There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night…

John 3: 1–2

A lady asked the famous Lord Shaftesbury what religion he was of. He answered the religion of wise men. She asked, what was that? He answered, wise men never tell.

Diary of Viscount Percival (1730), i, 113

NEWTON AS HERETIC

Isaac Newton was a heretic. But like Nicodemus, the secret disciple of Jesus, he never made a public declaration of his private faith – which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs. His one-time follower William Whiston attributed his policy of silence to simple, human fear and there must be some truth in this. Every day as a public figure (Lucasian Professor, Warden – then Master – of the Mint, President of the Royal Society) and as the figurehead of British natural philosophy, Newton must have felt the tension of outwardly conforming to the Anglican Church, while inwardly denying much of its faith and practice. He was restricted by heresy laws, religious tests and the formidable opposition of public opinion. Heretics were seen as religiously subversive, socially dangerous and even morally debased. Moreover, the positions he enjoyed were dependent on public manifestations of religious and social orderliness. Sir Isaac had a lot to lose. Yet he knew the scriptural injunctions against hiding one's light under a bushel. Newton the believer was thus faced with the need to develop a modus vivendi whereby he could work within legal and social structures, while fulfilling the command to shine in a dark world. This paper recovers and assesses his strategies for reconciling these conflicting dynamics and, in so doing, will shed light on both the nature of Newton's faith and his agenda for natural philosophy.

In May 1862 Desmond G. Fitzgerald, the editor of the Electrician, lamented that

telegraphy has been until lately an art occult even to many of the votaries of electrical science. Submarine telegraphy, initiated by a bold and tentative process – the laying of the Dover cable in the year 1850 – opened out a vast field of opportunity both to merit and competency, and to unscrupulous determination. For the purposes of the latter, the field was to be kept close [sic], and science, which can alone be secured by merit, more or less ignored.

To Fitzgerald, the ‘occult’ status of the telegraph looked set to continue, with recent reports of scientific counterfeits, unscrupulous electricians and financially motivated saboteurs involved in the telegraphic art. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald reassured his readers that the confidence of ‘those who act for the public’ had been restored by earnest electricians, whose ‘moral cause’ would ultimately be felt and who ‘may be safely trusted even in matters where there is an option between a private interest and a public benefit’. As a prominent crusader for the telegraph, Fitzgerald voiced the concerns of many electricians seeking public confidence and investment in their trade in the wake of the failed submarine telegraphs of the 1850s. The spread of proper knowledge about the telegraph would hinge on securing an adequate supply of backers and the construction of telegraphy as a truly moral cause – an art cleansed of fraudsters, ignoramuses and dogmatists.

In late 1916 the British Government finally bowed to pressure from scientists and sympathetic elements of the public to organize and fund science centrally and established the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Since just before the turn of the century state funding for science had steadily increased: the National Physical Laboratory was established in 1899, the Development Commission in 1909 and the Medical Research Committee in 1913. The establishment of the DSIR marked an end to piecemeal support and it was therefore a watershed when the state

finally accepted its responsibility to fund science properly, to develop a coherent science policy and thus recognise that science and scientists were crucial components of modern national life; not just in wartime, but in the development of the peacetime economy as well.

At least this is how the history of the DSIR is currently still represented. The following analysis is more sensitive than previous treatments as it points out that the state's organization of a centrally planned and funded national policy for science began before the DSIR, and that this new body (in its support of pure research) reflected priorities established before the outbreak of the war. In previous accounts the DSIR was presented as a total break with the laissez-faire past. So, as historians we no longer follow the special pleading of the contemporary science lobby in arguing that the state was deaf to the needs of modern science. However, I want to argue that we are still deaf to the wider concerns of this contemporary pro-science rhetoric, which argued not only for centrally planned and funded science, but also often that scientists themselves should make policy for science.

BSHS members might be interested to learn that an organization named the ‘A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund’ has recently been established in order to restore and protect the hitherto neglected grave of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), one of the greatest tropical naturalists of the nineteenth century. Wallace is best known as being the co-originator, with Charles Darwin, of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and for his book The Malay Archipelago, which is regarded as one of the most important of all Victorian travel works.

Wallace is buried together with his wife Annie in Broadstone Cemetery, Dorset. The grave is marked by an unusual and striking monument: a seven-foot tall fossilised conifer trunk from the Portland beds mounted on a large cubic base of Purbeck stone. Unfortunately, the monument has not been properly maintained for many years and it is now in poor condition. Furthermore, the lease on the grave has only fourteen years left to run before it expires, after which there is a danger that the plot could be used for another burial.

The primary aims of the Wallace Memorial Fund are to restore the monument, apply for it to be officially listed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and to extend the lease on the plot. A. R. Wallace's grandson Mr Richard Wallace (who is the treasurer of the Fund) plans to transfer the lease to the Linnean Society of London once the restoration work has been completed. This will ensure the grave's long-term protection.

A secondary aim of our project is to commission English Heritage to produce a commemorative ceramic plaque and install it on ‘The Dell’ (Grays, Essex), where Wallace lived from 1872 to 1876. This is the only surviving one of three houses which Wallace built (it is currently a convent) and he wrote his important book The Geographical Distribution of Animals there. It is also notable in being one of the first houses in Britain to have been constructed of concrete.

The total cost of the project will be approximately £4955. Contributions to date total £3000 leaving £1955 still to be raised. If any members of the Society would like to make a donation then cheques should be made payable to ‘The A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund’ and sent to Dr G. W. Beccaloni, A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund, c/o Entomology Department, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD (Tel. 0207 942 5361, E-mail: [email protected]).

Before the Second World War, few scholars knew how to incorporate science, technology and medicine into social, political or economic history. Nowadays many historians know the methods: university courses, books and (some) museums manifest their skills. For the ‘greats’ of science, and for many lesser figures and groups, we are able to relate scientific ‘works’ to ‘lives’, contexts and audiences, with an analytical sophistication matching the best of current intellectual and cultural history. This progress in historiography owes much to the intellectual and institutional bases built in the 1950s and 1960s, not least in the universities of northern England. Among the pioneers, Donald Cardwell was a perspicacious and persistent innovator, especially in Manchester, where he helped develop both a school of historians and a marvellous museum of science and industry.