Crosbie Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 3768851 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Crosbie Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | Crosbie |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kent |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 72 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1957 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Maurice Pierre Crosland (1931–2020)
Following some years of declining health, Professor Maurice Crosland passed away on 30 August 2020 at the age of eighty-nine. Author of four influential scholarly monographs, Maurice played major roles in the British Society for the History of Science during the 1960s and 1970s as an active Member of Council, Honorary Editor of the British Journal for the History of Science (1965–71) and Honorary President of the society (1974–6). His academic ca…
Coal, Steam and Ships
British mail steamers to South America, 1851–1965. A history of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and Royal Mail Lines
Witnessing Power
Shipowners' seemingly slow adoption of marine compound engines is often attributed to not appreciating the new technology's superior economy. This article argues that this slow adoption needs to be understood alongside the challenges faced by engine builders in persuading skeptical shipowners and practical engineers that their designs were trustworthy. It explores the rich cultural contexts within which Glasgow master engineer John Elder and his …
‘We Never Make Mistakes’
'We never make mistakes'. These are the oft-repeated words of a certain Captain Mitchell, wearer of white waistcoats and the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company's marine superintendent in the port town of Sulaco in the Republic of Costaguana, once part of the Spanish Empire on the West Coast of South America. Señor Mitchell, the creation of Joseph Conrad in his epic novel Nostromo (1904), used the phrase to capture, for the benefit of a wider public…
Or vast fiery cross, on the banner of morn’
During the nineteenth century shipwrecks served as flexible constructs through which survivors, authors, preachers, editors and proprietors could articulate shared cultural values. This article focuses on the loss of three major steamships, the Tweed, the Forth and the Amazon, all of which belonged to the prestigious Royal Mail Steam Packet Company operating mail, passenger and high-value freight services between Southampton and the Caribbean fro…
Titanic port
Heroes of invention
Trust in Providence
"Trust in Providence" Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers Crosbie Smith Anne Scott Dependence on the providence, and trust in the promises of God, are duties which must be acknowledged by all those who believe in a Providence. . . . How wonderful is the power and knowledge which can regulate the universe and direct the secret thoughts of the human race, which can so connect the changes in the different parts of the material world…
Engineering Empires
Engineers are empire-builders. Watt, Brunel, and others worked to build and expand personal and business empires of material technology and in so doing these engineers also became active agents of pol
Building Railway Empires
For some three weeks in 1898 construction stopped on one of the British Empire’s most ambitious railway projects, linking the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa with the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda. Neither tribal opposition nor engineering problems played any part in this brief pause in the onward march of imperial civilisation. Yet before progress recommenced, ‘twenty-eight Indian coolies and an indefinite number of African natives’ had …
Conclusion
Preceding chapters have explored steam power, steamship, railway and telegraph technologies in the making (chs 2–5). These chapters have focused on the cultural construction of empires: usually built as personal and business empires but often closely interconnected one with another and in relation to the larger geopolitical empires of the nineteenth century. In this concluding chapter we expand upon several cultures of technological expertise, al…
The Politics of Progress
Imitations of God's Own Works
may we not say in the words of Bacon? - 'The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new inventions may extend to all mankind universally, but the good of political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former for ever. Inventions make all men happy without either injury or damage to any one single person. Furthermore,…
Avoiding Equally Extravagance and Parsimony
Founded by the brothers Alfred and Philip Henry Holt in 1865, the Ocean Steam Ship Company of Liverpool (better known as the Blue Funnel Line) has been widely celebrated by maritime historians and historians of marine engineering as the line which introduced the compound engine into long distance steam navigation to the Far East and which thereby killed the famous China tea clippers. In this paper we argue that the local culture within which the …
Consuming energies
In the closing decade of the nineteenth century, the American historian and descendent of two US presidents Henry Adams identified what he and his circle saw as the most dramatic historical change of the century and one laden with consequences for the next, namely the emergence of his nation as the most powerful on earth. We argue that Adams (along with his brother Brooks) drew specifically on Lord Kelvin's energy physics to analyse the foundatio…
The Architecture of Science. Peter Galison , Emily Thompson
A magnified piece of thermodynamics’
Refrigeration has become so well established over the last 125 years that today a crude ice maker becomes a boon for primitive people in the jungle or desert. Only a total dislocation in energy sources will quickly loosen the connections between people and cooling. A few centuries ago, Hippocrates (460–377? B.C.) observed: ‘most men would rather run the hazards of their lives or health than be deprived of the pleasure of drinking out of ice’ ... …
Making Space for Science
In recent years there has been a growing recognition that a mature analysis of scientific and technological activity requires an understanding of its spatial contexts. Without these contexts, indeed
Conflict in the Balkans and the Possibility of a European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy
The genius of Michael Faraday
Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Faraday. Sandeminian and scientist. A study o f science and religion in the nineteenth century. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. xi + 359. ISBN 0-333-55077-3. John Meurig Thomas, Michael Faraday and the Royal Institution. The genius of man and place. Bristol, Philadelphia and London: Adam Hilger, 1991. Pp. xii + 234. ISBN 0-7503-0145-7. The correspondence of Michael Faraday. Volume 1, 1811-1831, edited by Fran…
Energy and Empire
Work and Waste
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. I. The Early Years, 1879-1902
William Hopkins and the shaping of Dynamical Geology
‘Hitherto want of accuracy and definiteness have often been brought as a charge against geology, and sometimes only with too much justice’, wrote Archibald Geikie in a review of Sir Roderick Murchison's Siluria (1867). ‘We seem now to be entering, however, upon a new era, when there will be infused into geological methods and speculation, some of the precision of the exact sciences’. Geikie's judgement echoed an appeal made some thirty years earl…
Work and Waste
Work and Waste
Work and Waste
Imitations of God's Own Works
may we not say in the words of Bacon? - 'The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new inventions may extend to all mankind universally, but the good of political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former for ever. Inventions make all men happy without either injury or damage to any one single person. Furthermore,…
A New Chart for British Natural Philosophy
Natural Philosophy and Thermodynamics
William Thomson's image as a professional mathematical physicist who adheres, particularly in his work in classical thermodynamics, to a strict experimental basis for his science, avoids speculative hypotheses, and becomes renowned for his omission of philosophical declarations has been reinforced in varying degrees by those historians who have attempted, as either admirers or critics of Thomson, to describe and assess his life. J. G. Crowther, f…
Avoiding Equally Extravagance and Parsimony
Founded by the brothers Alfred and Philip Henry Holt in 1865, the Ocean Steam Ship Company of Liverpool (better known as the Blue Funnel Line) has been widely celebrated by maritime historians and historians of marine engineering as the line which introduced the compound engine into long distance steam navigation to the Far East and which thereby killed the famous China tea clippers. In this paper we argue that the local culture within which the …
William Hopkins and the shaping of Dynamical Geology
‘Hitherto want of accuracy and definiteness have often been brought as a charge against geology, and sometimes only with too much justice’, wrote Archibald Geikie in a review of Sir Roderick Murchison's Siluria (1867). ‘We seem now to be entering, however, upon a new era, when there will be infused into geological methods and speculation, some of the precision of the exact sciences’. Geikie's judgement echoed an appeal made some thirty years earl…
From Design to Dissolution
The claim that the nineteenth century was a period of major transition for the relation between theology and natural science has become a historical truism. With its implications for the design argument and the doctrines of divine providence, Darwin's theory of evolution has rightly attracted the attention of scholars of Victorian science. Yet so much emphasis not only on Darwin himself, but on the life sciences generally, has tended to obscure s…
Trust in Providence
"Trust in Providence" Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers Crosbie Smith Anne Scott Dependence on the providence, and trust in the promises of God, are duties which must be acknowledged by all those who believe in a Providence. . . . How wonderful is the power and knowledge which can regulate the universe and direct the secret thoughts of the human race, which can so connect the changes in the different parts of the material world…
A magnified piece of thermodynamics’
Refrigeration has become so well established over the last 125 years that today a crude ice maker becomes a boon for primitive people in the jungle or desert. Only a total dislocation in energy sources will quickly loosen the connections between people and cooling. A few centuries ago, Hippocrates (460–377? B.C.) observed: ‘most men would rather run the hazards of their lives or health than be deprived of the pleasure of drinking out of ice’ ... …
Conflict in the Balkans and the Possibility of a European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy
"Faraday as Referee of Joule's Royal Society Paper "On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat
The Russian Struggle for Power, 1914-1917
The Discovery of the Conservation of Energy . Yehuda Elkana
Natural Philosophy and Thermodynamics
William Thomson's image as a professional mathematical physicist who adheres, particularly in his work in classical thermodynamics, to a strict experimental basis for his science, avoids speculative hypotheses, and becomes renowned for his omission of philosophical declarations has been reinforced in varying degrees by those historians who have attempted, as either admirers or critics of Thomson, to describe and assess his life. J. G. Crowther, f…
"Faraday as Referee of Joule's Royal Society Paper "On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat
A New Chart for British Natural Philosophy
From Design to Dissolution
The claim that the nineteenth century was a period of major transition for the relation between theology and natural science has become a historical truism. With its implications for the design argument and the doctrines of divine providence, Darwin's theory of evolution has rightly attracted the attention of scholars of Victorian science. Yet so much emphasis not only on Darwin himself, but on the life sciences generally, has tended to obscure s…
James Clerk Maxwell
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. I. The Early Years, 1879-1902
William Hopkins and the shaping of Dynamical Geology
‘Hitherto want of accuracy and definiteness have often been brought as a charge against geology, and sometimes only with too much justice’, wrote Archibald Geikie in a review of Sir Roderick Murchison's Siluria (1867). ‘We seem now to be entering, however, upon a new era, when there will be infused into geological methods and speculation, some of the precision of the exact sciences’. Geikie's judgement echoed an appeal made some thirty years earl…
Work and Waste
Work and Waste
Work and Waste
Energy and Empire
The genius of Michael Faraday
Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Faraday. Sandeminian and scientist. A study o f science and religion in the nineteenth century. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1991. Pp. xi + 359. ISBN 0-333-55077-3. John Meurig Thomas, Michael Faraday and the Royal Institution. The genius of man and place. Bristol, Philadelphia and London: Adam Hilger, 1991. Pp. xii + 234. ISBN 0-7503-0145-7. The correspondence of Michael Faraday. Volume 1, 1811-1831, edited by Fran…
Conflict in the Balkans and the Possibility of a European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy
Making Space for Science
In recent years there has been a growing recognition that a mature analysis of scientific and technological activity requires an understanding of its spatial contexts. Without these contexts, indeed
A magnified piece of thermodynamics’
Refrigeration has become so well established over the last 125 years that today a crude ice maker becomes a boon for primitive people in the jungle or desert. Only a total dislocation in energy sources will quickly loosen the connections between people and cooling. A few centuries ago, Hippocrates (460–377? B.C.) observed: ‘most men would rather run the hazards of their lives or health than be deprived of the pleasure of drinking out of ice’ ... …
Consuming energies
In the closing decade of the nineteenth century, the American historian and descendent of two US presidents Henry Adams identified what he and his circle saw as the most dramatic historical change of the century and one laden with consequences for the next, namely the emergence of his nation as the most powerful on earth. We argue that Adams (along with his brother Brooks) drew specifically on Lord Kelvin's energy physics to analyse the foundatio…
The Architecture of Science. Peter Galison , Emily Thompson
The Politics of Progress
Imitations of God's Own Works
may we not say in the words of Bacon? - 'The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new inventions may extend to all mankind universally, but the good of political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former for ever. Inventions make all men happy without either injury or damage to any one single person. Furthermore,…
Avoiding Equally Extravagance and Parsimony
Founded by the brothers Alfred and Philip Henry Holt in 1865, the Ocean Steam Ship Company of Liverpool (better known as the Blue Funnel Line) has been widely celebrated by maritime historians and historians of marine engineering as the line which introduced the compound engine into long distance steam navigation to the Far East and which thereby killed the famous China tea clippers. In this paper we argue that the local culture within which the …
Engineering Empires
Engineers are empire-builders. Watt, Brunel, and others worked to build and expand personal and business empires of material technology and in so doing these engineers also became active agents of pol
Building Railway Empires
For some three weeks in 1898 construction stopped on one of the British Empire’s most ambitious railway projects, linking the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa with the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda. Neither tribal opposition nor engineering problems played any part in this brief pause in the onward march of imperial civilisation. Yet before progress recommenced, ‘twenty-eight Indian coolies and an indefinite number of African natives’ had …
Conclusion
Preceding chapters have explored steam power, steamship, railway and telegraph technologies in the making (chs 2–5). These chapters have focused on the cultural construction of empires: usually built as personal and business empires but often closely interconnected one with another and in relation to the larger geopolitical empires of the nineteenth century. In this concluding chapter we expand upon several cultures of technological expertise, al…
History (22 works) · Political science (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Archaeology (11 works) · Engineering (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · History (10 works) · Politics (10 works)