Academic aquifer

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (203) explores the Natural Science Society, a social hub attracting people to meetings, lectures, and conversazioni. Appearing in the 1880s, the society appeared to tap an academic aquifer, attracting a committee and many prepared to deliver papers or exhibit items from their scientific collections. Most members had experienced a university education, but not all.

Victorian Bournemouth (203): context

Earlier interest in shared knowledge

References to lecturers visiting Bournemouth occur from the 1850s. Many of them consisted of clergymen aiming to recruit followers to their denomination or to bolster belief. The Temperance message on occasion came sugared with a lecture aimed at young men. Some public lectures appear to have verged on the edge of show-business. Several talks about electro-biology featured interesting displays. Mr Mackintosh captured listeners’ minds with his lecture on ‘Recent astronomical discoveries’, while Mrs Mackintosh’s singing touched their hearts,  producing a ‘deep impression’. Scientific subjects began to occur. The microscope. Air. Coal. Demonstrations of new scientific equipment. A Bournemouth Institute emerged during the 1860s, its reading room providing a social meeting place during the winter. By the 1880s, the influence of Darwin’s researches provided the basis for amateur interest in natural science. Bournemouth contained many men and women, living on private incomes, for whom this subject could provide a pastime. 

Natural Science society

According to the present BNSS, Bournemouth had had a natural science society since the 1860s, but it became defunct. A fresh start occurred by the end of 1883, as reported by the Bournemouth Guardian. Early supporters, the Bright family provided their Reading Room in the Arcade for society meetings. Percy Bright, lepidopterist and future mayor, served as librarian, his elder brother, Eustace, a doctor, gave an early lecture. The society had a full committee structure. Meetings assembled the members each fortnight, a lecture occurring often. Once a year they created an exhibition described as a conversazione. Open to the public, located in several locations, the first attracted 1500 attendees over two days. People could hear lectures, examine specimens contributed by members, meet and discuss natural science. By 1885, the society had moved its location, experienced membership growth, and accepted more volumes for its library. Some called for a permanent home.

Victorian Bournemouth (203): subjects

Science

The content shared at meetings and the exhibits lent to the exhibitions show a very wide range of subjects considered of interest to members. Apart from the core sciences (biology, physics, chemistry), botany, entomology, and geology proved popular subjects for papers. Animal life also featured, birds, fish, and reptiles. In time, content strayed beyond the pond or the earth. The Volga basin, Pompeii, and New Zealand took the audience further afield. Curdling of milk, bacteria, light and sound also came within scope. Exhibits at the conversazioni show both a width of interest and the capacity to collect. Wild flowers, mosses, butterflies, coral, fossils, birds, snakes, and buffalo horns occupied stands. Miss Hodson even brought an example of a deep-sea cable. In 1886, many exhibits sat under the collective descriptor of ‘ecology’. The members appeared to accept subjects far from their speciality, welcoming them under the broader subject of natural science.

Commerce

Some years earlier, when the telegraph service connected Bournemouth to Poole, the company sent an official to give a public lecture and demonstration of the device. Public lighting displays demonstrated the benefits of electricity to the public. The Natural Science Society provided an advertising channel for other technological companies. The Primavesi brothers, perhaps Bournemouth’s leading jewellers, on more than one occasion provided working displays of mechanical devices. William Mattocks, another jeweller and a future mayor, did the same. Mr Harding, perhaps the professional photographer, also displayed a scientific apparatus. The Western Counties Telephone company demonstrated their technology. Thus, commercial entities, whether operational in Bournemouth or covering a broader area, understood the benefit of marketing to the society’s members. The companies would have understood how the society acted as a gathering spot of people nowadays described as opinion-leaders and influencers. Attention to this audience would generate valuable and informed word-of-mouth.

Victorian Bournemouth (203): society people

Committee

In its early days, the society attracted glamorous names onto its committee. George Allman (1812-1898), Natural History Professor at Edinburgh, became President. So, also, did John Burdon-Sanderson (1828-1905), a distinguished physician, later an Oxford professor. Walter Bezant Lowe (1854-1928), royal tutor and antiquary, served as secretary, but also proved an enthusiastic disseminator of knowledge. Several physicians, practising or retired, found their way into the society, often acting as Vice-President. Nehemiah Curnock, the Wesleyan minister, took an active part before the Connexion moved him elsewhere. Thus, many involved had experienced higher education, belonging to a higher social level. Nevertheless, some merchants’ sons belonged to the community. William Dolamore, a wine merchant’s son, had sold books for a living, but later took up new technology, becoming a photographer. Two others identified as participants sold stationery in Bournemouth, one a carpenter’s son. In general, though, the society drew respectable and accomplished people.

Contributors

The society always benefitted from volunteers. People wanted to serve on the committee, give lectures, contribute exhibits, donate books. It fused Bournemouth’s intelligentsia into a brain’s trust comprised of many academic and research disciplines. Participation appealed to old and young, retired gentlemen and Oxford undergraduates. Furthermore, the society welcomed contributions from interested women. Identification of most contributors remains uncertain. On the basis of those found, however, it seems that, at the exhibitions and meetings, churchmen, physicians, merchants, academics, amateurs living on private means would mingle to exchange ideas and experiences. The society also fused two intellectual and cultural revolutions. On the one hand, a scientific view of nature, stimulated by Darwin’s published discoveries, on the other, a technological explosion, as represented by photography and telephony. Many of the churchmen participating perhaps experienced challenges to their belief and education posed by much of the society’s content and ideas.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (203) has surveyed the Natural Science Society that flourished in the resort during the 1880s. The society acted as a forum for people having quite different interests yet all connected by a shared zeal for scientific study and new technology. Thus, to those having similar interests the society made Bournemouth an attractive destination.

References

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