Scientific Advice to the Nineteenth-Century British State

In twenty-first-century Britain, scientific advice to government is highly organized, integrated across government departments, and led by a chief scientific adviser who reports directly to the prime minister. But at the end of the eighteenth century, when Roland Jackson’s account begins, things were very different. With this book, Jackson turns his attention to the men of science of the day—who derived their knowledge of the natural world from experience, observation, and experiment—focusing on the essential role they played in proffering scientific advice to the state, and the impact of that advice on public policy. At a time that witnessed huge scientific advances and vast industrial development, and as the British state sought to respond to societal, economic, and environmental challenges, practitioners of science, engineering, and medicine were drawn into close involvement with politicians. Jackson explores the contributions of these emerging experts, the motivations behind their involvement, the forces that shaped this new system of advice, and the legacy it left behind. His book provides the first detailed analysis of the provision of scientific, engineering, and medical advice to the nineteenth-century British government, parliament, the civil service, and the military.

More Praise

Jackson draws skillfully on an impressive array of sources to provide the first systematic account of the growing role of scientific advice to the nineteenth-century British state, on food and energy production, war and empire, industry, transport, taxation, and health. Combining history of science with history of the state, his book sheds new light on both the status of science and scope of government action.

Rebekah Higgitt, National Museums Scotland

Important, timely, and an excellent introduction to how science becomes institutionalized during this century, often at the expense of the Royal Society. Roland Jackson underlines the durable tension between the pursuit of knowledge as an individual endeavor (requiring independent funds) with state-funded research via official bodies. Anyone who wants to understand the relationship between British science and government during this period will have to read this book.

William J. Ashworth, University of Liverpool

This book is . . . destined to become a classic and an obligatory read for scholars of virtually all aspects of nineteenth-century British science, engineering, and medicine, as well as scholars of nineteenth-century British politics.

The Renaissance Mathematicus

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