The Victorian Era

Victorian Science, Invention, and Technology

Complete guide · Science & Invention · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

❦

Victorian science, invention, and technology was the most innovative, the most consequential, and the most rapid in the history of the human species. The era saw the rise of modern science and its systematic application to industry, agriculture, medicine, transport, communication, energy, materials, and construction, and the science, invention, and technology of the Victorian period shaped the modern world and continue to shape the present. The general history of the period is set out in The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview, and the parent overviews of the subject are Victorian Inventions, Victorian Medicine and Public Health, Victorian Engineering Marvels, and Transport in the Victorian Era.

The Three Currents of the Victorian Period

The Victorian era saw the simultaneous development of three great currents of scientific and technological activity. The first was the second scientific revolution, the period of theoretical physics, chemistry, and biology that ran from the 1830s to the 1900s and included the work of Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Hermann von Helmholtz, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, Dmitri Mendeleev, and Marie and Pierre Curie. The second was the second industrial revolution, the period of new materials, new energy sources, and new methods of production that ran from the 1850s to the 1900s and included the Bessemer converter, the open-hearth furnace, the central power station, the electric motor, the internal combustion engine, the chemical industry, and the precision-instrument industry. The third was the establishment of the new professional institutions, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1847), the Institution of Electrical Engineers (1871), the Institution of Chemical Engineers (1882), the Iron and Steel Institute (1869), and the Royal Institution of Great Britain, founded in 1799 but enjoying its golden age under Faraday and Tyndall in the mid-nineteenth century. The three currents were connected, the new science gave rise to the new technology, the new technology created the new professions, and the new professions established the new institutions.

The Second Scientific Revolution

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern sciences. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, and mathematics, together with the medical, engineering, and agricultural sciences and the emerging social sciences of economics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology, all matured in the period. The Victorian sciences were characterised by several features: the maturing of the modern scientific method, with its emphasis on observation, experiment, hypothesis, and verification; the growth of scientific institutions, including the universities, laboratories, observatories, museums, and learned societies; the expansion of scientific publishing through journals, proceedings, monographs, and textbooks; and the emergence of science as a profession, with the physicist, the chemist, the biologist, the geologist, and the engineer as recognised careers.

The Victorian era saw a long sequence of major scientific discoveries. Among the most important were the principle of the conservation of energy, established by Julius Robert von Mayer, James Prescott Joule, and Hermann von Helmholtz; the laws of thermodynamics, formulated by Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) on foundations laid by Sadi Carnot; electromagnetic induction, discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831; the theory of electromagnetism, formulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1865 and confirmed experimentally by Heinrich Hertz in 1888; the periodic table of the elements, devised by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869; the laws of inheritance, worked out by Gregor Mendel in 1865; the theory of evolution by natural selection, advanced by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858 and developed in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species of 1859; the ring structure of the benzene molecule, proposed by Friedrich August Kekulé in 1865; the principles of antiseptic surgery, established by Joseph Lister in 1867; the germ theory of disease, established by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch between 1860 and 1884; X-rays, discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895; radioactivity, discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896; radium, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898; and the electron, identified by J. J. Thomson in 1897.

The Second Industrial Revolution

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern industrial economy. The most important technologies of the Victorian period were those of iron and steel, coal and steam, gas and electricity, together with the chemical, photographic, precision-instrument, and printing technologies that supplied the laboratories, factories, and presses of the age. The second industrial revolution was distinguished from the first by the application of science to industry, the use of new materials, the development of new energy sources, and the rise of the factory system.

The materials of the second industrial revolution included the Bessemer converter of 1856, which made possible the bulk production of mild steel, and the open-hearth furnace of 1865, which produced a higher quality steel. The energy sources included coal, the steam engine, the gas engine of Lenoir (1860) and Otto (1876), the oil engine of Diesel (1892), the central power station of Edison and Swan (1881), and the internal combustion engine of Otto (1876). The methods of production included the assembly line, the machine tool, the interchangeable part, the precision instrument, the lathe, the planer, the shaper, and the milling machine. The history of these technologies is examined in Victorian Inventions and in Victorian Engineering Marvels.

The New Professional Institutions

The Victorian era saw the establishment of the modern scientific and engineering institutions. The Royal Institution of Great Britain, founded in 1799, was the model for the new professional bodies. Under the presidency of the Duke of Sussex (1826-1843) and the secretaryship of Michael Faraday (1825-1867), the Royal Institution established the model of the research professor, the Friday Evening Discourse, the Christmas Lecture, and the laboratory research programme. Faraday’s Christmas Lectures, begun in 1825, became a model for popular science communication, and the Royal Institution’s laboratory at 21 Albemarle Street, where Faraday did the work on electromagnetic induction, was the model for the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (1874) and the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford (1872).

The engineering institutions of the period included the Institution of Civil Engineers, founded in 1818, granted a Royal Charter in 1828; the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, founded in 1847 at the Queen Street Tavern in Birmingham by George Stephenson; the Institution of Electrical Engineers, founded in 1871 as the Society of Telegraph Engineers, renamed in 1880; the Institution of Naval Architects, founded in 1860; the Iron and Steel Institute, founded in 1869; and the Institution of Gas Engineers, founded in 1863. The chemical institutions included the Chemical Society, founded in 1841, and the Society of Chemical Industry, founded in 1881. The biological institutions included the Linnean Society, founded in 1788, and the Physiological Society, founded in 1876. The medical institutions included the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the General Medical Council, created by the Medical Act of 1858. The story of these institutions is part of the wider history of the Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview, and it is one of the lasting legacies of the period.

The Sciences of the Victorian Period

The Victorian sciences were organised around several great figures. Physics was shaped by Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Helmholtz, Hertz, and J. J. Thomson, and the new physics was the foundation of the electrical industry. The advances of Dalton, Faraday, Kekulé, Mendeleev, Ramsay, and the Curies remade chemistry, whose applications underpinned the new chemical industry. Darwin, Wallace, Pasteur, Koch, Lister, and Mendel gave biology its modern foundations, laying the basis of the new medicine. Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, and Agassiz transformed geology, generating the knowledge that drove the mining industry. Herschel, the Earls of Rosse, Huggins, and Lockyer advanced astronomy to an extent that made the modern observatory possible. The work of Boole, Cayley, Sylvester, and Hamilton in mathematics was the foundation of the new statistics and the actuarial profession. The story of the sciences is part of the wider history of the Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview, and it is one of the central chapters in the history of the modern world.

The Inventions of the Victorian Period

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern inventions. The most important inventions of the Victorian period included the steam locomotive, the steamship, the electric telegraph, the telephone, the typewriter, the sewing machine, the camera and the photographic processes that followed it, the phonograph, the cinematograph, the electric light, and the electric motor and generator. The history of the inventions is examined in Victorian Inventions.

The Medicine of the Victorian Period

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern medicine. The most important developments in medicine of the Victorian period included anaesthesia, antiseptic and later aseptic surgery, the germ theory of disease, bacteriology, vaccination, the reform of nursing, and the rise of modern public health and epidemiology. The history of medicine is examined in Victorian Medicine and Public Health.

The Engineering of the Victorian Period

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern engineering. Civil engineering produced the bridges, tunnels, railways, harbours, waterworks, and sewers of the period; mechanical engineering produced its steam engines, machine tools, locomotives, and ships; electrical engineering produced its generators, motors, cables, lamps, and telegraphs; and chemical engineering produced the processes and plants of the new chemical industry. The history of engineering is examined in Victorian Engineering Marvels.

The Transport of the Victorian Period

The Victorian era saw the development of the modern transport. The railway, with its locomotives, stations, bridges, tunnels, and viaducts, transformed travel on land; the steamship, from the paddle steamer to the screw-driven ocean liner, transformed travel by sea; road transport remained dominated by the horse-drawn vehicle until the arrival of the motor car at the very end of the period; and experiments with balloons and airships anticipated the air transport of the twentieth century. The history of transport is examined in Transport in the Victorian Era.

The Legacy of Victorian Science, Invention, and Technology

The legacy of Victorian science, invention, and technology is substantial. Modern physics, chemistry, and biology, modern medicine and engineering, and modern transport and communication all have their roots in the Victorian period. The Victorian institutions, the laboratory, the research university, the professional society, the technical journal, the patent system, the consulting engineer, and the registered profession, are still the basis of the modern scientific and industrial order. The modern world is, in many ways, the Victorian world.

In the span of a single reign, scientific discovery, mechanical invention, and industrial technology advanced further than in any comparable period before it. That achievement, and the institutions and professions it created, remain the foundation of the world we inhabit today.