IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB821547552

An Experimental Community: The East India Company in London, 1600–1800 (2019)

British Journal for the History of Science
Volume: 52
Issue: 2
Pages: 323-343

DOI: 10.1017/S0007087419000220

URI: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/an-experimental-community-the-east-india-company-in-london-16001800/1CA4032E72E95A1E4FF1D7F71F8DDB0B

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Science and society Scientific communities; interprofessional relations Experiments and experimentation 18th century 17th century London (England) Royal Society of London East India Company (English)

The early East India Company (EIC) had a profound effect on London, filling the British capital with new things, ideas and people; altering its streets; and introducing exotic plants and animals. Company commodities – from saltpetre to tea to opium – were natural products and the EIC sought throughout the period to understand how to produce and control them. In doing so, the company amassed information, designed experiments and drew on the expertise of people in the settlements and of individuals and institutions in London. Frequent collaborators in London included the Royal Society and the Society of Apothecaries. Seeking success in the settlements and patronage in London, company servants amassed large amounts of data concerning natural objects and artificial practices. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, company scholars and their supporters in London sought to counter critiques of the EIC by demonstrating the utility to the nation of the objects and ideas they brought home. The EIC transformed itself several times between 1600 and 1800. Nonetheless, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its knowledge culture was characterized by reliance on informal networks that linked the settlements with one another and with London.

...More

Included in

Article Jim Bennett; Rebekah Higgitt (2019) London 1600–1800: Communities of Natural Knowledge and Artificial Practice. British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 183-196). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB821547552/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin; (2019)
‘A Place of Great Trust to Be Supplied by Men of Skill and Integrity’: Assayers and Knowledge Cultures in Late Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century London (/isis/citation/CBB737897913/)

Article Rebekah Higgitt; (2019)
‘Greenwich Near London’: The Royal Observatory and Its London Networks in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (/isis/citation/CBB752672306/)

Article Attie, Katherine Bootle; (2013)
Selling Science: Bacon, Harvey and the Commodification of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB001320085/)

Article Noah Moxham; (2019)
Natural Knowledge, Inc.: The Royal Society as a Metropolitan Corporation (/isis/citation/CBB870014746/)

Book Hunter, Matthew C.; (2013)
Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London (/isis/citation/CBB001213151/)

Book Dolnick, Edward; (2011)
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World (/isis/citation/CBB001033132/)

Article Paddy Holt; (2022)
An appetite for experiment: putting early Royal Society tastes back on the table (/isis/citation/CBB715066532/)

Article Boschiero, Luciano; (2010)
Translation, Experimentation and the Spring of the Air: Richard Waller's Essayes of Natural Experiments (/isis/citation/CBB001032188/)

Chapter Boschiero, Luciano; (2009)
Networking and Experimental Rhetoric in Florence, Bologna and London during the 1660s (/isis/citation/CBB001020802/)

Article Philip Beeley; (2019)
Practical Mathematicians and Mathematical Practice in Later Seventeenth-Century London (/isis/citation/CBB006065321/)

Book Kühn, Sebastian; (2011)
Wissen, Arbeit, Freundschaft: Okonomien und soziale Beziehungen an den Akademien in London, Paris und Berlin um 1700 (/isis/citation/CBB001220514/)

Article Levitin, Dmitri; (2013)
Halley and the Eternity of the World Revisited (/isis/citation/CBB001320588/)

Article Hartley, Beryl; (2010)
Exploring and Communicating Knowledge of Trees in the Early Royal Society (/isis/citation/CBB001022709/)

Article Jim Bennett; (2019)
Mathematicians on Board: Introducing Lunar Distances to Life at Sea (/isis/citation/CBB155594835/)

Book Bryson, Bill; Turney, Jon; (2010)
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society (/isis/citation/CBB001033160/)

Article MacLeod, Roy; (2010)
The Royal Society and the Commonwealth: Old Friendships, New Frontiers (/isis/citation/CBB001022760/)

Book Patricia Fara; (2021)
Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career (/isis/citation/CBB507204608/)

Thesis Kirsten James; (2019)
The Science of Scent and Business of Perfume in Paris and London, 1650–1815 (/isis/citation/CBB140299766/)

Book Dario Generali; (2016)
Le Radici della Razionalità Critica: Saperi, Pratiche, Teleologie. Studi offerti a Fabio Minazzi (/isis/citation/CBB605863308/)

Essay Review Christopher Hamlin; (2017)
You Say “Myth” Like It’s a Bad Thing (/isis/citation/CBB709882403/)

Comments

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