The Dudley Expedition: an Association Medley

From the Literary Gazette, September 6 1839

Tune. – “Going to Putney by Water¹”.

*A laughable incident attended this aquatic expedition. On passing one of the canal locks, boats have to leave a manifest so that the proper dues may be charged on them. One of ours, as returned by the surveying officer, ran thus – “Draught, 13 inches; weight, 3 1/2 tons; cargo, philosophers!”

It’s worth giving here the fuller account of this excursion as reported in the Literary Gazette:

On Friday the excursions⁹ were sadly marred by its being even as wet a day as that which damped the tournament at Eglinton¹⁰… we [the Literary Gazette] were again wet to the skin in our walk to join Division C. at the Limestone Caverns… , and fortunately reached them in time to enjoy a situation which imagination could hardly conceive. These immense caverns were illuminated from end to end; and the lights reflected from the waters below seemed innumerable as the starry hosts. In lateral and highly arched caves, blue lights were burnt; and the whole was truly a magic illusion. The sides were lined with people, and in boats below were the members (some 300), headed by Mr. Murchison¹¹, who delivered a most animated and scientific lecture on the natural wonders by which they were surrounded. Volleys of arms were discharged with startling effect, and the shouts of the multitude gave an almost superhuman sublimity to the scene, as the clouds from the artillery rolled with their thunders across the vaulted roofs.

At the mouth of the caverns, Dr. Buckland pronounced a splendid oration, which we regret we did not hear, the sudden departure of Prof. Phillips¹², called away to attend the death-bed of his uncle, Dr. Smith, having left the divisions without programmes, so necessary for their direction. The incessant rain did not prevent nearly the whole party from attending Mr. Murchison to the Wren’s Nest, on which picturesque spot, during a blink of fine weather, he explained the surrounding geological formations – the lime and coal, sources of the wealth of these districts, and themselves so rich in fossil remains. The lunch at Dudley was a merry meeting after all the physical endurance and mental enjoyments of the day; but as one of our companions¹³, who unites much of wit and humour with no small share of scientific attainments, favoured us with a description of the whole in rhyme, we gladly avail ourselves of his sportive muse to lighten the solidity of these Reports.

Notes

1. The poem, or more properly a song, is a parody of the popular comic song known as “Going to Putney by Water”, which describes a disastrous day out. You can read the lyrics and hear the music here. ↩︎
2. The excursion took place during the 1839 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held in Birmingham. These meetings usually included excursions to places of interest and this particular excursion was for the members of Section (or Division) C, Geology and Physical Geography. This was also the Association meeting at which Forbes and some friends formed the Red Lions. ↩︎
3. The group went on a trip to the limestone caverns near Wren’s Nest just outside Dudley, where limestone had been mined for many years. The caverns were accessed by water – a branch of the canal from Birmingham. They, and the area in which they were located, were and are sites of great geological interest, being especially abundant in Silurian (around 420-440 million years ago) fossils. Much of Roderick Murchison’s research in which he originally proposed and defined the Silurian era was based on his work there, and he lectured, in the caverns, on their geology as part of this excursion and the 1849 one pictured above. Some of the caverns (including the famous “Seven Sisters”) are now sealed up following some roof collapses, but others, and Wren’s Nest nature reserve, can still be visited and make up one of the most important fossil sites in Britain and the world, as well as popular tourist attractions. ↩︎
4. Birmingham. It comes from the old regional pronunciation of the name, and more usually ends in an m (Brummagem). The nicknames for a person from Birmingham – Brummie – and for Birmingham itself – Brum – derive from it. ↩︎
5. “Scientist” was still a fairly new term (coined in 1833) and besides, doesn’t scan as well. What we would think of as scientists were often known as philosophers, with, for example, natural philosophy being the branch of science that dealt with the why and the how of nature, rather than the what and the where that were covered by natural history. This dual view was on its way out by the 1830s, though, and “natural history” was coming to mean what it does today. But scientists were still often known as “philosophers” for quite some time (and many of them were more than happy with the term). ↩︎
6. A frequent early 19th century pronunciation of “such” especially in London and the south but also in the Midlands. It appears in the song this is parodying, but along with “Brummagen” and “war’n’t” it’s possible Forbes might be attempting to do a West Midlands accent…let’s hope not. ↩︎
7. William Buckland (1784-1856), palaeontologist, Dean of Westminster (he reconciled this with the emerging evidence that the Earth may not have developed in quite the way the Bible seemed to suggest by subscribing to the “gap theory” that there were in fact two creations that took place in a gap of indeterminate length between the sixth and seventh days of the Earth’s existence) and renowned not just for his scientific knowledge (he identified and named coprolites – fossil dinosaur faeces – put together and named the first complete fossil dinosaur, Megalosaurus, and discovered the remains of the Stone Age body known as the Red Lady of Paviland, who has more recently been revealed to be a man) but for his eccentricities. Most notably, he was known for his ambition to eat a sample of every animal he could, from flies to alligators and even, according to rumour, part of the preserved heart of the French King Louis XIV. ↩︎
8. Alcoholic drink. Also a name for someone who enjoyed alcoholic drink a bit too much and too frequently. ↩︎
9. The Association meetings were huge affairs and, while adding significantly to the prestige of the towns and cities that hosted them, also caused logistical headaches for the civic authorities, who in some cases ended up measuring assembly rooms to make sure they could fit the numbers expected (at Birmingham in 1839 this was around 800 people, not including non-members and day visitors who might sign up for only a few lectures). The excursions were a great opportunity for hosts to show off their locations of scientific interest; at Birmingham, which was growing fast thanks to the Industrial Revolution, these included huge, cutting-edge ironworks as well as natural wonders like the caverns. ↩︎
10. The tournament at Eglinton took place a week or so earlier, between 28-30 August 1839. It was a reenactment of a medieval joust, organised and hosted by the 13th Earl of Eglinton in Ayrshire and featuring various aristocrats in the role of jousting knights, and was indeed marred somewhat by heavy rain. It was primarily organised to assert the Tories’ claim to be the party of tradition and British values (plus ça change!) and was also emblematic of the fashion for and interest in all things medieval, chivalrous and Scottish, driven by Arthurian retellings and Sir Walter Scott’s novels. Although plenty of scorn was poured on it by the Whigs, around 100,000 people attended. One person did complain it wasn’t authentically violent enough, however. ↩︎
11. Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871), geologist and palaeontologist, and one of the founding members of the British Association. He established the Silurian system of rocks when working in South Wales, although this area of the Midlands is also rich in Silurian geology, and also identified the Devonian and Permian periods. He worked closely with his wife Charlotte, herself a geologist (although not a professional one, being a woman) who, with Humphrey Davy, encouraged him to take up the subject himself after he left the army and had nothing much to do apart from hunt and lounge. He was also a founder and four-time president of the Royal Geographical Society, director general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death, and also worked extensively with Charles Lyell on Alpine geology. He was a mentor to Archibald Geikie, who completed the Memoir of Edward Forbes. ↩︎
12. John Phillips (1800-1874), geologist, palaeontologist, statistician and the logistical genius behind the first British Association meeting in York in 1831. He served as Assistant Secretary to the Association during the 1830s, and so creating and distributing the programmes would have been in his remit. He enjoyed a long and notable career, which was helped enormously by his work with the British Association. He eventually became its President in 1865. The uncle whose deathbed he was called away to during this meeting, the geologist William Smith, had brought Phillips up after his parents died in his childhood. ↩︎
13. Edward Forbes, of course. He was 24 in 1839 but already well-known and respected, as well as popular. ↩︎

Sources

Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, and Sciences, 6 September 1839, p. 568

Pentland, Dr Gordon, The Eglinton Tournament 1839: A Victorian take on the Anglo-Scottish Rivalry, historyofparliament.com

Geology of Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

Morrell, Jack and Thackray, Arnold, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford University Press 1981