THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Series Three: The Papers of Charles Babbage, 1791-1971

Part 1: Correspondence and Scientific Papers from the British Library, London

Listing by Correspondent

Charles Babbage’s voluminous correspondence is an important resource for Historians of Mathematics, Science and Technology. Scholars interested in the History of Scientific Institutions will find much here of interest as Babbage maintained a correspondence network with Alessandri, Biot, Feuillet, Fourier, Humboldt, Quetelet, Roget and Trendelenburg, linking together the scientific communities of Britain, France, Italy, Prussia and Belgium. Babbage also had many American correspondents.

In addition to discussions of computing, there is much material on Astronomy, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Geography, Geology, Geometry, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Natural History and Physics.

The list of correspondents which follows has been based on the Index to the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1900-1905 (British Museum, London, 1907). There are over 1300 correspondents listed and a significantly high proportion of these are women. This may be due to the fact that his close friendship with Augusta Ada Byron (later King), Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville, made it clear to budding women mathematicians and scientists that he would take their concerns seriously. As such this is an excellent source for the study of women in science in the 19th Century.

There now follows some lists of leading figures represented in the correspondence grouped by subject. These lists are necessarily incomplete, but they do provide an idea of the scope and depth of the correspondence as a whole. The complete list of correspondents follows this.

Some Leading figures represented in the correspondence

1. Artists and Writers

Thomas Barnes (Editor of the Times), Edward Lytton Bulwer, Julia Margaret Cameron, Samuel Christie, Antoine Claudet, John Delane (Editor of the Times), Charles Dickens, Sir Charles Eastlake (President of the Royal Academy), Maria Edgeworth, George Grote, Sir Edwin Landseer, G H Lewes, John Linnell, Henry W Longfellow, W C Macready, Frederick Marryat, RN, Harriet Martineau, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, John Murray, Caroline Norton, Jane Porter, Samuel Rogers, John Ruskin, Catherine Stepney, Dugald Stewart, Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Thomas Noon Talfourd, W M Thackeray, George Ticknor, David Wilkie.

2. Astronomers

J C Adams, Sir George Airy, Dominique Arago, Francis Baily, James Challis, J F Encke, Benjamin Gould, Thomas J Hussey, Wartan Josephy, William Lax, John Lee, Joseph Le Français de Lalande, Urbain Le Verrier, Daniel Moore, Ottaviano Mossotti, Charles Nagy, Giovanni Plana, John Pond, T R Robinson, Carl Ruemker, Giovanni Santini, H C Schumacher, Richard Sheepshanks, Sir James South, William Stratford, Otto von Struve, Johann Tiarks, Georg Ursin, A J Yvon-Villarceau.

3. Economists

Clement Biddle, Michel Chevalier, Richard Cobden, Jean Baptiste Jobard, Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, Thomas Malthus, J S Mill, Horace Say, Nassau Senior, Herbert Spencer, Thomas Tooke, Robert Torrens

4. Engineers and Inventors

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Marc Isambard Brunel, Edwin Chadwick, Joseph Clement, Bryan Donkin, Sir George Everest, William Gravatt, George Hughes, C G Jarvis, Robert Mallet, James Nasmyth, Giovanni Piotti, George Rennie, George Scheutz, Thomas Sopwith, William Strutt, William Henry Fox Talbot, John Taylor, Thomas Telford, James Watt the Younger, Joseph Whitworth.

5. Geographers, Geologists and Mineralogists

William Buckland, William Henry Fitton, Samuel Haughton, René Haüy, William Lonsdale, Sir Charles Lyell, James Nicol, William Pengelly, Adam Sedgwick, Charles Stokes, James Wyld.

6. Mathematicians

Gianbattista Amici, George Boole, Augusta Ada Byron (later King), Charles Creedy, Thomas Davies, Augustus De Morgan, William Galbraith, Benjamin Gompertz, Christopher Hansteen, George Harvey, John Herapath, Sir James Ivory, John Leslie, Count Luigi Menabrea, Isaac Milner, John Playfair, George Stokes, James Sylvester, J R Young.

7. Scientists

John Henry Alexander, André Marie Ampère, Alexander Bache, Albert Bernays, Jean Baptiste Biot, Christian Bunsen, Jean Colladon, Georges Cuvier, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, William Snow Harris, Joseph Henry, Caroline Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Joseph Hooker, William Hooker, Friedrich Humboldt, Auguste La Rive, John Lindley, Domenico Paoli, Claude Pouillet, Pierre Prevost, Benjamin Silliman, Mary Somerville, William Whewell.

8. Statesmen and Society Figures

Count Cavour (Founder of Modern Italy), Peter Beuth (Prussian Statesman), Henry Brougham, Anthony Ashley Cooper (7th Earl of Shaftesbury), Angela Burdett-Coutts, Timothy Curtis (Governor of the Bank of England), M Elphinstone (Governor of Bombay), Edward Everett (American Envoy in London), Sir John Franklin (Explorer), W E Gladstone, PM, Henry Goulburn (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Sir George Grey (Governor of Cape Colony), Sir Rowland Hill (Founder of the Post Office), John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, Joseph Ingersoll (United States Minister in London), William Lamb (2nd Viscount Melbourne, PM), M Ledieu (Director of the Paris Exhibition), Conte Libri-Carrucci, Sir Richard Macdonell (Governor of Southern Australia), Francis Martin (Charity Commissioner), James Melvill (Secretary of the East India Company), Sir Roderick Murchison, William Parry (Explorer), Francis Place (Radical), Comte de Pollon (Sardinian Ambassador), Lord John Russell, PM, César de Saluces, Thomas Spring-Rice (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Charles Sumner (US Statesman), Oscar I of Sweden, Vittorio Taparelli (Sardinian Minister in London), Alexis de Tocqueville, Leopold II (Grand Duke of Tuscany), Countess Vernède de Corneillan, Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington, PM), Richard Whately (Archbishop of Dublin).

9. University Officials and Representatives of learned Societies

Antonio Alessandri (President of the Academy of Sciences, Bologna), Vincenzio Antinori (Director, Royal Natural History Museum, Florence), Sir Joseph Banks (President of the Royal Society), Laurent Feuillet (Librarian of the Institute de France), Peter Foster (Secretary for the Society of Arts), Jean Fourier (Secretary de l’Académie des Sciences), James Hudson (Assistant Director of the Royal Society), César Moreau (Director of the French Statistical Society), Stanislas Julien (Assistant Librarian of the Institute de France), Anthony Panizzi (Principal Librarian of the British Museum), Lambert Quetelet (Secretary of the Brussels Academy), Josiah Quincy (President of Harvard College), Sir John Robison (Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), P M Roget (Secretary of the Royal Society), E Scarpellini (Secretary “Corrispondenza Scientifica”, Rome), J H Schnitzler (Director Encyclopédie des Gens du Monde), Angelo Sismonda (Director of the Museum of Mineralogy, Turin), Jared Sparks (President of Harvard College), Friedrich Trendelenburg (Secretary for the Academy of Sciences, Berlin), Henry Warburton (Secretary of the Geological Society), Walter White (Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society)

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