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²³ Money, J., Experience and Identity. Birmingham and the West Midlands 1760–1800, Manchester, 1977, 225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarRobinson, E., ‘The Derby Philosophical Society’, Annals of Science, 1953, 9, 368–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Disaffected & seditious persons. Goodmans fields 28 July 1792’, PRO MS HO 42.21. For other scientific societies and sedition (mostly at a later date) see Inkster, Ian, ‘London Science and the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817’, BJHS, 1979, 12, 192–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weindling, Paul, ‘Science and Sedition: How Effective Were the Acts Licensing Lectures and Meetings, 1795–1819?’, BJHS, 1980, 13, 139–53CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Inkster, Ian, ‘Seditious Science: A Reply to Paul Weindling’, BJHS, 1981, 14, 181–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the relations between Beddoes and Erasmus Darwin, see Stock, J. E., Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Beddoes, M.D., London & Bristol, 1811Google Scholar; King-Hele, D., Doctor of Revolution: The Life and Genius of Erasmus Darwin, London, 1977Google Scholar; King-Hele, D. (ed.), The Letters of Erasmus Darwin, Cambridge, 1981.Google Scholar

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²⁵ Beddoes, , A Letter to Erasmus Darwin, M.D., on a new method of treating pulmonary consumption, and some other diseases hitherto found incurable, Bristol, 1793, 28–29.Google Scholar

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²⁷ Beddoes, , Hygëia; or Essays, Moral and Medical on the causes affecting the personal state of the middling and affluent classes, 3 vols., Bristol, 1802–1803, ii, 5.Google ScholarIbid., p. 6: ‘Of 1654 buried in one parish in Bristol 683 stand under the title of consumption or decline: and from a register at Shrewsbury it will be presently seen that for ten years, above one death in four is appropriated to consumption.’ Beddoes also gives figures for Chester, from Haygarth, J., ‘Observations on the Bill of Mortality in Chester, for the Year 1772’, Phil. Trans., 1774, 64, 67–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, & ‘Bill of Mortality for Chester for the Year 1773’, Phil. Trans., 1775, 65, 85–90.Google Scholar

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³⁹ PRO MS TS 11, entries for 28 Jan. & 24 April 1794. Much useful light is shed on radical politics in London in the 1790's in The Autobiography of Francis Place (1771–1854), ed. Thale, M., Cambridge, 1972.Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Beddoes to Giddy, n.d., MS DG 42/36.

⁴² Beddoes, to Wedgwood, T., 03 ? 1795Google Scholar, MS W/K. Beddoes, to Giddy, , 14 03 1795Google Scholar, MS DG 42/30. Stern, W. M., ‘The bread crisis in Britain, 1795–6’, Economica, 1964, N.S., 31, 168–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 169 gives the monthly rise in the price of wheat in England and Wales.

⁴³ Mayor of Bristol to Home Office, 13, 17, 18 March 1795; PRO MSS HO 42.29, 42.34, ‘Invasion’, PRO MS 42.40.

⁴⁴ Star report of Bristol Guildhall Meetings of 17 & 20 Nov. 1795, reproduced with annotations in The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, general ed. K. Coburn: Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion, ed. Patton, L. & Mann, P., London & Princeton, 1971Google Scholar, Appendix B1; Appendix B2 reproduces the Petition of the Inhabitants of Bristol Against the Two Bills, & Appendix B3 reproduces Beddoes, A Word in Defence of the Bill of Rights, Against Gagging Bills.

⁴⁵ Beddoes, , An Essay…, 1796, 13, 155.Google Scholar Coleridge reviewed the work in The Watchman of 5 05 1796.Google Scholar

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⁴⁸ Beddoes's career was in England, but part of his education had been at Edinburgh under Black. This may suffice to account for the Scottish support for Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution (Levere, , op. cit. (5))Google Scholar. One should also note the extent of democratic protest in Edinburgh in the years immediately preceding the treason trials of the 1790's (Goodwin, , op. cit. (2))Google Scholar. There were significant parallels between English and Scottish interactions between science and politics. See, e.g., Morrell, J. B., ‘The Leslie affair: Careers, Kirk, and politics in Edinburgh in 1805’, Scottish Historical Review, 1975, 54, 62–82Google Scholar, and ‘Professors Robison and Playfair, and the Theophobia Gallica: Natural Philosophy, religion and politics in Edinburgh, 1789–1815’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 1971, 26, 43–63.Google ScholarBeddoes, & Watt, J., Considerations on the Medicinal Use and Production of Factitious Airs, Bristol, 1795, Part 3, 111–12.Google Scholar

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⁵¹ Quoted in Beddoes, & Watt, , op. cit. (48), Part 3, ix.Google Scholar

⁵² Beddoes, to Giddy, , 1 06 1798Google Scholar, MS DG 42/37, CRO, Bristol Infirmary Biographical Memoirs, MS iv, 536–38Google Scholar, BRO. Other information about public lectures involving Beddoes is in ibid., 528–34; Beddoes, to Giddy, , 10 1797Google Scholar, MS DG 42/29, CRO; Beddoes, to Watt, J. Jr., 10 04 1798Google Scholar, Birmingham Public Libraries, M IV B. See also Inkster & Weindling, op. cit. (23).

⁵³ Abbott, C. C., ‘The parents of T. L. Beddoes’, Durham University Journal, 1941–1942, N.S., 3, 159–175, 168.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Levere, T. H., ‘Dr. Thomas Beddoes. The Interaction of Pneumatic and Preventive Medicine with Chemistry’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1982, 7, 137–147CrossRefGoogle Scholar, elaborates and documents these and the following medical and chemical themes. Beddoes's most extensive Brunonian statement is in Brown, J., The Elements of Medicine, new ed., with biographical prefaces, introduction by T. Beddoes 2 vols London, 1795.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Priestley, J., Experiments and Observations relating to various branches of natural philosophy; with a continuation of the observations on air, Birmingham, 1785, iii, 321.Google Scholar For further details, see Levere, , op. cit. (54).Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., ed. Davy, J., 9 vols., London, 1839, iii, 330.Google Scholar For Davy's attitude towards medicine and a medical career, see Neve, M., ‘The Young Humphry Davy: or John Tonkin's Lament’, in Science and the Sons of Genius. Studies on Humphry Davy, ed. Forgan, S., London, 1980, 1–32.Google Scholar

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⁶⁰ Ibid., 1800, 6, 424–28. For Rumford's philanthropy, see Berman, M., Social Change and Scientific Organization. The Royal Institution, 1799–1844, Ithaca, N.Y., 1978Google Scholar, chap. 1. Rumford's philanthropic concerns are evident in his writings, see e.g. his ‘Of Fundamental Principles on which General Establishments for the Relief of the Poor May Be Formed in All Countries’, & ‘Of Food: and Particularly of Feeding the Poor’, Collected Works of Count Rumford, ed. Brown, Sanford C., 5 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1968–1970, v, 99–166 & 167–262.Google Scholar

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⁶² BRO, MS (n.d.) 1794, Box 10. Beddoes, , A guide for self preservation, and parental affection; or plain Directions for enabling people to keep themselves and their children Free from several Common Disorders, Bristol, 1794Google Scholar. Beddoes slightly underestimated infant mortality; for the best modern demographic estimates, see Wrigley, E. A. & Schofield, R., The Population History of England 1541–1871: A Reconstruction, Cambridge, Mass., 1982.Google Scholar There are useful essays in Glass, D. V. & Eversley, D. E., eds, Population in History. Essays in Historical Demography, London, 1965Google Scholar; a brief impressionistic account is given by Porter, Roy, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Penguin Books, 1982.Google Scholar

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⁶⁸ PRO MS HO 42.35. BRO 1795 Box 42, 28 Sept. 1795. Again, see Thompson, , op. cit. (15)Google Scholar for a gloss on the relations between marketing practices and popular protest.

⁶⁹ BRO 1795 Box 42, 16 Oct. 1795.

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