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Science and Government: John Phillips (1800–74) and the Early Ordnance Geological Survey of Britain

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Science, Politics and the Public Good

Abstract

In 1835 the Ordnance Geological Survey was established, with Henry De La Beche as its Director. His enterprise was not the first national geological survey to be patronised by a government: in France and the USA surveys were started in 1825 and 1823 and employed geologists temporarily.1 De La Beche’s Survey was unusual at the time in that it not only endured but grew, even though government regarded it as temporary. It was also unusual in that, though not the first experiment by which geological surveying and research were pursued under the auspices of the Ordnance Survey, it survived, whereas most other attempts foundered. John MacCulloch’s Scottish work, begun in 1814 and completed in 1836, was for government a painful example of jobbery and uncontrolled expenditure.2 From the 1820s, Richard Griffith unofficially exploited his posts in the Irish Ordnance Survey and by 1835 had raised no alarm in government circles. From 1832, Joseph Portlock worked officially in the Irish Ordnance Survey on geology until in 1840 the project had become so expensive that government stopped it.3 For England, fast becoming the workshop of the world, the economic argument in favour of geological surveying as part of the Ordnance Survey carried less weight than for Ireland. Even so, Thomas Colby, the Superintendent of the Ordnance Survey, encouraged a few surveyors to colour Ordnance maps geologically in the early 1830s. A fifth experiment was proposed, but not carried out, in 1831 when it was suggested to government that William Smith, the ageing Father of English Geology, should be appointed colourer of the Ordnance maps.4

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Notes

  1. For US geological surveys, see W. B. Hendrickson, ‘Nineteenth-century state geological surveys: early government support of science’, Isis, LII (1961) pp. 357–71; for France, V.A. Eyles, ‘The first national geological survey’, Geological Magazine, LXXXVII (1950) pp. 373–82.

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  2. On MacCulloch’s financial malversation see: V.A. Eyles, ‘John MacCulloch, FRS, and his geological map: an account of the first geological survey of Scotland’, Annals of Science, II (1937) pp. 114–29; and ‘Mineralogical Survey of Scotland. Account showing the several payments constituting the sums of £959/18/6d and £3,124/9/7d as expenses … also of £3,000 expenses … in the year 1828 and 1829 …’ Parliamentary Papers, XIV (1830–31) pp. 53–83. This return was made in February 1831 on behalf of the Treasury by Thomas Spring-Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1835–39.

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  3. Authoritative accounts are: G.L. Herries Davies, Sheets of Many Colours: The Mapping of Ireland’s Rocks 1750–1890 (Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1983); Davies and R.C. Mollan (eds), Richard Griffith 1784–1878 (Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1980); and J.H. Andrews, A Paper Landscape: the Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth-century Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).

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  4. A. Geikie, Life of Sir Roderick Murchison, vol. II (London, 1875) pp. 180, 193–4.

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  5. The standard books are: J.S. Flett, The First Hundred Years of the Geological Survey of Great Britain (London: HM Stationery Office, 1937); E. Bailey, Geological Survey of Great Britain (London: Murby, 1952); A. Geikie, Memoir of Sir A.C. Ramsay (London: Macmillan, 1895); and P.J. McCartney, Henry De La Beche: Observations on an Observer (Cardiff: Friends of the National Museum of Wales, 1977).

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  10. For De La Beche’s 1835 classification of West European fossiliferous rocks, see his How to Observe. Geology (London: Knight, 1835) pp. 13–16.

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  11. Phillips to De La Beche, 1 April 1835, DLB P; Rudwick, Devonian, pp. 121–3. For De La Beche’s interest in reconstructing ancient environments, see J.A. Secord, ‘The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a Research School, 1839–1855’, History of Science, XXIV (1986) pp. 223–75 (241–51).

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  19. By late 1836, Phillips’ Guide had reached a third edition, 1st edn 1834, 2nd edn 1835. Lyell retaliated with Elements of Geology (London: Murray, July 1838).

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  25. For a vignette of Phillips’ career, see J. B. Morrell and A. W. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) pp. 439–44.

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  27. On the voluntary help of Logan, who became first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842, see B.J. Harrington, Life of Sir William Logan (Montreal: Dawson, 1883) pp. 52–5, 59–71, 127–31.

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  28. Phillips, Figures and Descriptions of the Palaeozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset; Observed in the Ordnance Geological Survey of that District. Published by Order of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury (London: Longman, 1841) hence cited as Palaeozoic Fossils.

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  31. For the SDUK map, see Rudwick, Devonian, pp. 257–9 and for its place in Phillips’ mapping oeuvre see J.A. Douglas and J.M. Edmonds, ‘John Phillips’ geological maps of the British Isles’, Annals of Science VI (1950) pp. 361–75; Sedgwick and Murchison, ‘Classification’, 257 (note); De La Beche to Phillips, 9 April 1839, PP.

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  33. J. Phillips, Memoirs of William Smith (London: Murray, 1844) pp. 123–4; De La Beche to Phillips, 18 September 1839, PP.

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  34. A. Brongniart, Prodrome d’une Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles (Paris and Strasbourg: Levrault, 1828) esp. the table on p. 219 which showed the number of species in each of six classes of plants for each of five geological epochs, the last being the present; M.J.S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, 2nd edn (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1976) pp. 146–9, 180–1. For Lyell’s statistical palaeontology, revealed in vol. iii of his Principles of Geology in 1833, see Rudwick, ‘Charles Lyell’s dream of a statistical palaeontology’, Palaeontology, XXI (1978) pp. 225–44. For Phillips’ view of Adolphe Brongniart as the statistical pioneer, see Phillips ‘Geology’, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, pp. 548–9; ‘Organic Remains’, Penny Cyclopaedia, XVI (1840) pp. 487–91 (487).

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  35. Phillips, Treatise (London) pp. 137–9.

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  37. Phillips, ‘Palaeozoic’, Penny Cyclopaedia, XVII (1840) pp. 153–4. Murchison’s ‘Protozoic’, first suggested orally in spring 1838, appeared in print in 1839 in Silurian System, p. 11; Sedgwick’s ‘Palaeozoic’ appeared in print in Sedgwick, ‘A synopsis of the English series of stratified rocks inferior to the old red sandstone’, Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, II (1838), pp. 675–85 (685).

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Authors
  1. Jack Morrell
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  1. Wolfson College, Oxford, UK

    Nicolaas A. Rupke

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© 1988 Nicolaas A. Rupke

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Morrell, J. (1988). Science and Government: John Phillips (1800–74) and the Early Ordnance Geological Survey of Britain. In: Rupke, N.A. (eds) Science, Politics and the Public Good. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09514-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09514-8_2

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-09516-2

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