Public and private science at home and abroad: networks among chemists, physicians and industrialists in the 1780s.
The tensions between public and private science, so familiar to us today, were alive in the science of the industrial revolution. These tensions confronted the members of a society of chemists and natural philosophers, physicians, industrialists and instrument makers who met in London from 1780 to 1787. Their meetings, held in private rooms in coffee houses, provided an ideal forum for their blend of public and private science, reinforced by a vital international network of scientific intelligence. The records of those meetings tell us a good deal about communication among natural philosophers in the 1780s, and show that some, at least in Britain, were well-informed about the latest foreign developments.
D003142:Communication; D049671:History, 18th Century; D007391:International Cooperation / Q000266:history*; D012586:Science / Q000266:history*; D012958:Societies, Scientific / Q000266:history*