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Geology and industrial consultancy: Sir William Boyd Dawkins (1837–1929) and the Kent Coalfield

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Geoffrey Tweedale
Geoffrey Tweedale
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
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Extract

In Britain's development as the first industrial nation, the crucial importance of surveyors, mining engineers and geologists in prospecting and exploiting minerals and raw materials seems self-evident. Yet historians of geology have yet to take proper account of this aspect of geological science. Why is this ? One reason may simply be that the historiography of the subject itself is only relatively recent and many areas, besides industrial geology, await coverage. Or perhaps the nature of the source material is to blame. While scientific geologists filled museums with their fossils and notebooks, engaged in well-publicized controversies of the day, and wrote numerous books and articles, industrial geologists often left relatively few papers and sometimes never published their results. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the neglect of economic geology may be due to a rapidly developing bias in the subject itself. A recent study has highlighted the fact that the history of British geology, as seen through the eyes of historians at least, appears to comprise two different but closely interconnected strands. The first relates to natural history and looks toward the scientific or ‘pure’ front; the second connects with mining and the search for raw materials and is slanted towards the industrial or ‘applied’ horizon. In the same way that the scientific branch of geology brought fame and fortune in Victorian times, so the protagonists of ‘pure’ geology have so far been the chief interest of historians – so much so that the literature so far lacks detailed case studies of the careers and work of applied geologists.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 435 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1991

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References

1 See: Eyles, V. A., ‘The history of geology: suggestions for further research’, History of Science, (1966), 5, pp. 77–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greene, Mott T., ‘History of geology’, Osiris, (1985), II, 1, pp. 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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4 Geological Magazine, (1929), 66, p. 142.Google ScholarQuarterly Journal Geological Society of London, (1929), 85, pp. lix–lxGoogle Scholar, commented briefly on Dawkins, ' ‘wide practice in Engineering Geology’.Google Scholar See also ‘Eminent living geologists: William Boyd Dawkins’, Geological Magazine, (1909), n.s., 6, pp. 529–34.Google Scholar Useful information can also be found in Porter, Roy, ‘Gentlemen and geology: the emergence of a scientific career, 1660–1920’, Historical Journal, (1978), 21, pp. 809–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Woodward, A. S., ‘Sir William Boyd Dawkins (1837–1929)’, Proceedings of Royal Society, (1931), B107 pp. xxiii–xxvi.Google Scholar See also Woodward on Dawkins in DNB.

6 Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, (1929), 46, pp. 141–3.Google Scholar The Manchester Guardian, 16 01 1929Google Scholar, considered his economic geology as ‘an incidental activity and success’, and believed that ‘it is after all in his proper field of the history and distribution of animal life that he did his greatest work’. See also: Gardner, Willoughby, ‘Sir William Boyd Dawkins’, Archaeological Journal, (1929), 86, pp. 322–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manchester Faces and Places (10 1904), n.s., 3, pp. 297–300Google Scholar; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, (1929), 9, pp. 302–3Google Scholar; Research (1 03 1889), 9, pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

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8 See: Bridson, Gavin D. R. et al. (eds.), Natural History Manuscript Resources in the British Isles, London, 1980Google Scholar; Bishop, M. J., ‘The Dawkins–Jackson Archive at Buxton Museum’Google Scholar, in Briggs, D. J. et al. , Peak District and Northern Dukeries Field Guide, Quarternary Research Association, 1985, pp. 70–6Google Scholar; Bishop, M. J., ‘A guide to archives on Somerset geology and archaeology in the Dawkins and Jackson papers at Buxton Museum’, Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society, (1988), 18, pp. 306–13.Google Scholar

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10 This material was donated to Manchester University by Bill Isherwood and John Scriven of Edgar Morton ' geological specimens was retained by the Engineering Department, Manchester University. The papers have been catalogued under the auspices of the John Rylands Research Institute Scientific Archives Project. In compiling the catalogue Tim Procter and I were helped by David Procter, John Scriven, D. A. Rees (Jesus College, Oxford), Lesley-Ann Kerr(Wells Museum), Steven Tomlinson (Bodleian Library), H. P. Powell (Oxford University Museum, Geological Collections), Helen Powell (Queen's College, Oxford) and Philip Clayton (Buxton Museum). Manchester Museum also has a large collection of Dawkins' manuscripts, many of which have relevance for his industrial consultancy. Despite Dawkins' central role in establishing the Museum, the documents lie unlisted and unsorted in a laboratory cupboard and the Museum has no archiving policy towards them.

11 Slater, Humphrey and Barnett, Correlli (with the collaboration of Geneau, R. H.), The Channel Tunnel, London, 1957.Google Scholar

12 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/2. Report on the Geology of the Channel Tunnel, pp. 15, ‘sent on 21 August 1882’. See also Dawkins, , ‘The Channel Tunnel’, Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, (1880–1882), 16, pp. 339–59.Google Scholar

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15 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/10. ‘Memorandum on the present aspect of the Channel Tunnel question by Francis Brady, F. A. Pigou and W. Boyd Dawkins’, n.d., c. 1887.Google Scholar

16 The Record of the Sub-Wealden Exploration, Brighton, 1878.Google Scholar

17 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/13. Letter from John Shaw (SER) to Dawkins, , 20 03 1886.Google Scholar The letter to the SER from W. Taylor is dated 10 March 1886 and is in the same sequence, B/15. See also Taylor, W., On the Probability of Finding Coal in the South-East of England, Reigate, 1886.Google Scholar

18 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/15. ‘Report to Sir Edward Watkin… on the advisability of searching for coalmeasures in S. E. England’. On the frontispiece of the report, Dawkins later wrote: ‘sent on 7/4/86. Original report on which S[ir] E. W. W. instituted boring’. See also Dawkins, : ‘The discovery of coal measures near Dover’, Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, (1888–1890), 20, pp. 502–17Google Scholar; ‘The further discovery of coal at Dover and its bearing on the coal question’, Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, (1892), 21, pp. 456–74.Google Scholar

19 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/13. Letter from Whitaker to Dawkins, 2 July 1886. Whitaker worked for the Geological Survey until 1896 and, like Dawkins, consulted for Kent coal companies. See ‘Eminent living geologists: William Whitaker’, Geological Magazine, (1907), n.s., 4, pp. 49–58Google Scholar; Geological Magazine, (1925), 62, p. 240.Google Scholar

20 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/17. Copy of letter from Brady to Watkin, 5 July 1887.

21 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/18. Dawkins to Watkin, 23 September 1888. Wrote Dawkins, : ‘I will not do anything in public without consulting you.’Google Scholar In the John Rylands Library copy of Watkin, 's, Canada and the States: Recollections 1851 to 1886, London, 1888Google Scholar, there is the following inscription: ‘To my kind friend Professor Boyd Dawkins – may the Channel hail him, soon, as “King Coal”’.

22 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/20. Copy of letter to Watkin from Fenton, Myles, 30 12 1890.Google Scholar

23 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/20. Notes on samples; Dawkins, to Watkin, , 22 02 1891.Google Scholar

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26 The most detailed account of Burr and his activities is by Johnson, W., ‘The development of the Kent Coalfield, 1896–1946’, University of Kent PhD, 1973.Google Scholar The John Rylands collection also contains much of relevance, including numerous company prospectuses and press cuttings. See JRL/WBD/Series 2B/79–80, 82. Particularly useful on Burr are several pamphlets, presumably by disgruntled shareholders or journalists. See, for example, Series 2B/82, Brandon, Edgar M., ‘Kent coal expose: the financial history of the companies and the connection therewith of Arthur Burr, Brown, Janson & Co., and Guinness, Mahon & Co.’ (1899).Google Scholar

27 Ritchie, A. E., The Kent Coalfield: Its Evolution and Development, London, 1919, p. 40Google Scholar, The author was a former associate of Burr's and the book was written to bolster ‘faith’ in the future of Kent coal.

28 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/41. Thomas, to Dawkins, , 7 04 1899.Google Scholar In a subsequent letter, 8 April 1899, Thomas added: ‘It is the Engineering and Finance that has so far wrecked all the Kent coal companies, estimates all too low, and forecasts too sanguine. The geology is right enough.’ Thomas was an associate of William Low, a mining engineer, who had first alerted Watkin to the idea of a Channel Tunnel.

29 Some of Dawkins' friends saw problems early on. Whitaker, wrote to him on 13 03 1890Google Scholar: ‘I have said to various folk that the Dover announcement was badly made – that it ought to have been by you and Brady, not by him alone, as then it would have carried weight. As a fact it has carried little weight, and I have constantly been asked “Is it true?”. Geologists know 0 of B [rady] and distrusted the letter.’ See JRL/WBD/Series 2B/13. Dawkins' earliest letters defending his position against Brady are contained in correspondence with Wilfrid Hudlestone, ex-president of the Geological Society, in Series 2B/23. Dawkins stressed that he had been unable to present an account of his role to the technical societies, because Watkin did not wish it.

30 See: ‘On the history of the discovery of the South-Eastern Coalfield’ (op. cit. (25)); ‘On the South-Eastern Coalfield’, Geological Magazine, (1899), 6, pp. 501–5Google Scholar; ‘The buried coalfields of southern England’, Statement in Evidence before the Royal Commission on Coal Supply, Final Report, Part X, 1903, pp. 26–35Google Scholar; ‘The Kent Coalfield’, an interview with Dawkins, Manchester Guardian, 23 02 1905Google Scholar; ‘The discovery of the South-Eastern Coalfield’, Journal of the Society Arts, (1907), 55, pp. 450–8Google Scholar; ‘The South-Eastern Coal-Field, the associated rocks, and the buried plateau’, Transactions of the Manchester Geological Society, (1912–1914), 33, pp. 49–77.Google Scholar

31 Fielden, H. W. to Dawkins, , 23 05 1897.Google Scholar The letter is in a large file of correspondence relating to the Brady controversy in JRL/WBD/Series 2B/41. See also Wood, Kenneth, Rich Seams: Manchester Geological and Mining Society 1838–1938, Warrington, 1987, pp. 65–8.Google Scholar

32 See JRL/WBD/Series 2B/26–38.Ritchie, (op. cit.(27), pp. 85–6)Google Scholar is particularly critical of Dawkins' erroneous belief that the extension of the coalfield lay to the west.

33 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/47. Draft report for Kent Coal Concessions, 26 January 1903. The report is also quoted by Ritchie, (op. cit. (27), p. 88)Google Scholar, who adds: ‘Here, again, we have a Kent Coal Company attempting an ambitious programme with only very limited resources; setting out, in fact, to do a man's work with only a boy's tools, and further, be it noted, receiving the advice that no water difficulties need be anticipated.’

34 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/56. Dawkins, ' report to Concessions, 23 09 1906.Google Scholar

35 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/67. Burr, to Dawkins, , 1 01 1907.Google Scholar

36 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/56. Dawkins, ' report to Concessions, 5 10 1906.Google Scholar

37 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/51. Dawkins, to Burr, , 22 02 1905.Google Scholar

38 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/54. Burr, to Dawkins, , 18 09 1906.Google Scholar

39 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/69/70. Memo and solicitors' letters.

40 Ritchie, (op. cit. (27), p. 214)Google Scholar mentions the ‘severance of friendly relations’ between Burr and Dawkins, but does not discuss the reasons for the rift.

41 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/71. Draft Dawkins, ' letter, 24 07 1907.Google Scholar

42 After examining some of the early samples from the Brady boring, Dawkins wrote to Watkin, JRL/WBD/Series 2B/23, 20 February 1894: ‘I believe that there is a thick bed of iron ore, which may turn out of great commercial value.’

43 Johnson, , op. cit. (26), p. vii.Google Scholar

44 Geological Magazine, op. cit. (4).Google Scholar

45 Manchester Guardian, 16 01 1929.Google Scholar

46 Calvert, Albert F., Salt in Cheshire, 2 vols., London, 1915, ii, pp. 754–5.Google Scholar

47 Lady Dawkins, quoted in the exhibit at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. Bishop, (op. cit. (7), p. 38)Google Scholar discusses Dawkins' weakness for publicity.

48 Dawkins' interview, Manchester Guardian, 23 02 1905.Google Scholar

49 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/18. Letter to Dawkins, from secretary of Channel Tunnel Company, 8 06 1888.Google Scholar

50 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/23. Dawkins, to SirWatkin, Edward, 17 03 1890.Google Scholar

51 JRL/WBD/Series 2B/28. Letter to Dawkins from Lewis, Henry, 9 08 1900.Google Scholar

52 See letters in JRL/WBD/Series 2B/51 re. Sondage Syndicate.

53 ‘Manchester's new show place: a visit to the Natural History Museum at Owens College’, Manchester Sunday Chronicle, 23 09 1887.Google Scholar

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57 Morton became an expert on hydrogeology. See his obituary, Journal of the Institution of Water Engineers, (1974), 28, p. 60.Google Scholar See generally Dawkins, , ‘On the relation of geology to engineering’Google Scholar, Lecture, James Forrest, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, (1897–1898), 134.Google Scholar

58 Sanderson, Michael, The Universities and British Industry 1850–1970, London, 1972, p. 83.Google Scholar See also Kargon, Robert H., Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and Expertise, Manchester, 1977.Google Scholar

59 The Roscoe and Schuster papers have also been catalogued by the Research Institute Scientific Archives Project. So too have the papers of R. S. Hutton, appointed by Schuster as the country's first lecturer in electro chemistry in 1900. See Tweedale, G., ‘The beginnings of electro-metallurgy in Britain: a note on the career of Robert S. Hutton (1876–1970)’, Historical Metallurgy (in press).Google Scholar

60 See Morrell, J., ‘From Irwell to Isis: W. H. Perkin and chemical research at Manchester and Oxford’, Osiris (forthcoming).Google Scholar

61 See Dawkins, ‘On coal’Google Scholar, Science lecture for the People, delivered in Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, 22 November 1870.

62 DNB; Geological Magazine, (1904), n.s., 1, pp. 42–8.Google Scholar

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