Abstract
The function generally expected of the military-industrial-university complex has been ‘spin-off’ from the military to the private sector. A closer look at the social process through which R&D emerged during the ship revolution within a comparative perspective shows the need for a significant revision of that view. This chapter justifies the claim by focusing on the social context of ‘spin-on’ in the development of the marine turbine in Britain and its transfer to Japan at the turn of the century. The ‘spin-on’ here means the whole complex process through which commercial advanced technology is converted directly or indirectly to military use, a process quite opposite to ‘spin-off’. R&D here means the activity of continuously procuring and systematically organizing materials, human resources, information and money for the purpose of getting practical benefits from science and technology as well as satisfying intellectual curiosity.
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Notes
L. F. Haber, The Chemical Industry during the 19th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958);
L. S. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);
G. Wise, ‘Ionists in industry: physical chemistry at General Electric, 1900–1915’, Isis, vol. 74, no. 271 (1983), pp. 7–21;
G. Meyer-Thurow, ‘The industrialization of invention: a case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis, vol. 73, no. 268 (1982), pp. 363–81;
F. Pfetsch, ‘Scientific organization and science policy in Imperial Germany, 1871–1914: the foundation of the Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology’, Minerva, vol. 8, no. 4 (1970), pp. 554–80, and others.
Although ‘social process’ is a term originating in sociology in the 1920s and usually used in the literature of social psychology, it is used here to mean the dynamic processes of multiple agents whose patterns of interaction can be observed. Agents here include both individual and collectivity. For an extension of such a wider usage of the term ‘agent’, see Bruno Latour, Les microbes: guerre et paix suivi d’ irréductions (Paris: A. M. Métailié, 1984). In the biographies of scien-tists and engineers, there has been a striking tendency to misleadingly call all social residual factors, other than cognitive development, ‘sociological’. As far as dramatic scaling up of scientific activity originating in the first half of the nineteenth century is concerned, the term ‘the Second Scientific Revolution’ was invented by R. Hahn to express that change based on a case study of L’Academie des Sciences in Paris.
See R. Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 275.
On more general institutional change, see E. Mendelsohn, ‘The context of nineteenth century science’, in B. Z. Jones (ed.) The Golden Age of Science: 30 Portraits of the Giants of 19th Century Science (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), p. xiii ff.
Calculated from C. A. Parsons, ‘The marine steam turbine from 1894 to 1910’, TINA, vol. 53, pt 2 (1911), pp. 79–134.
For a classical work by a sociologist employing this way of thinking, see Robert K. Merton, ‘Fluctuations in the rate of industrial invention’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 49, May (1935), pp. 454–74.
‘The old patent law’ mentioned here covers the period from 1617 to 30 September 1852. On 1 October 1852 the new patent law was enacted, which was reformed once again in 1883. For the social process through which the old patent law was changed to the new one in 1852, see Harold Irvin Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), esp. pp. 57–68.
Nathaniel Barnaby, ‘On mechanical invention in its relation to the improvement of naval architecture’, TINA, vol. 1 (1860), pp. 145–59. For a pioneering work by a sociologist of technology which pointed out the decrease in the role played by gentlemen and the nobility since the mid-nineteenth century based on a reanalysis of patent applicants for vessel propulsion systems,
See S. C. Gilfillan, The Sociology of Invention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 84.
The first affiliation with the Institution of Civil Engineers was as a student member and that with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was as a graduate member. See Rollo Appleyard, Charles Parsons: His Life and Work (London: Constable, 1933), appendix, p. 307; Joe F. Clarke, ‘An almost unknown great man: Charles Parsons and the significance of the patent of 1884’, Occasional Papers in the History of Science and Technology, no. 4, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic, 1984, A chronology. As for his enrolment as an ‘Engineer’, see Figure 4.4. He came from the Irish nobility. See Appleyard, Charles Parsons, pp. 304–5.
Isaac Todhunter, Conflict of Studies and Other Essays on Subjects connected with Education (London: Macmillan, 1873), pp. 18–19.
See M. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry: 1850–1970 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 31–60.
C. A. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, TINA, vol. 38 (1897), pp. 232–42.
D. J. Jeremy and C. Shaw (eds), Dictionary of Business Biography: A Biographical Dictionary of Business Leaders Active in Britain in the Period 1860–1980, vol. 4 (London: Butterworths, 1985), p. 543.
As for the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, see K. H. W. Thomas, ‘The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors: a centenary review’, Naval Architect, September (1983), pp. 289–300.
A word coined by Sir George Hamilton. F. Manning, The Life of Sir William White (London: John Murray, 1923), p. viii.
C. A. Parsons and George G. Stoney, ‘The steam-turbine’, Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 158, Part I (1906), p. 41. Interpolations are the author’s. Today the public runs of the Turbinia are believed to have been unofficially approved by the Navy beforehand.
See Isamu Yoshioka, ‘William Froude Den: Kindai Kogaku no Akebono, Zosengaku no Chichi’ (A biography of William Froude, the founding father of shipbuilding and the dawn of modern engineering) (Tokyo: for private distribution, 1985), p. 342.
For a work in the Victorian social context within which various engineering work is coupled with energy physics, including thermodynamics, see Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
As far as the genealogy of the development of the steam turbine is concerned, this example has also a close interconnection with the water turbine and the turbojet engine. On the connection with the water turbine, giving a counterproof of the hypothesis of ‘multiple invention’ formulated by Robert K. Merton, see Edward W. Constant II, ‘On the diversity and coevolution of technological multiples: steam turbine and Pelton water wheels’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 8, no. 2 (1978), pp. 183–210. On that with the turbojet engine, see idem, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980).
On the social background of the revolution in government regarding power technology, see P. W. J. Bartrip, ‘The state and the steam boiler in nineteenth century Britain’, International Review of Social History, vol. 25, pt 1 (1980), pp. 77–105.
See, for example, Herbert Spencer, Over-Legislation: An Essay (Tokyo: Tokio Daigaku, 1878), pp. 19–53.
Also see P. Abrams, The Origin of British Sociology, 1834–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 76.
Walter G. Vincenti, What Engineers Know and How They Know it: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), p. 236.
Based on ibid., table 7–1 (p. 235). Also see John M. Staudenmaier, Technology’s Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 103–20.
C. A. Parsons, ‘Motive power’, presidential address to the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Proceedings, 12 October (1922).
In his early notes on theoretical calculations for the steam turbine, Parsons incorporated a table addressing the practical problems of turbine design, such as the number of pairs of elementary turbines for a duplicate expansion based on the changing volume and velocity of steam. See Alex Richardson, The Evolution of the Parsons Steam Turbine (London: Offices of Engineering, 1911), p. 19, table iv.
Donald S. L. Cardwell, Technology; Science and History (London: Heinemann, 1972), p. 172.
The descriptions are based upon Iwasaki Ke Denki Kanko Kai (ed.) Iwasaki Yanosuke Den (A biography of Yanosuke Iwasaki), Ge Kan (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1971), pp. 296–9. These successive entries of Japanese engineers into Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard were remarkable in the climate of the time, when there were few established career patterns and recruiting qualified engineers into private enterprises had not yet become usual in Japan. On the Nagasaki Shipyard from the last days of the Shogunate to the middle of the 1880s,
See Yoh Nakanishi, Nihon Kindaika no Kiso Katei: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosen Sho to sono Roshi Kankei, 1855–1900 (Emergence of a modern Japanese enterprise and its industrial relations — Mitsubishi Shipyard: 1855–1900), 3 vols (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1982, 1983, 2003).
Kozo Yokoyama, ‘Hakuyo mekanikaru redakushon gia ni tsuite’ (On mechanical reduction gears for turbine ships), Zosen Kyokai Kaiho, no. 28 (1921), pp. 94–140.
Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo (ed.) Shinshu no Ura Yawa (Notes on the shipyard) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen, 1961), p.51; Gijutsu Hokoku, pp. 1–42.
Mitsubishi Honsha Shomubu Chosaka, Rodosha Toriatsukaikata ni kansuru Chosa Hokokusho (A report on how to manage workers) (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Zosen Jo, 1914), appendix, p. 39.
Nihon Kagakushi Gakkai (ed.) Nippon Kagaku Gijutsu Shi Taikei (An outline of the history of science and technology in Japan) (Tokyo: Daiichi Hoki Shuppan, 1965), vol. 9, pp. 11–12, pp. 325–6.
Also see Hiroshi Hazama, Nihon ni okeru Roshi Kyocho no Teiryu (The origins of industrial conciliation in Japan) (Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1978). As for the contemporary educational system and qualifying examination in Japan as a general background to this situation,
See Ikuo Amano, Shiken no Shakaishi (The social history of entrance examinations in modern Japan) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1983).
‘Mitsubishi Zosen Shoin Hatsumei Tokkyo ni kakawaru Seiki’ (The regulation on inventions and patents of employees of the Mitsubishi Shipyard). See Mitsubishi Sha-Shi Kanko Kai (ed.) Mitsubishi Sha-Shi (The history of the Mitsubishi Company), vol. 21: 1906–11 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1980), p. 953.
Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, ‘Shokko Katei Jotai sonota Tokei Hyo’ (Statistical survey of the workers), Mitsubishi Nagasaki Zosenjo, Nagasaki, 1923, pp. 23–4.
Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 354.
In this context, the general background of Mitsubishi Zaibatsu might be relevant. See William D. Wray, Mitsubishi and the NYK, 1870–1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), and others.
See Miwao Matsumoto, ‘Reconsidering Japanese industrialization’, Technology and Culture, vol. 40, no. 1 (1999), pp. 74–97.
For an introductory history of technology in Japan for Western readers, see Tessa Morris-Suzuki, The Technological Transformation of Japan: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Technological learning in the prewar period is discussed in relation to Mitsubishi in Yukiko Fukasaku, Technology and Industrial Development in Pre-war Japan: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, 1884–1934 (London: Routledge, 1992).
For a study on the transformation of the Fukoku Kyohei policy in Japan from 1868 to the 1990s, see Richard J. Samuels, ‘Rich Nation Strong Army’: National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
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Matsumoto, M. (2006). ‘Spin-on’ and Latecomers’ Advantages Reconsidered: British Development and Japanese Transfer in Social Context. In: Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504172_4
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