from Various Authors, with Some Observations upon the Same,” PT 45 (1748): 416–89, on 416, 428. He advocated using the hydrostatic scale to determine the substances that constitute blood, a particular instance of a use of specific gravities in natural philosophy; specific gravities are the “the most distinguishing property of all bodies, and best serves to ascertain their nature.” Richard Davies, Essays to Promote the Experimental Analysis of the Human Blood (Bath, 1760), 12.
- 78.
The interests of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries overlapped at this time. Manning contributed to the Royal Society an account of skeletons, coins, vessels, and a chest found in digging for stone near Chesterton. 9 May 1754, Journal Book, Royal Society Library, 21: 540–41.
- 79.
For instance, John Lewis Petit in 1759 and Wilkinson Blanchard in 1760. Certificates Book, Royal Society Library.
- 80.
Robert Smith, A Compleat System of Opticks in Four Books, viz. A Popular, a Mathematical, a Mechanical, and a Philosophical Treatise … , 2 vols. (Cambridge: Crownfield, 1738). Henry John Steffens, The Development of Newtonian Optics in England (New York: Science History Publications, 1977), 48, 50, 53. Geoffrey Cantor, Optics After Newton: Theories of Light in Britain and Ireland, 1704–1840 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983), 33–34.
- 81.
Richard Watson, Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (London, 1818), 14.
- 82.
Thomas Rutherforth, A System of Natural Philosophy, Being a Course of Lectures in Mechanics, Optics, Hydrostatics, and Astronomy; Which Are Read in St Johns College … , 2 vols (Cambridge, 1748).
- 83.
William Heberden, Strictures upon the Discipline of Cambridge, 1792, 42–43, recalled that the books of “Dr Smith and Dr Rutherforth naturally introduced a greater attention to the subjects of which they treated in the two great colleges [Trinity and St. Johns]: which spread thence and soon became subjects in the public examination”; quoted in Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae, 67.
- 84.
“Mr Holmes’s Lectures,” Cambridge University Library. The notes are in the handwriting of Richard Watson. Holmes was evidently Gervaise Holmes, fellow of Emanuel College and friend and memoirist of Saunderson, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
- 85.
Ludlam, Mathematics, 4.
- 86.
According to Heberden, Strictures upon the Discipline of Cambridge; quoted in Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae, 66.
- 87.
Thomas Baker, History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1869), 1069–70.
- 88.
John Michell to the Monthly Reviewers, 17 May 1785, Monthly Review 72 (1785): 478–80, on 480.
- 89.
Roger Long, Astronomy, in Five Books, 2 vols. in 3 (Cambridge, 1742, 1764, 1784) 2: 585.
- 90.
Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae, 345.
- 91.
He informed Michell about a comet, and he communicated a paper on the moon by a Cambridge astronomer to the Royal Society. John Michell, “Observations on the Same Comet,” PT 51 (1760): 466–67. Richard Dunthorne, “A Letter … to the Rev. Mr. Mason F.R.S. and Keeper of the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, Concerning the Acceleration of the Moon,” PT 46 (1748/49): 162–72.
- 92.
Smith, Opticks, 94.
- 93.
John Colson, Preface, Sir Isaac Newton, The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series; with Its Application to the Geometry of Curve-Lines. By the Inventor Sir Isaac Newton, Kt. Late President of the Royal Society. Translated from the Author’s Latin Original Not Yet Made Publick. To Which Is Subjoined, A Perpetual Comment upon the Whole Work, Consisting of Annotations, Illustrations, and Supplements. In Order to Make This Treatise a Compleat Institution for the Use of Learners, ed. and trans. J. Colson (London, 1736), ix.
- 94.
Long, Astronomy 1:718.
- 95.
Mickleburgh was professor of chemistry from 1718 until his death in 1756; it seems that he gave his last lectures in 1741, the year before Michell entered Cambridge. L. J. M. Coleby, “John Mickleburgh, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge, 1718–56,” Annals of Science 8 (1952): 165–74, on 167, 169–71.
- 96.
John Michell to Charles Blagden, 27 July 1785.
- 97.
Thomas L. Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, New York, and New Rochelle: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 3–7.
- 98.
Cole, Diary.
- 99.
Robert Smith, Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1759), preface.
- 100.
Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 4.
- 101.
Ibid.
- 102.
Richard Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1973), 218–19. Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks; or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light, 4th ed. (New York: Dover, 1952), 405.
- 103.
Gascoigne, Cambridge, 65, 115–17, 126. Walsh and Taylor, “Church and Anglicanism,” 36–37.
- 104.
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Margaret C. Jacob, Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995), 98.
- 105.
Twigg, Queens’, 165–66. Gascoigne, Cambridge, 101–2.
- 106.
Twigg, Queens’, 169–70.
- 107.
Oaths of Allegiance and Fellowship Elections.
- 108.
Gilbert Michell to Gertrude Savile, 9 June 1749.
- 109.
Visitation Exhibit Book 1759/60, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research.
- 110.
Institution Act Book 13, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research.
- 111.
Twigg, Queens’, 168–69.
- 112.
Conclusion Book, Queens’ College Archives. Institution of Michell, 31 May 1760, Ely Diocesan Records, G/1/13.
- 113.
History of Cambridgeshire 3:127.
- 114.
St. Bololph Parish Registers, Cambridge County Record Office.
- 115.
John Michell to Daniel Wray, 18 May 1758, British Library, Add Mss 4314:14.
- 116.
Michell’s last receipt of dues was on 20 October 1763. The next receipt was by Henry Morris, his successor, on 19 December 1763. Volume of minister’s dues paid quarterly by the parishioners of St. Botolph’s from midsummer 1748 to June 1769, Cambridge County Record Office, P26/3/1.
- 117.
Inventory of Obedience Michell’s estate, 18 October 1750; and appointment of Gilbert Michell as his wife’s administrator, 19 October 1750, NA, PRNW. It would seem that John Michell was in Eakring, since he signed these documents.
- 118.
“1751/2. Feb 19. Gilbert Michell, Clerk, Rector of Eakring, 50, wid & Hannah Woodhouse of same, 29, spr at same or Bilsthorp,” Nottinghamshire Marriage Licenses, British Record Society 2:522. Gilbert’s age is given as 50, but this is wrong; he was baptized in 1688. The wedding was on 20 February, a day later according to the Eakring parish registers of weddings, christenings, and burials. This Gilbert is definitely John’s father, not his brother, Gilbert, who did not have a family.
- 119.
George was born on 16 October 1754, Elizabeth on 25 August 1756; Eakring parish registers of weddings, christenings, and burials.
- 120.
Gilbert Michell was buried on 16 June 1758. Eakring parish registers of weddings, christenings, and burials.
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McCormmach, R. (2012). Cambridge. In: Weighing the World. Archimedes, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2022-0_2
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