Article
ID: CBB999653299

Fresh Fish: Observation up Close in Late Seventeenth-Century England (2020)

unapi
Observation Merchants Fisheries; fishing 17th century England Ray, John Willughby, Francis Royal Society of London

The traditional view of London's Royal Society as a closed circle has been subject to revision in the past decades. Historians have shown the considerable extent to which the Fellows of the Society drew on a broad range of men of practice for their respective skill sets. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the contributions of fishermen and fishmongers to the creation of natural knowledge. It centres on the Historia piscium (Oxford, 1686), written by Francis Willughby and John Ray, and its surrounding sources. This natural history of fishes aspired to give a concise and precise overview of species, and to uncover the divine order in which they were created. While men of practice contributed to this project in multiple ways, their first-hand observations carried particular weight. Through their cumulative experience of working with fish they saw a great number of living species, rather than the dried exemplars that naturalists would usually consult in cabinets of curiosities, or the indirect evidence that images might present. This article examines what kind of exchanges took place between fishermen and fishmongers on the one hand and Fellows on the other, and where, how and why these were incorporated into the fish book. In so doing, it also aims to qualify the value attached to direct (natural historical) observation in the socio-cultural context of late seventeenth-century England.

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Authors & Contributors
Wragge-Morley, Alexander
Esther Sahle
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Blanken, Kerrewin van
Dorothy Johnston
Cram, David
Journals
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Journal of the History of Collections
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Journal for the History of Astronomy
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Intellectual History Review
Publishers
The Boydell Press: Cambridge University Library
University of Wisconsin at Madison
State University of New York at Buffalo
University of Chicago Press
Brill
Concepts
Natural history
Observation
Visual representation; visual communication
Scientific illustration
Collectors and collecting
Anatomy
People
Ray, John
Willughby, Francis
Hooke, Robert
Grew, Nehemiah
Willis, Thomas
Hill, John
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
Early modern
Places
England
Great Britain
London (England)
Philadelphia, PA
Europe
Pennsylvania (U.S.)
Institutions
Royal Society of London
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