BLAIR DARRAGH
Historian of Science and Council Member, Royal Society of Victoria
During the colonial period of the development of Melbourne and regional towns across Victoria clergy from various Christian denominations showed interest in science. A study of the membership list of the Royal Society of Victoria for the years 1854 to 1872 identified many who belonged to the Philosophical Society of Victoria, a precursor to the Royal Society of Victoria, and then subsequently to the Society itself. The study also showed the denominations of the clergy, their location at the time of their membership and the areas of science in which they were interested. This was the time when Charles Darwin, who had himself trained for the Anglican priesthood, published his theory of evolution by natural selection. The significance of this to the clergymen is also discussed.
Victoria in the colonial period
The period 1854 to 1872 covers the Victorian gold rush between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 1850 the population of the district of Port Phillip was 76,000 people, but by 1854 this number had risen to 312,307. In 1862, the population of the colony was half a million [1]
Scientific organisations in colonial Victoria
In the early history of Melbourne, there were two main scientific organisations – the Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science (VIAS) and the Philosophical Society of Victoria (PSV). Both institutions were founded in 1854, the VIAS on 15 June and the PSV two days later.
The two institutions merged on 10 July, 1855 and became the Philosophical Institute of Victoria (PIV). Subsequently, on 8 November, 1859 by royal assent, the Institute became known as the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV). This was read to the society at the RSV building on 23 January, 1860.
Members before and after the formation of the RSV
The number of clergy members in these scientific institutions was 49 out of a total membership of 808. So the percentage of ecclesiastic membership of the institutions was 6.1 %. Twenty-eight clergy (57.1%) joined at the time of the PIV. Prior to the amalgamation of the VIAS and the PSV, 12 clergy (24.5%) belonged to the PSV. No clergy in the list belonged to the VIAS. Nine (18.4%) joined the RSV. The membership counts show that the growth in clergy membership occurred in the years 1856 through 1858.
Denominations
The majority of the clergy belonged to the Presbyterian Church with 14 members. Its roots in Scotland and its emphasis on education may explain why Presbyterians predominated in the membership of the scientific institutions considered in this study.
The other denominations with most members were the Roman Catholic Church (11) and the Church of England (11). The Congregational and Wesleyan Churches each had four members and there were three Baptist members. There was also a sole clergy member from the Lutheran and Unitarian Churches.
So the predominant clergy membership was from the Protestant Churches (77.55%) as opposed to 22.45% Roman Catholic.
Table 1: Denominations of the clergy
Location of the clergymen
The majority of the clergymen (81.6%) lived in Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs (Table 2). Only 10.2% of the clergy resided in regional towns. There were three interstate members (6.1%), two from New South Wales and one from South Australia. The one honorary member, the Rev. Dr Scoresby lived in England.
Table 2: The location of the clergy at their initial membership
Scientific interests of the clergy
The clergy expressed their interest in science not only through their involvement in the scientific institutions, but also through their sermons, involvement in specialist fields and their employment outside the ministry. A search of historical newspapers was performed for each member using the TROVE resource to identify their interests and these have been summarised in Table 3.
Table 3: Analysis of the scientific interests of the clergy
Ten main fields were of interest to the clergy – architecture, education, general science, geography, health, horticulture, natural science, scientific institutions, technology and transportation. The field that attracted most of the clergy was education. Thirty-two were interested in journalism, public lecturing, primary or secondary education or in universities.
Health and natural science were the next major fields (eight clergy each). Regarding health, two clergy were involved in public health issues (night soil, sewerage), five in public hospitals (in the capacity as a committee member, governor, president or vice-president, raising funds or as a supporter) and one was interested in hearing and sight. The main natural science fields were astronomy (an astronomer from New South Wales, teaching at secondary school), biology - animal physiology (lecturing), geology (geologist, curator of geology and mineralogy) and magnetism (measuring and lecturing).
Six clergy were involved in scientific institutions. These institutions were local (scientific society, Mechanics Institute), state-based (Royal Society of Victoria, Linnean Society of New South Wales) and Australia-wide (Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science).
Three clergy were interested in geographical studies. One wrote about the geography of Fiji, one lectured about South African geography and another wrote about the demography and physical geography of Victoria. There was also three clergy interested in technology. Two were interested in the use of the microscope to understand the natural world (founder of the Microscopic Society of Victoria, public lecturer), and one of the clergy was interested in the use of the latest technology to assist with lawn mowing. Finally, there was a single clergyman interested in each of architecture (overseeing church building), horticulture (vice-president of the Horticultural Society of Victoria) and transportation (supporter of railways).
The time of Darwin
The papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace outlining the theory of evolution by natural selection were read at the Linnean Society of London on the 1 July, 1858 (Gage & Stearn, 2001) [2]. Darwin’s book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published the following year in 1859. These years correspond to the time-frame of the membership list of the three scientific institutions in this study.
Two clergy from the membership lectured on related topics. The first was Rev. John Edward Bromby, D.D. who in 1870 delivered a lecture titled Creation vs Development. The second was the Right Rev. Charles Perry, D.D. who in 1872 delivered a lecture titled Science and the Bible. It is interesting to note these lectures both came a decade after the Darwin and Wallace papers and that both men held Doctors of Divinity.
Conclusion
This study has shown that the predominant clergy membership of the main scientific bodies came from the Protestant churches. There were no members who were rabbis of the Jewish faith. The study also showed that the clergy were mostly interested in practical uses of education, the application of science to improve their local communities, rather than debates about the origin of humanity. This may be because Victoria was a relatively new colony and had yet to develop its social systems including education and infrastructure.
References
[1] Ballantyne, Rev. J. 1880. Our Colony in 1880. Pictorial & Descriptive. M.L. Hutchinson, Melbourne.
[2] Gage, A.T. & Stearn, W.T. 2001, A Bicentenary History of the Linnean Society of London, Academic Press.
[3] The Royal Society of Victoria, Science and the making of Victoria, Available at: https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/smv/152.html
[4] Banner image of Sherbrooke in the Dandenongs from Shutterstock
Other articles of interest
Discover how you can join the society
Join The Royal Society of Victoria. From expert panels to unique events, we're your go-to for scientific engagement. Let's create something amazing.
