ABSTRACT

This chapter analyzes the data in terms of geographical and demographical distribution, gender and accessibility, with particular reference to the distribution of 'steam intellect' and to the possibility of extending the database by a combination of local research and statistical inference. It aims to shift an earlier research programme on the urban scientific-technical culture of industrializing Britain towards a study of the associations of civil culture and civic life as a means of identifying entry into and exclusion from public sphere. Estimates of the intellectual public sphere which focus on formal associations at all, will tend to undervalue such platforms as independent lecture courses, and so on, precisely the informal associations which might have a higher female ratio and a more practical and political purpose. The associations of intellect and of technique were more widespread in 1851 than often thought, and acted as a solid base to the Great Exhibition of that year.