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Science and Sedition: How Effective Were the Acts Licensing Lectures and Meetings, 1795–1819?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Paul Weindling
Paul Weindling
Affiliation:
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, 47 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE.
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Extract

A recent note by lan Inkster observed that a Parliamentary Act of 1817 to suppress seditious meetings also posed a threat to scientific lecturers and societies between 1817 and 1820. Further evidence is presented here as to the intentions of the 1817 Act and its effects on science. It is particularly important to add to the observations of Inkster, first, that chartered societies were exempt, and second, that the Act expired on 14 July 1818, although further measures were introduced in December 1819. To explain the provisions of these Acts, especially the distinctions made between lectures held by chartered societies as opposed to independent associations, it is relevant to consider how legislation to prevent seditious meetings and societies in the wake of the French Revolution demarcated between seditious blasphemy and legitimate scientific inquiry. The Acts provide an opportunity of locating science in contreversies over the freedom of speech and association. The questions arise of the relation of the 1817 Act to legislation of 1795, 1799, 1801, and 1819 which imposed licensing on lectures, and of the extent to which repressive legislation inhibited the activities of lecturers and societies. The intellectual repercussions were of such magnitude that the mathematician de Morgan observed in retrospect, ‘From 1815 to 1830 the question of revolution or no revolution lurked in all our English discussions’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 1980 , pp. 139 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1980

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References

NOTES

I am particularly indebted to Margaret Pelling and Pietro Corsi for helpful comments regarding both this note and an earlier draft circulated in 1977.

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