E-Book Overview
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the British sought to master the physical properties of the oceans; in the second half, they lorded over large portions of the oceans’ outer rim. The dominance of Her Majesty’s navy was due in no small part to collaboration between the British Admiralty, the maritime community, and the scientific elite. Together, they transformed the vast emptiness of the ocean into an ordered and bounded grid. In the process, the modern scientist emerged. Science itself expanded from a limited and local undertaking receiving parsimonious state support to worldwide and relatively well financed research involving a hierarchy of practitioners.Analyzing the economic, political, social, and scientific changes on which the British sailed to power, Tides of History shows how the British Admiralty collaborated closely not only with scholars, such as William Whewell, but also with the maritime community —sailors, local tide table makers, dockyard officials, and harbormasters—in order to systematize knowledge of the world’s oceans, coasts, ports, and estuaries. As Michael S. Reidy points out, Britain’s security and prosperity as a maritime nation depended on its ability to maneuver through the oceans and dominate coasts and channels. The practice of science and the rise of the scientist became inextricably linked to the process of European expansion.
E-Book Content
Tides of History
Tides of History Ocean Science and Her Majesty’s Navy
MICHAEL S. REIDY
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
M I C H A E L S . R E I D Y is assistant professor of history and philosophy at Montana State University and coauthor, with Alan G. Gross and Joseph E. Harmon, of Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2008 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2008 Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-70932-1 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-70932-9 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reidy, Michael S. Tides of history : ocean science and Her Majesty’s Navy / Michael S. Reidy. p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-70932-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-70932-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Great Britain.
Royal Navy—History. 2. Oceanography—Great Britain—Research— History. I. Title. VA454.R25 2007 359.00941—dc22 2007028060 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
For my parents, Dorothy and Jim
And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, “followed the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled—the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time. . . . Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth? . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.
JO