It’s British Science Week and I have just been sent an image of a microscope that set me thinking. The microscope is at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight. It’s a handsome thing, all gleaming brass and polished wood, and who did it belong to? Not Darwin or Faraday or another towering figure of Victorian science but Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Hang on, wasn’t he a poet?
He was definitely a poet. One of the most famous lines in the English language, "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" is his after all, from his poem In Memoriam. He was also our longest serving Poet Laureate, chronicling many rather dull royal events but also penning The Charge of the Light Brigade and thereby ensured immortality for this less than glorious military action. But was he also a scientist?
Tennyson would certainly not have described himself as a scientist, that is a thoroughly 20th century term. The pursuit of knowledge had grown out the 18th century traditions of natural philosophy and every Victorian gentleman received a classical education and was well versed in Virgil and Homer; early ‘scientists’ tended to be polymaths. Nineteenth century editions of the scientific journal Nature, for example, often included verses. In fact, it was religion that was the guiding principal of Victorian thinkers. Darwin, don’t forget, was so concerned about the impact of his Theory of Evolution that he waited 20 years before finally publishing in 1859. Tennyson was a religious man, the son of a country rector. If you are a Bill Bryson fan (and I am) you will have enjoyed his description, while reading ‘At Home: a Short History of Private Life’, of “interesting vicars” and know that 18th century curates were unfailingly curious and inventive. So, Tennyson grew up in a home where God was mixed in with architecture, painting, music, and poetry. At Cambridge, he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a group of student friends which produced many of the great minds of the era in all walks of life, from academics and politicians to inventors and painters. In later life, probably about the time he was peeking at the microscopic world, his religious views altered and he became increasingly agnostic.
As literacy rates in the general population rose, new scientific theories like Darwin’s were widely discussed while public exhibitions and new museums displayed instruments and devices that allowed anyone to become an amateur scientist. Discovering a wider market, microscopes in particular became hugely popular. As the craze spread, more and more people discovered a world of previously invisible creatures and the microscope became a purveyor of entertainment. Beautifully crafted pre-prepared microscope slides introduced the curious to the intricate structure of whalebone or the beard hairs of a brother of King Henry IV. That Tennyson’s own microscope survives at Farringford shows not that he was unusually enquiring but that he was typical of a well-educated gentleman of the period. This is proof of the popularisation of science in the late 19th century. You could definitely be a poet and an amateur scientist, in fact a bit of each would be expected to keep your dinner party conversation fashionably stimulating.
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