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Article ID: CBB059481221

Living in between: The commercial side of Silvanus P. Thompson's engineering (2021)

Arapostathis, Stathis (Author)
Guagnini, Anna (Author)

Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 63
Issue: 3
Pages: 499-512

URI: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1600-0498.12407

DOI: 10.1111/1600-0498.12407

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Technological innovation Engineers Business and commerce Industry 20th century, early 19th century Great Britain Thompson, Silvanus Phillips

Historians have hitherto lacked an integrated account of the commercial activities, practices, and entrepreneurial strategies of S. P. Thompson during his career from the 1870s until his death in 1916. This article demonstrates the practical, financial, and moral dimensions and intricacies of his passage from the academic to the industrial and commercial world. We highlight the different patterns of correlation between patenting, consulting, expert-witnessing, and text-book publishing. The article shows his expertise, how he managed the production of knowledge, and the ways that practical and family contingencies influenced the management of his intangible assets. Reconciliation of the engineering culture of the period with the principles of his Quakerism and the practice of the commercialization of knowledge was not an easy task. In order to make the analysis meaningful, we compare his performance with those of some of his London-based colleagues who shared a culture of scientific engineering that could be commercialized.

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