¹ Jackson, C. T., ‘Encouragement and cultivation of the sciences in the United States, Twenty-Fourth Anniversary Address, before the American Institute, of the City of New-York, at the Tabernacle, on 16th of October, 1851’, Transactions of the American Institute (1851), 227–46.Google Scholar

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³ See, for example, LeGrand, H. E., ‘Theory and application: the early chemical work of J. A. C. Chaptal’, BJHS (1984), 17, 31–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, A. R., ‘What did the Industrial Revolution in Britain owe to science?’, in Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour of J. H. Plumb (ed. McKendrick, N.), London, 1974, 129–51Google Scholar; Porter, R., ‘The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the science of geology’, in Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham (ed. Teich, M. and Young, R.), London, 1973, 320–43Google Scholar; Gillispie, C. C., ‘The natural history of industry’, Isis (1957), 48, 398–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mokyr, J., ‘Editor's Introduction: The new economic history and the Industrial Revolution’, in The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective (ed. Mokyr, J.), Boulder, CO, 1993, 78–83.Google Scholar Alternative points of view are put forward by Keyser, B. W., ‘Between science and craft: the case of Berthollet and dyeing’, Annals of Science (1990), 47, 213–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perrin, C., ‘Of theory shifts and industrial innovations: the relations of J. A. C. Chaptal and A. L. Lavoisier’, Annals of Science (1986), 43, 511–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McKendrick, N., ‘The role of science in the Industrial Revolution’, in Teich and Young, as above, 274–319Google Scholar; Jacob, M. C., The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution, New York, 1988Google Scholar; and Musson, A. E. and Robinson, E., Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester, 1969.Google Scholar

⁴ Landes, D. S., The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1759 to the Present, Cambridge, 1969.Google Scholar Work on American science and industry includes: Dennis, M. A., ‘Accounting for research: new histories of corporate laboratories and the social history of American science’, Social Studies of Science (1987), 17 479–518CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, J. K. Jr, ‘The scientific tradition in American industrial research’, Technology and Culture (1990), 31, 121–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Reich, L. S., The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876–1926, Cambridge, 1985, 12–41.Google Scholar On the rise of science-based industry in Germany see, for example, Homburg, Ernst, ‘The emergence of research laboratories in the dyestuffs industry, 1870–1900’, BJHS (1992), 25, 91–111Google Scholar; Meyer-Thurow, G., ‘The industrialization of invention: a case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis (1982), 73, 363–81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Beer, J. J., The Emergence of the German Dye Industry, Urbana, 1959Google Scholar; and Haber, L. F., The Chemical Industry during the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Economic Aspects of Applied Chemistry in Europe and North America, Oxford, 1958.Google Scholar

⁵ This point is also made by Mauskopf, S. H., ‘Chemistry and cannons: J.-L. Proust and gunpowder analysis’, Technology and Culture (1990), 31, 398–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Recent work on mid-to-late nineteenth-century chemistry and the emerging chemical industry includes, Travis, A. S., ‘Perkin's mauve: ancestor of the organic chemical industry’, Technology and Culture (1990), 31, 51–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Travis, A. S., ‘Science's powerful companion: A. W. Hofmann's investigation of aniline red and its derivatives’Google Scholar, van den Belt, H., ‘Why monopoly failed: the rise and fall of Société La Fuchsine’Google Scholar, and Hornix, W. J., ‘From process to plant: innovation in the early artificial dye industry’, all in a special issue, ‘Organic Chemistry and High Technology, 1850–1950’, BJHS (1992), 25, 27–44, 45–64, 65–90.Google Scholar On the relations of geology and industry see Lucier, P., ‘Commercial interests and scientific disinterestedness: consulting geologists in antebellum America’, Isis (1995), 86, 245–67.Google Scholar

⁶ Several scholars have noted the importance of patents in this regard, but they have tended to concentrate on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See, for example, Noble, D., America by Design: Science, Technology and The Rise of Corporate Capitalism, Oxford, 1979, 84–109Google Scholar; and Reich, , op. cit. (4)Google Scholar. For a discussion of patents in eighteenth-century Britain, see MacLeod, C., Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660–1800, Cambridge, 1988CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dutton, H. I., The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852, Manchester, 1984.Google Scholar For a survey of the literature on the relations of science and technology see Staudenmaier, J. M., Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric, Cambridge, MA, 1985, 83–120.Google Scholar

⁷ For more on Young see Butt, John, ‘James Young, Scottish Industrialist and Philanthropist’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Glasgow University, 1964)Google Scholar; and Forbes, R. J., Studies in Early Petroleum History, Leiden, 1958, 182–94.Google Scholar Young's papers are located in Strathclyde University Library, Glasgow; this essay, however, was completed before the author had a chance to consult them. On the interrelations of British academic chemistry and the chemical industry see Bud, R. and Roberts, G. K., Science versus Practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain, Manchester, 1984Google Scholar; and Donnelly, J. F., ‘Representations of applied science: academics and chemical industry in late nineteenth-century England’, Social Studies of Science (1986), 16, 195–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ On the development of the British coal oil industry see Butt, J., ‘Legends of the coal-oil industry (1847–1864)’, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (1964), 2, 16–31Google Scholar, and ‘Technical change and the growth of the British shale-oil industry (1680–1870)’, Economic History Review (1965), 17, 511–21.Google Scholar On Playfair's role see Reid, W. (ed.), Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair, London, 1899.Google Scholar

⁹ British Patent No. 13,292, 17 October 1850.

¹⁰ ‘The manufacture of coal oil. The first patent’, Scientific American (12 02 1859), 14, 186Google Scholar; and ‘Young versus Fernie’, The Law Times Reports (1864), 10, 861–5.Google Scholar

¹¹ US Patent No. 8833, 23 March 1852.

¹² In partnership with Edward Meldrum and the respected metropolitan geologist Edward William Binney, Young established three paraffine oil manufactories: E. W. Binney & Company of Bathgate, Scotland; E. Meldrum & Company of Glasgow; and James Young & Company of Manchester. For more on Binney see Binney, J., The Centenary of a Nineteenth-Century Geologist: Edward William Binney, Taunton, 1912.Google Scholar

¹³ US Patent Nos. 11,203, 11,204, and 11,205, 27 June 1854. For more on Gesner and Kerosene see Beaton, Kendall, ‘Dr. Gesner's Kerosene: the start of American oil refining’, Business History Review (1955), 29, 28–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butt, , ‘Legends’ op. cit. (8)Google Scholar; and Williamson, Harold F. and Daum, Arnold R., The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination, 1859–1899, Evanston, 1959, 43–60.Google Scholar

¹⁴ ‘Young's coal oil patent’, Scientific American (12 03 1859), 14, 221.Google Scholar The article generated a large response, and, under the rubric of ‘The coal oil controversy’, Scientific American published some fifteen articles on Young's patent, from March to December 1859.

¹⁵ ‘Young's coal oil patent’, Scientific American (5 03 1859), 14, 213.Google Scholar

¹⁶ ‘Young's coal oil patent’, op. cit. (14).

¹⁷ ‘The manufacture of coal oil. The first patent’, op. cit. (10).

¹⁸ ‘The coal oil controversy’, Scientific American (26 03 1859), 14, 238.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For more on the US patent system see Lubar, S., ‘The transformation of antebellum patent law’Google Scholar, and Dood, K. J., ‘Pursuing the essence of inventions: reissuing patents in the 19th century’, both articles in a special issue ‘Patents and Invention’, Technology and Culture (1991), 32, 932–59, 999–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the British patent system see Dutton, , op. cit. (6)Google Scholar, and MacLeod, , op. cit. (6).Google Scholar

²⁰ Controversies over the precision of patent specifications are as old as patents themselves. The earliest examination of this issue involved James Watt and his patented steam engine; see Robinson, E., ‘James Watt and the Law of Patents’, Technology and Culture (1972), 13, 115–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of the social construction of patents and patent specifications see Cooper, C., Shaping Invention: Thomas Blanchard's Machinery and Patent Management in Nineteenth-Century America, New York, 1991.Google Scholar

²¹ This point was made explicit by the Commissioner of Patents, Gale, L. D., in ‘On the relations of the American patent system to the progress of science’, Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1854), 8, 292–301.Google Scholar

²² Antisell, T., The Manufacture of Photogenic or Hydro-Carbon Oils, from Coal and Other Bituminous Substances, Capable of Supplying Burning Fluid, New York, 1859.Google Scholar

²³ For more on the US Patent Office see Post, R. C., Physics, Patents, and Politics: A Biography of Charles Grafton Page, New York, 1976Google Scholar; and ‘“Liberalizers” versus “Scientific Men” in the antebellum Patent Office’, Technology and Culture (1976), 17, 24–54.Google Scholar Britain had no such law for the examination of patent applications; instead it operated a mere registration system. The system was simplified, but not substantially altered, by the Reform Act of 1852. See Dutton, , op. cit. (6), 57–68.Google Scholar

²⁴ Antisell, , op. cit. (22), 15.Google Scholar

²⁵ For very similar histories, also written by defenders of Young's patent, see Paul, B. H., ‘On destructive distillation, considered in reference to modern industrial arts’Google Scholar, read before the Society of Arts, 27 May 1863, reprinted in Chemical News (1863), 7, 282–3, 295–7Google Scholar, and (1863), 8, 56–8, 78–9; and Frankland, E., ‘On artificial illumination’, Chemical News (1863), 7, 91–3.Google Scholar

²⁶ For an insightful discussion of patents as history see Bowker, Geof, ‘What's in a patent?’, in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change (ed. Bijker, W. E. and Law, J.), Cambridge, 1992, 53–74.Google Scholar

²⁷ Stephen Hales, for instance, had distilled Newcastle coal and produced gas, liquid and tar; see Hales, S., Vegetable Staticks, London, 1727, ch. 6: ‘Analysis of the air’.Google Scholar

²⁸ Reichenbach used coal from Moravian mines. See Farrar, W. V., ‘Reichenbach, Karl (or Carl)’, DSB, xi, 359–60.Google Scholar

²⁹ Antisell, , op. cit. (22), 14–15.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘Storer, Francis Humphreys’, Dictionary of American Biography, xviii, 94–5.Google Scholar

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³⁴ Antisell actually thought the review was ‘double handed’, meaning ‘the joint production of a young chemist and a more mature patent solicitor’. Antisell, T., ‘A scientific reviewer reviewed’, American Gas-Light Journal (16 07 1860), 2, 25–6.Google Scholar

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³⁶ Dutton, , op. cit. (6), 17–33.Google Scholar

³⁷ It must also be noted that Abraham Gesner played a role in the successful defence, at least in print, of American manufacturers. See Gesner, A., A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils, New York, 1861.Google Scholar

³⁸ Binney, E. W. to Meldrum, E., 11 11 1859Google Scholar, quoted in Butt, , ‘Legends’, op. cit. (8), 25.Google Scholar

³⁹ E. W. Binney and Company versus The Clydesdale Chemical Company, 1–7 November (Court of Session Edinburgh, 1860). The case was watched very closely in the United States for it was widely believed that outcome would set a precedent for the prosecution of similar American cases. See ‘Young's coal oil patent case’ Scientific American (5 01 1861), 4, 11Google Scholar; and ‘Coal oil patent – important case’, Scientific American (8 12 1860), 3, 378.Google ScholarThe American Gas-Light Journal published two accounts of the trial: ‘Coal-oil Important patent decision’, American Gas-Light Journal (1 12 1860), 2, 172Google Scholar; and ‘The paraffine pat case’ ibid. (1 January 1861), 2, 206.

⁴⁰ ‘Coal oil. Important patent decision’, op. cit. (39).

⁴¹ ‘Young's coal oil patent case’, op. cit. (39).

⁴² See, however, Smith, R. and Wynne, B. (eds.), Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law, London, 1989Google Scholar; Hamlin, C., ‘Scientific method and expert witnesses: Victorian perspectives on a modern problem’, Social Studies of Science (1986), 16, 485–573CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fullmer, J. Z., ‘Technology, chemistry, and the law in early 19th-century England’, Technology and Culture (1980), 21, 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brock, W. H., ‘The spectrum of science patronage’, in Patronage of Science in the Nineteenth Century (ed. Turner, G. L'E.), Leyden, 1976, 173–206.Google Scholar Yet historians of medicine seem much more conscious of the relations between medicine and the law, as in Crawford, C., ‘Medicine and the law’, in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (ed. Bynum, W. F. and Porter, R.), 2 vols., London, 1993, ii, 1619–40Google Scholar; Clark, M. and Crawford, C. (eds.), Legal Medicine in History, Cambridge, 1993Google Scholar; Smith, R., Trial by Medicine: Insanity and Responsibility in Victorian Trials, Edinburgh, 1981Google Scholar; Jones, C. G., Expert Witnesses: Science, Medicine, and the Practice of Law, Oxford, 1994Google Scholar; and Mohr, J. C., Doctors and the Law: Medical Jurisprudence in Nineteenth-Century America, New York, 1993.Google Scholar

⁴³ William Thomas Brande (1788–1866), FRS, was the successor to Humphry Davy as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1813 and editor of the Dictionary of Science and Arts from 1842 till his death. Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806–80) held the first professorship of medical jurisprudence at Guy's Hospital (1831–80) as well as a lectureship in chemistry (1832–80); he wrote Medical Jurisprudence (1843), the standard text of the time.

⁴⁴ Cited in ‘The paraffine patent case’, op. cit. (39).

⁴⁵ ‘Young's coal oil patent case’, op. cit. (39).

⁴⁶ ‘Coal-oil. Important patent decision’, op. cit. (39).

⁴⁷ James Young and Others versus Ebenezer Fernie and Others, 29 February–7 May (Courts of Chancery, 1864), reported in ‘Young versus Fernie’, The Law Times Reports, op. cit. (10). The trial received an extended review in the London Chemical News. See ‘Young v. Fernie’, Chemical News (21 05 1864), 9, 249–50Google Scholar; (28 May 1864), 9, 262–4; and (4 June 1864), 9, 273–6.

⁴⁸ Hofmann was the first director of the Royal College of Chemistry (1845–63), and the most successful chemical expert of his generation; he annually augmented his income by £8000–£9000 as a legal consultant, see Brock, , op. cit. (42), 186.Google Scholar At the same time as he was defending Young, for example, Hofmann was the chief chemical expert for the plaintiff in the trial Renard versus Levinstein (Courts of Chancery, 1864), a patent dispute over a blue aniline dye. See ‘Renard v. Levinstein’, Chemical News (9 04 1864), 9, 168.Google Scholar For more on Hofmann's career see Bud, and Roberts, , op. cit. (7)Google Scholar; Beer, , op. cit. (4)Google Scholar; and Travis, , ‘Science's powerful companion’, op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

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