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The Lunar Men: The Inventors of the Modern World, 1730–1810 PDF

706 Pages·2011·20.93 MB·English
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THE LUNAR MEN The Friends who made the Future 1730–1810 J ENNY UGLOW To Desmond King-Hele and Shena Mason CONTENTS Title Page The Principal Lunar Men Map of Lunar Society Places WAXING Prologue: ‘Surprise the world’ FIRST QUARTER 1 Earth, Elston & Electricity 2 Toys 3 Scotland 4 The Doctor’s Bag 5 Pots 6 Heading for Soho 7 Ingenious Philosophers 8 Reaching Out 9 Steam SECOND QUARTER 10 They Build Canals 11 Painting the Light 12 Magic & Mechanics 13 Derbyshire Explorata 14 Chemical Reactions 15 Trials of Life 16 Rousseau & Romance 17 Vases, Ormolu, Silver & Frogs 18 Running the Show 19 Eddies THIRD QUARTER 20 Experiments on Air 21 ‘What All the World Desires’ 22 ‘Bandy’d Like a Shuttlecock’ 23 Plants & Passions 24 Conquering Cornwall 25 Dull Earth & Shining Stones 26 Creative Copying 27 Sons & Daughters 28 Bringing on the Artists 29 From the Nation to the Land FOURTH QUARTER 30 Fire 31 Boulton’s Blazing Skies 32 The Linnaean Row 33 Protecting Our Interests 34 Family & Feeling 35 Grand Projects 36 Turning 37 Riots 38 Handing On 39 ‘Fire Engines & Sundry Works’ 40 ‘Time Is! Time Was! …’ WANING Epilogue: ‘Fiddledum, Diddledum’ Chronology Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Sources List of Illustrations Index Plates About the Author Copyright THE PRINCIPAL LUNAR MEN IN ORDER OF AGE John Whitehurst (1713–1788) Matthew Boulton (1728–1809) Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) William Small (1734–1775) James Keir (1735–1820) James Watt (1736–1819) William Withering (1741–1799) Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) Thomas Day (1748–1789) Samuel Galton (1753–1832) WAXING I shall never forget Mr Boulton’s expression to me: ‘I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have — Power.’ James Boswell, 1774 ’Twas in truth an hour Of universal ferment; mildest men Were agitated; and commotions, strife Of passion and opinion fill’d the walls Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds. The soil of common life was at that time Too hot to tread upon; oft said I then, And not then only, ‘what a mockery this Of history; the past and that to come!’ William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805 There is universally something presumptuous in provincial genius. Review of Joseph Priestley’s Memoirs, 1806 ‘The Grand Orrery’, and a quotation from John Harris, Astronomical Dialogues, 1719

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Led by Erasmus Darwin, the Lunar Society of Birmingham was formed from a group of amateur experimenters, tradesmen and artisans who met and made friends in the Midlands in the 1760s. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the centre of things, but they were young and their optimism was b
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