Rebekah Higgitt
Biographic Data
| ID | 1037571 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebekah Higgitt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebekah |
| FAMILY NAME | Higgitt |
| SIGNATURE | HIGGITT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kent |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9387-4150 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Board of Longitude
In the first book-length history of the Board of Longitude, a distinguished team of historians of science bring to life one of Georgian Britain's most important scientific institutions. Having developed in the eighteenth century following legislation offering rewards for methods to determine longitude at sea, the Board came to support the work of navigators, instrument makers, clockmakers and surveyors, and assembled the Nautical Almanac. Utilizi…
Board of Longitude
Instruments and relics
Despite the age and prestige of the Royal Society of London, the history of its collections of scientific instruments and apparatus has largely been one of accidental accumulation and neglect. This article tracks their movements and the processes by which objects came to be recognized as possessing value beyond reuse or sale. From at least the mid-nineteenth century, the few surviving objects with links to the society’s early history and its most…
London 1600–1800
This essay introduces a special issue of the BJHS on communities of natural knowledge and artificial practice in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London. In seeking to understand the rise of a learned and technical culture within a growing and changing city, our approach has been inclusive in terms of the activities, people and places we consider worth exploring but shaped by a sense of the importance of collective activity, training, storage …
Greenwich near London’
Built in Greenwich in 1675–1676, the Royal Observatory was situated outside the capital but was deeply enmeshed within its knowledge networks and communities of practice. Scholars have tended to focus on the links cultivated by the Astronomers Royal within scholarly communities in England and Europe but the observatory was also deeply reliant on and engaged with London's institutions and practical mathematical community. It was a royal foundation…
Challenging Tropes
This essay explores how concerns relevant to academic historians of science do and do not translate to the museum setting. It takes as a case study a 2014 exhibition on the story of longitude, with which the author was involved. This theme presented opportunities and challenges for sharing nuanced accounts of science, technology, and innovation. Audience expectation, available objects, the requirements of display, and economic constraints were al…
Science publishing 2035
Open AccessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Higgitt Rebekah 2016Science publishing 2035Notes Rec.70387–388http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0033SectionOpen AccessArticle commentaryScience publishing 2035 Rebekah Higgitt Rebekah Higgitt [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Rebekah…
The Age of Scientific Naturalism
A British national observatory
Over its long history, the buildings of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich were enlarged and altered many times, reflecting changing needs and expectations of astronomers and funders, but also the constraints of a limited site and small budgets. The most significant expansion took place in the late nineteenth century, overseen by the eighth Astronomer Royal, William Christie, a programme that is put in the context of changing attitudes toward sci…
Historical geographies of provincial science
The British Association for the Advancement of Science sought to promote the understanding of science in various ways, principally by having annual meetings in different towns and cities throughout Britain and Ireland (and, from 1884, in Canada, South Africa and Australia). This paper considers how far the location of its meetings in different urban settings influenced the nature and reception of the association's activities in promoting science,…
Science and Sociability
This essay recovers the experiences of women at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) from its founding in 1831 to the end of the Victorian era. It aims to add to research on women in science by reconsidering the traditional role of women as consumers rather than producers of knowledge and to that on science popularization by focusing on audience experience rather than on the aims and strategies of populari…
Why I don't FRS my Tail
The mathematician Augustus De Morgan chose not to become a Fellow of the Royal Society. This short article examines the reasons behind this choice and a sketch that he drew representing a satirical ‘Coat of Arms’ for the Society. Despite recent reform, De Morgan felt that the Society still represented aristocratic privilege rather than scientific attainment. In addition, his research into the history of the Society revealed past unfairness done i…
Geography's other histories? Geography and science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831– c .1933
With reference to the history of modern geography in Britain and from assessment of the archives of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), this paper examines the role of the BAAS in promoting geography from the Association's foundation in 1831 to the 1930s. Particular attention is paid to BAAS Section E (Geography) in the period after 1851. Geography's place is considered with respect to its funding, content and relations…
President, patron, friend and lover
This article examines the legacy of Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, within the history of science. Although he was President of The Royal Society from 1695 to 1698, Montagu is best known for his political career and as a patron of the arts. As this article shows, Montagu's own scientific interests were limited and his chief significance to the history of science lies in his friendship with a later President, Isaac Newton. It is argued, firstly, th…
The Newtonian Moment
Newton dépossédé! ’ The British response to the Pascal forgeries of 1867
Between 1867 and 1869 Michel Chasles presented a series of manuscripts to the Académie des sciences, which suggested that Isaac Newton's claims to original discovery were unfounded. It quickly became apparent to the majority of the academicians that the manuscripts were forgeries, but Chasles was repeatedly allowed to state his case. This essay focuses on the responses to the affair from four British men of science: David Brewster, Augustus De Mo…
Science and Sociability
This essay recovers the experiences of women at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) from its founding in 1831 to the end of the Victorian era. It aims to add to research on women in science by reconsidering the traditional role of women as consumers rather than producers of knowledge and to that on science popularization by focusing on audience experience rather than on the aims and strategies of populari…
Geography's other histories? Geography and science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831– c .1933
With reference to the history of modern geography in Britain and from assessment of the archives of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), this paper examines the role of the BAAS in promoting geography from the Association's foundation in 1831 to the 1930s. Particular attention is paid to BAAS Section E (Geography) in the period after 1851. Geography's place is considered with respect to its funding, content and relations…
A British national observatory
Over its long history, the buildings of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich were enlarged and altered many times, reflecting changing needs and expectations of astronomers and funders, but also the constraints of a limited site and small budgets. The most significant expansion took place in the late nineteenth century, overseen by the eighth Astronomer Royal, William Christie, a programme that is put in the context of changing attitudes toward sci…
Challenging Tropes
This essay explores how concerns relevant to academic historians of science do and do not translate to the museum setting. It takes as a case study a 2014 exhibition on the story of longitude, with which the author was involved. This theme presented opportunities and challenges for sharing nuanced accounts of science, technology, and innovation. Audience expectation, available objects, the requirements of display, and economic constraints were al…
Historical geographies of provincial science
The British Association for the Advancement of Science sought to promote the understanding of science in various ways, principally by having annual meetings in different towns and cities throughout Britain and Ireland (and, from 1884, in Canada, South Africa and Australia). This paper considers how far the location of its meetings in different urban settings influenced the nature and reception of the association's activities in promoting science,…
The Age of Scientific Naturalism
Greenwich near London’
Built in Greenwich in 1675–1676, the Royal Observatory was situated outside the capital but was deeply enmeshed within its knowledge networks and communities of practice. Scholars have tended to focus on the links cultivated by the Astronomers Royal within scholarly communities in England and Europe but the observatory was also deeply reliant on and engaged with London's institutions and practical mathematical community. It was a royal foundation…
Newton dépossédé! ’ The British response to the Pascal forgeries of 1867
Between 1867 and 1869 Michel Chasles presented a series of manuscripts to the Académie des sciences, which suggested that Isaac Newton's claims to original discovery were unfounded. It quickly became apparent to the majority of the academicians that the manuscripts were forgeries, but Chasles was repeatedly allowed to state his case. This essay focuses on the responses to the affair from four British men of science: David Brewster, Augustus De Mo…
President, patron, friend and lover
This article examines the legacy of Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, within the history of science. Although he was President of The Royal Society from 1695 to 1698, Montagu is best known for his political career and as a patron of the arts. As this article shows, Montagu's own scientific interests were limited and his chief significance to the history of science lies in his friendship with a later President, Isaac Newton. It is argued, firstly, th…
The Newtonian Moment
Why I don't FRS my Tail
The mathematician Augustus De Morgan chose not to become a Fellow of the Royal Society. This short article examines the reasons behind this choice and a sketch that he drew representing a satirical ‘Coat of Arms’ for the Society. Despite recent reform, De Morgan felt that the Society still represented aristocratic privilege rather than scientific attainment. In addition, his research into the history of the Society revealed past unfairness done i…
Geography's other histories? Geography and science in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831– c .1933
With reference to the history of modern geography in Britain and from assessment of the archives of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), this paper examines the role of the BAAS in promoting geography from the Association's foundation in 1831 to the 1930s. Particular attention is paid to BAAS Section E (Geography) in the period after 1851. Geography's place is considered with respect to its funding, content and relations…
Historical geographies of provincial science
The British Association for the Advancement of Science sought to promote the understanding of science in various ways, principally by having annual meetings in different towns and cities throughout Britain and Ireland (and, from 1884, in Canada, South Africa and Australia). This paper considers how far the location of its meetings in different urban settings influenced the nature and reception of the association's activities in promoting science,…
Science and Sociability
This essay recovers the experiences of women at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) from its founding in 1831 to the end of the Victorian era. It aims to add to research on women in science by reconsidering the traditional role of women as consumers rather than producers of knowledge and to that on science popularization by focusing on audience experience rather than on the aims and strategies of populari…
The Age of Scientific Naturalism
A British national observatory
Over its long history, the buildings of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich were enlarged and altered many times, reflecting changing needs and expectations of astronomers and funders, but also the constraints of a limited site and small budgets. The most significant expansion took place in the late nineteenth century, overseen by the eighth Astronomer Royal, William Christie, a programme that is put in the context of changing attitudes toward sci…
Science publishing 2035
Open AccessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Higgitt Rebekah 2016Science publishing 2035Notes Rec.70387–388http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0033SectionOpen AccessArticle commentaryScience publishing 2035 Rebekah Higgitt Rebekah Higgitt [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Rebekah…
Challenging Tropes
This essay explores how concerns relevant to academic historians of science do and do not translate to the museum setting. It takes as a case study a 2014 exhibition on the story of longitude, with which the author was involved. This theme presented opportunities and challenges for sharing nuanced accounts of science, technology, and innovation. Audience expectation, available objects, the requirements of display, and economic constraints were al…
Instruments and relics
Despite the age and prestige of the Royal Society of London, the history of its collections of scientific instruments and apparatus has largely been one of accidental accumulation and neglect. This article tracks their movements and the processes by which objects came to be recognized as possessing value beyond reuse or sale. From at least the mid-nineteenth century, the few surviving objects with links to the society’s early history and its most…
London 1600–1800
This essay introduces a special issue of the BJHS on communities of natural knowledge and artificial practice in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London. In seeking to understand the rise of a learned and technical culture within a growing and changing city, our approach has been inclusive in terms of the activities, people and places we consider worth exploring but shaped by a sense of the importance of collective activity, training, storage …
Greenwich near London’
Built in Greenwich in 1675–1676, the Royal Observatory was situated outside the capital but was deeply enmeshed within its knowledge networks and communities of practice. Scholars have tended to focus on the links cultivated by the Astronomers Royal within scholarly communities in England and Europe but the observatory was also deeply reliant on and engaged with London's institutions and practical mathematical community. It was a royal foundation…
The Board of Longitude
In the first book-length history of the Board of Longitude, a distinguished team of historians of science bring to life one of Georgian Britain's most important scientific institutions. Having developed in the eighteenth century following legislation offering rewards for methods to determine longitude at sea, the Board came to support the work of navigators, instrument makers, clockmakers and surveyors, and assembled the Nautical Almanac. Utilizi…
Board of Longitude
History of Science and Natural History (11 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Law (7 works) · History (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · History of Science and Medicine (5 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works)