The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1213: Chapter 139: Royal Society: Chronicles of Grievances and Feuds

Speaking of the Royal Society, most people first think of renowned researchers like Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Adam Smith, William Petty, and Robert Boyle in various academic fields.

However, in reality, few have delved deeply into the background of the Royal Society’s establishment.

The predecessor of the Royal Society was actually a club-type small group voluntarily formed by 12 scientists, who called themselves the ‘Invisible College’. Initially, the club had no rigid regulations, and the purpose of regular meetings was merely to gather everyone to research experiments and exchange discussions on their respective discoveries.

Yet during the reign of Lord Protector Cromwell, this organization was forced to disband for a time, until after Charles II’s restoration in 1660, when these scientists were able to continue their activities at Gresham College.

As more and more prominent figures became interested in science at this time, the membership of the Invisible College grew rapidly. Not long after, Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of the Greenwich Royal Naval College, proposed the establishment of a formal organization to promote knowledge of physics and mathematics experiments.

And the newly restored King Charles II, in order to win the support of these science-loving prominent figures, quickly issued a Royal Charter to them, approving the establishment of the ‘Royal Society’, aimed at promoting knowledge of nature.

After the Royal Society was founded, their membership quickly exceeded 200 people. However, the increase in membership did not represent an increase in academic reputation.

Although the initial purpose and aim of the Royal Society’s establishment were to promote natural knowledge and scientific progress, hoping to establish itself as an academic institution, in actual operation, the situation was not entirely so.

Due to reliance on research funding and policy support, the Royal Society often needed to recruit many members with ample means or distinguished social status, obtaining sponsorship income from them to get through tough times.

Over time, the number of non-scientists in the Royal Society steadily increased, and several presidents from the 17th to 18th centuries were even not from the scientific community. Their presence caused the Royal Society to gradually move toward the nature of a discussion club.

As for the Royal Family, from Charles II onward, successive kings, though publicly claiming to be patrons of the Royal Society, actually wanted to control its noble members through the Royal Society to establish their own prestige, rather than using scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

Thus, the Royal Family was instead happy to see the increase of ignorant noble members in the Royal Society, and never considered this a problem.

However, fortunately, although less than half of the members of the Royal Society engaged in scientific research, this half included outstanding talents like Isaac Newton and Henry Cavendish, so over the course of more than 100 years of evolution, the academic reputation and social image of the Royal Society continued to improve.

The primary reason for Babbage and others in their articles fiercely criticizing the Royal Society’s management system still traced back to Sir Joseph Banks, who was elected President of the Royal Society in 1778 and held the position for a lengthy 42 years.

Though in terms of academic reputation, Banks could not be compared with Newton, Banks played a crucial role in the development of the Royal Society.

It was during Banks’s tenure that the Royal Society began to deepen its close informal cooperative relationship with the British Government, causing the Royal Society’s function to gradually align with the French Academy of Sciences and the Berlin Academy of Sciences. It was also from Banks that the Royal Society’s research goals shifted from the initial free play of scholars to prioritizing serving Britain’s overseas expansion and commercial interests.

However, such a transformation is naturally not decided merely by words. Especially in a country with a strong tradition of local autonomy like Britain, the scientists of the Royal Society understandably viewed this as Banks’s act of infringing on academic freedom.

To achieve his goals, Banks began to strengthen his personal power within the Royal Society, engaging in academic centralization.

The methods Banks used were not fresh, merely using his authority to place his own people in key positions, gradually controlling the administrative affairs of the Royal Society through cronyism.

In addition, he would exclude dissent by slashing research funds and controlling academic paper publication, thereby proclaiming his power in the Royal Society and the British Scientific Community as limitless.

Summarizing historical experience, in Britain, those who dared to do such things generally did not end well. Sir Joseph Banks, ‘Cromwell of the Royal Society’, was no exception.

Although he claimed that unity within the Royal Society, in reality, during his tenure as president, scientists never stopped attacking him.

The Fleet Street media, known for sensationalism, naturally wouldn’t miss such a topical story, when Banks was awarded the Bath Medal in 1795, a satirist created a cartoon titled “The Great South Pacific Caterpillar Transforms into a Butterfly” to mock Banks.

Because Banks had previously accompanied the legendary explorer Captain James Cook on his first circumnavigation of Australia, and after the voyage, he published a travel journal and became renowned.