Science, Politics and the Public Good: Essays in Honour of Margaret Gowing PDF
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SCIENCE, POLITICS AND THE PUBLIC GOOD Margaret Gowing Science, Politics and the Public Good Essays in Honour of Margaret Gowing Edited by Nicolaas A. Rupke Wolfson College, Oxford M MACMILLAN PRESS © Nicolaas A. Rupke 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-44159-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Science, politics and the public good: essays in honour of Margaret Gowing. 1. Science and state I. Rupke, Nicolaas A. II. Gowing, Margaret 500 0125 ISBN 978-1-349-09516-2 ISBN 978-1-349-09514-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09514-8 Contents Frontispiece: Margaret Gowing List of Illustrations vii List of Tables viii Preface ix Notes on the Contributors xiii 1 Margaret Gowing: an Appreciation Lord Bullock 2 Science and Government: John Phillips (1800-74) and the Early Ordnance Geological Survey of Britain 7 Jack Morrell 3 Science and the Public Good: George Biddell Airy (1801-92) and the Concept of a Scientific Civil Servant 36 Allan Chapman 4 The Road to Albertopolis: Richard Owen (1804-92) and the Founding of the British Museum of Natural History 63 Nicolaas A. Rupke 5 Sonar, Wireless Telegraphy and the Royal Navy: Scientific Development in a Military Context, 1890-1939 90 Willem Hackmann 6 The Rockefeller Foundation and German Biomedical Sciences, 1920-40: from Educational Philanthropy to International Science Policy 119 Paul Weindling 7 Science and Power in the Soviet Union 141 David Holloway v VI Contents 8 Forty Years into the Atomic Age 160 Sir Rudolf Peierls 9 Radiation, Language and Logic 169 Lorna Arnold 10 Labour and the Origins of the National Health Service 184 Charles Webster 11 Economists and Engineers 203 Sir Alec Cairncross 12 Public History in the United States: a Retrospective Appraisal 216 Richard Hewlett 13 Postscript 239 Sir Michael Howard A List of the Published Work of Margaret Gowing 241 Index 247 List of Illustrations Frontispiece: Margaret Mary Gowing, aet. 65, at the time of her retirement Figure 6.1 German Rockefeller Fellowships, 1922-39 129 vii List of Tables 5.1 Main British Wireless Telegraphy and Anti-Submarine Research Centres during the First World War 101 6.1 Rockefeller Foundation Support for German Science, 1922-26 127 viii Preface At the end of the academic year 1985-86, Professor Margaret Mary Gowing (b 26 April 1921) retired from the Chair of the History of Science at Oxford. The purpose of this book of essays is to honour Margaret Gowing on the occasion of her retirement. As pointed out in the introductory 'Appreciation' (Chapter 1), and again in a concluding 'Postscript' (Chapter 13), Professor Gowing's magna opera on the history of British atomic energy helped to make the history of science an essential part of the mainstream of public history. The story of the atomic bomb and of atomic power dramatically demonstrates the close interconnections between scien tific ideas, technological innovation, industrial enterprise, national government and international affairs. Professor Gowing has explored this 'old and intimate relationship' (as she called the connection between science and politics), not only in her books on 'Britain and atomic energy', but also in her Inaugural Lecture and her Wilkins, Bernal, Rede and Spencer Lectures (see the bibliography on pp. 241--6). Thus the title of our Festschrift, Science, Politics and the Public Good, aptly expresses the general theme of Professor Gowing's reuvre. The contributors to this volume belong to Professor Gowing's wide circle of colleagues and friends, junior as well as senior. Each contributor addresses a particular aspect of the general theme of her work, and in each chapter a specific instance is discussed of the close relationship between science, politics and public welfare. Our examples are taken from the past 150 years, from a wide range of subject-matter, and from four different countries, namely the UK, Germany, the US and Russia. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focus on the Victorian period when state endowment of scientific research first became an intensely political question in Britain. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss examples from the early decades of the twentieth century when the First World War and the emergence of the Nazi ideology cast a dark shadow over parts of scientific research. This shadow grew considerably more ominous when, by the end of the Second ix
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