Article ID: CBB258328117

Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851–1916): An introduction to the spotlight section (2021)

unapi

The extraordinary career of the British Quaker polymath, Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851–1916), encompassed fame in physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, history of science, educational method, painting, music, textbooks, X-rays, popular lectures, the promotion of women's rights, book-collecting, and not least his leadership in encouraging fellow Quakers to embrace the challenging results of research in the natural sciences. His public-facing career, with a reputation that ranged across Western Europe at least, centred on the sincere yet critical communication of new technical and historical knowledge, in a mastery of four languages. Yet his kaleidoscopic work has not received any sustained historical examination since the Life and Letters produced by his widow Jane and daughter Helen in 1920. The centenary of his death was marked by an interdisciplinary workshop at the Westminster (Quaker) Meeting-House, “‘A Many-sided Crystal’: The Quaker Physicist and Electrical Engineer Silvanus Phillips Thompson” on September 16, 2016. This spotlight section of Centaurus captures four of the revised contributions to that event, and these cover Thompson's contributions to historical theory, biographical practice, and commercial technology, as just a few elements of the rich and complex legacy that emerged posthumously from his multifarious, polymathic talents. These collectively point us to a revised view of Thompson as a pre-First World War European figure who gained his authority not from specialization in a single area of esoteric research, but from a life of public service that integrated the literary arts and historical writing with sciences and engineering, all incorporated within an active Quaker practice. The papers in this collection thus show how Thompson came to be an historian of science with an unprecedented mastery of contemporaneous techno-scientific arts and sophisticated skills in historical-biographical writing, working harmoniously in a secular world with a rigorous yet non-dogmatic faith.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB258328117/

Similar Citations

Article Graeme Gooday; (2021)
“A many-sided crystal”: Understanding the manifold legacy of Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851–1916)

Article Geoffrey Cantor; (2021)
Thompson, Biographer

Chapter Gay, Hannah; (2004)
“If gold ruste what shall iren do?” Silvanus Phillips Thompson, Quakerism and Science

Article Stathis Arapostathis; Anna Guagnini; (2021)
Living in between: The commercial side of Silvanus P. Thompson's engineering

Article Stanley, Matthew; (2003)
“An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War”: The 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer

Article Gay, Hannah; Barrett, Anne; (2002)
Should the Cobbler Stick to His Last? Silvanus Phillips Thompson and the Making of a Scientific Career

Article Matthew Stanley; (2021)
No slaves to words: S. P. Thompson's theory of history

Article Gay, Hannah; (2010)
Chemist, Entomologist, Darwinian, and Man of Affairs: Raphael Meldola and the Making of a Scientific Career

Chapter Cantor, Geoffrey; (2004)
Friends of Science? The Role of Science in Quaker Periodicals

Book Cantor, Geoffrey; (2005)
Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650--1900

Article Kraemer, Sebastian; (2010)
“The Dangers of This Atmosphere”: A Quaker Connection in the Tavistock Clinic's Development

Article Xavier García Ferrandis; Àlvar Martínez-Vidal; (2019)
La ayuda humanitaria de los British Quakers durante la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939): el caso del Hospital Infantil de Polop de la Marina (Alicante)

Book Satia, Priya; (2018)
Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution

Thesis Boyling, Elaine; (2012)
Quakerism and Therapeutic Environments: Dynamic Resources in the Management of a Therapeutic Community, 1962--1995

Article Benjamin K Sovacool; Noam Bergman; Debbie Hopkins; Kirsten EH Jenkins; Sabine Hielscher; Andreas Goldthau; Brent Brossmann; (August 2020)
Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: Valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future

Article Enebakk, Vidar; (2009)
Lilley Revisited: Or Science and Society in the Twentieth Century

Article Mayer, Anna-K.; (2005)
When Things Don't Talk: Knowledge and Belief in the Inter-War Humanism of Charles Singer (1876--1960)

Article Arapostathis, Stathis; (2013)
Meters, Patents and Expertise(s): Knowledge Networks in the Electricity Meters Industry, 1880--1914

Book Coad, J. G.; (2011)
Support for the Fleet: British Naval Bases, 1700--1914

Book Leggett, Don; Dunn, Richard; (2012)
Re-Inventing the Ship: Science, Technology and the Maritime World, 1800--1918

Authors & Contributors
Cantor, Geoffrey N.
Gaya, Hannah
Arapostathis, Stathis
Stanley, Matthew
Barrett, Anne
Boyling, Elaine
Journals
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
British Journal for the History of Science
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Asclepio: Archivo Iberoamericano de Historia de la Medicina
History of the Human Sciences
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
Ashgate
English Heritage
Oxford University Press
University of Birmingham (United Kingdom)
Penguin Press
Concepts
Quakers and Quakerism
Science and religion
Technology
Historians of science, modern
Biographies
Hospitals and clinics
People
Thompson, Silvanus Phillips
Bentham, Samuel
Eddington, Arthur Stanley
Lilley, Samuel
Maudslay, Henry
Meldola, Raphael
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century
17th century
20th century, late
Places
Great Britain
Europe
Germany
Alicante (Spain)
England
Institutions
Great Britain. Royal Navy
Tavistock Clinic
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment