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¹⁶ This may be thought to weaken the argument, since chemistry was understood by contemporaries to be by far the most industrially significant science during the period under review. However, the weakening of the argument is more apparent than real. It would not be generally thought that chemistry was more conceptually developed that physics. Yet physics did not lead the field in institutional, and especially educational, development. The Institute of Physics, for example, was not established until 1921. This was reflected in terms of student numbers. Up to 1900 Owens College graduated 172 students with Honours in chemistry and 72 with Honours in physics. Up to 1914 twice as many single-discipline Associateships of the Royal College of Science were awarded in chemistry as in any other discipline. Qualitatively the situation may have altered with the rise of electrical engineering during the late nineteenth century, but the quantitative situation was unchanged. It can be argued that the reason for this anomaly was precisely the impetus provided by chemistry's acknowledged industrial significance. On the early role of industrial relevance in the institutional growth of British physics see Sviedrys, R., ‘The rise of physics laboratories in Britain’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, (1976), 7, pp. 405–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gooday, G., ‘Precision measurement and the genesis of physics teaching laboratories in Victorian Britain’, British Journal for the History of Science, (1990), 23, pp. 25–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The major historical study of the professionalization of British chemistry is Russell, C. A., Coley, N. G. and Roberts, G. K., Chemists by Profession. The Origins and Rise of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, Milton Keynes, 1977Google Scholar. It tends to concern itself with internal professional relations rather than the dynamics of recruitment. It takes, for example, the BAAS data to be discussed below at face value. However, it does reinforce the impression that industrial consultancy is a much under-rated and -studied phenomenon in Britain, a view also taken by Haber (Haber, , op. cit. (3), 1958, p. 191).Google Scholar

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¹⁹ RCSI, Q7365. On Owens see Charlton, H. B., Portrait of a University 1851–1951, Manchester, 1951Google Scholar, and Kargon, , op. cit. (1), pp. 177–212.Google Scholar

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²⁴ Reports for the Year 1909–10 from those Universities and University Colleges in Great Britain which are in Receipt of Grant from the Board of Education, Cd. 5872, and the equivalent double volumes for other years. Apart from Cardwell the main statistical analysis of this area is contained in Pike, R. M., ‘The growth of scientific institutions and employment of natural science graduates in Britain, 1900–1960’, unpublished M.Sc. thesis, University of London, 1961Google Scholar. For a specifically educational analysis see Jenkins, E. W., From Armstrong to Nuffield. Studies in Twentieth-Century Science Education in England and Wales, London, 1979, pp. 213–44.Google Scholar

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²⁶ The Registrar of the School of Mines told the Samuelson Committee that ‘chemists or manufacturers … generally enter specially for chemistry … they would only enter for one course of lectures perhaps’, SCSI Q1193.

²⁷ The purpose of the survey was to study a cross-section of institutions and, within each, a representative sample of students. The institutions constitute: an ancient university; the leading provincial university college; the more active of the two private metropolitan colleges; the main state-funded institution; and the leading technological institution. The student sample is more problematic. The intention was to identify bodies of students with a definite involvement with chemistry, though not necessarily chemistry specialists. Thus students studying chemistry merely as part of a common foundation course have generally been excluded, where this was possible. The classes which were included are listed below. It needs to be recalled that much of the earliest activity would be classified nowadays as secondary, both because of the level of the chemistry and the age of the students. This is particularly true of Owens College and University College. Such activity can be excluded at the former but this is less true of the latter, because of the way in which students were registered. This may account for the generally low rate of subsequent identification of students at University College. The institutions themselves are very heterogeneous, and this means that the aggregation of figures, while it has been undertaken, must be treated with caution, and treated as referring merely to this particular ‘cross-section’ rather than having a national significance. The classes selected were:

Cambridge University: men examined in chemistry for the Natural Science Tripos, part I or II.

City and Guilds Central Institution: students attending chemistry classes, but excluding first-year engineering students for whom attendance was compulsory.

Owens College: students registered for the senior class in systematic chemistry, analytical chemistry or, later, 1st, 2nd and 3rd year honours students attending chemistry classes.

Royal College of Science: chemistry students or, later, candidates for the Associateship who studied chemistry as part of their course.

University College, London: students attending the chemistry, analytical chemistry or chemical technology classes or, later, 1st, 2nd and 3rd year B.Sc. students attending chemistry classes.

All names were taken from archival materials, not published registers. For further details about this sample readers are referred to the thesis mentioned in note 2. Since women were not recruited into scientific posts in industry at this time the sample contains only male students. This, however, has only a small effect.

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⁴⁶ These data are taken from the relevant Calendars of the Victoria University of Manchester.

⁴⁷ Such declinist accounts are contained, for example, in Roderick, G. and Stephens, M. (eds.), Where did We go Wrong? Industrial performance, Education and the Economy in Victorian Britain, Barcombe, 1981Google Scholar; Barnett, C., The Audit of War. The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation, London, 1986Google Scholar. The difficulty of making simple generalizations at a comparative level has been stressed by Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini, and they suggest that the key differential characteristic of Germany was the capacity of industrial firms to exploit the supply of trained men. Fox, R. and Guagnini, A., ‘Classical values and useful knowledge: the problem of access to technical careers in modern Europe’, Daedalus, (1987), 116, pp. 153–71.Google Scholar

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