For all of his failures to secure patronage, John Dee was successful compared with his contemporaries. We know more about his patronage relations than those of any other natural philosopher in Tudor England. Only by comparing him with other English client practitioners can we understand how unusual and even productive were Dee’s relations with his patrons. This article makes those comparisons and offers an overview of Dee’s patronage, but in the main it explores three of the unusual aspects.The first is (...) Dee’s good relationship with female patrons and patronage brokers, notably Queen Elizabeth. The second is the kind of office that Dee sought. His greatest efforts were aimed at securing the headship of a collegiate institution such as Eton College or the Hospital of St Cross. Not only did they fit his aspiration to set up a research institute, but all were offices in the Queen’s direct gift, and so played to Dee’s strengths. Nevertheless, Dee was frustrated at nearly every turn. It is suggested that a major cause was the young Dee’s links with both Sir John Cheke’s network of Protestant humanists, who became Marian exiles, and with ‘Louvainist’ Catholic exiles opposed to Edward VI and Elizabeth. We see how Dee was consistently passed over in favour of other members of these circles. Notwithstanding this, it is concluded that Dee was relatively successful, given the English court’s refusal to patronise speculative natural philosophy, even that offered by Thomas Digges, William Gilbert or Francis Bacon. Finally, some of Dee’s supposed failings as a client, such as the sparseness of printed works, are shown to have been systemic. (shrink)

The Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames , formally established by and for women, met regularly from 1785 to 1881 and sporadically until 1887. It challenges our stereotypes both of women and the physical sciences during the eighteenth century and of the intellectual interests open to women in the early European republics. This essay aims not simply to identify the society and its members but to describe their pursuits and consider what their story adds to the history of Western science. What does (...) this society’s existence tell us about the relationship between women and early science in general and about science and society in the Dutch setting in particular? Science and gender look rather different when observed through the activities of the immensely prosperous women of Middelburg, citizens of one of the most highly literate Western countries. The elite lives of the first‐generation members of the women’s society also offer us a glimpse into the early domestication of science, a process vital to its acceptance and assimilation. (shrink)

John Dee’s arrangements at his Mortlake house have received some attention as an English ‘academy’ or ‘experimental household.’ His ideas for St Cross, which he requested as a suitable living in 1592, have received less detailed attention. This paper examines Mortlake and his St Cross plans in detail and argues that, at their core, they shared an aspiration to create a national research institute. These plans are related to the context of Dee’s pursuit of royal patronage and his idea of (...) the social and intellectual role of the natural philosopher. His ideas for a research institute are also placed in the context of alternatives to traditional sites of learning, including contemporary academies, princely courts, and independent establishments, indicating that Dee’s ideas, while part of a Renaissance vogue for such alternatives, were independent of other models. Discussion includes the historiographic debate regarding openness versus secrecy in the pursuit of natural knowledge. Finally, Dee’s ideas are contrasted with Francis Bacon’s proposal for a research institute, which also originated in the 1590s and culminated in ‘Solomon’s House.’. (shrink)

This article offers a brief overview of recent studies on note taking and paperwork in histories of early modern science. Showcasing the wide variety of note-taking practices performed by a range of historical actors across diverse sites and knowledge practices, it argues that a focus on note taking and “paper technologies” enables us to put in conversation a number of linked epistemic practices from reading and writing to making and doing to observing and surveying to classifying and categorizing. By viewing (...) these practices as a continuum rather than as distinct parts, we are able to further understand early modern knowledge production. (shrink)

As recent research has shown, many of the activities of early modern (including eighteenth‐century) naturalists were carried out in the household. This article investigates the ways in which family members in particular, both male and female, ended up engaging in kinds of labor which furthered the pursuit of natural history in the eighteenth century. Examining evidence from various different parts of Europe and its colonies, the article argues that natural history can be seen to have often been what might be (...) termed a family enterprise, one to which many different family members might contribute in ways shaped by concerns of kinship and inheritance. (shrink)

This article examines the early modern household's importance for producing experimental knowledge through an examination of the Halifax household of Margery and Henry Power. While Henry Power has been studied as a natural philosopher within the male-dominated intellectual circles of Cambridge and London, the epistemic labour of his wife, Margery Power, has hitherto been overlooked. From the 1650s, this couple worked in tandem to enhance their understanding of the vegetable world through various paper technologies, from books, paper slips and recipe (...) notebooks to Margery's drawing album and Henry's published Experimental Philosophy. Focusing on Margery's practice of hand-colouring flower books, her copied and original drawings of flowers and her experimental production of ink, we argue that Margery's sensibility towards colour was crucial to Henry's microscopic observations of plants. Even if Margery's sophisticated knowledge of plants never left the household, we argue that her contribution was nevertheless crucial to the observation and representation of plants within the community of experimental philosophy. In this way, our article highlights the importance of female artists within the history of scientific observation, the use of books and paperwork in the botanical disciplines, and the relationship between household science and experimental philosophy. (shrink)

This essay follows recent work in environmental history to explore the history of recycling in physical sciences in Britain and North America since the seventeenth century. The term ‘recycling’ is here used broadly to refer to a variety of practices that extended the life of material resources for doing science in the early modern period. These included practices associated with maintenance, repair, exchange and the adaptation or reuse of material culture. The essay argues that such practices were common in early (...) modern science, and informed experimental spaces and techniques and the ideas that they generated. The essay considers some of the varied motivations that led to such practices, and concludes by examining the endurance of recycling in science since the end of the eighteenth century, particularly in recent efforts to create sustainable scientific research practices. (shrink)