Themes

So powerful is the image of the advanced west pushing back the boundaries of science in the nineteenth century that the contributions of scientists in other parts of the world have been largely neglected. How many photographs do we know of Indian, Chinese and other such scientists? And yet, paradoxically, the age of imperial expansion witnessed a dramatic advance in scientific knowledge, much of it the result of dialogues with other traditions of scientific inquiry. In every theatre of colonization, the British encountered sophisticated bodies of scientific and technological knowledge that were vital components of indigenous histories and cultures. Scientific explorers seeking natural history specimens to send back to the Royal Horticultural Society, for example, mingled and exchanged ideas with botanists from the Qing empire from whom they learnt about Chinese flora and fauna. In India, Mughal emperors had developed a deep interest in astronomy not least because astronomical time was seen to dictate the most propitious moments to go to war, begin the agricultural cycle and even conceive. Large observatories were built which in their accuracy and sophistication rivalled any in the west. Almost everwhere British explorers ventured they came to rely on local knowledge of plants, diseases and navigation.

These dialogues were genuinely reciprocal. Far from accepting unquestioningly the authority of western science, indigenous peoples were often unconvinced or even openly hostile. The result was that while western scientists believed in the superiority of their epistemology, and when faced with alien bodies of knowledge would attempt to proselytize indigenous populations, their efforts were often in vain. Attempts to treat diseases such as cholera were fiercely resisted by peoples who had traditionally relied on praying to the goddess of the disease. Mughal astronomers were unimpressed with Newtonian theory and continued to consult ancient Hindu texts. In some instances, there was every reason to view with suspicion western knowledge. The dramatic reforms to land irrigation imposed by the British in India had disastrous consequences for large areas of Indian agriculture which had prospered under systems developed over centuries.

In other areas, western science and technology was able to display unchallengeable authority, with striking consequences. Cartography, for example, was in its theory and methodology so advanced that the British were able to complete the Great Trigonometric Survey of India providing them with detailed maps of the subcontinent, vital to its control. Advances in communications technology also had a massive impact. Until the nineteenth century, communication between Britain and India was for the most part by letters couriered in company ships. It took approximately six months, which meant that any letter sent by the company court in London to, say, the governor of Bombay would have to wait a year before receiving a reply. On the ground in India, messages would also be sent by sea, or by horse overland. The development of telegraphy revolutionized overland communication which now became almost instantaneous, and so offered enormous advantages to the raj. It may well be the case that had not telegraphy been introduced just before the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857, the outcome may have been very different. Overseas communication did not have to wait that much longer, for by 1870 British engineers had successfully linked London to India through submarine cables travelling overland and beneath the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

Beverley Lemire’s collection, The British Cotton Trade, 1660 – 1820 looks at a vital episode in the formation of empire, while other studies point to the diverse and pervasive impact of science and technology. Here of interest are Sujit Sivasundaram’s chapter, ‘Science, Medicine and Technology’, in Philippa Levine and John Marriott (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Imperial Histories, Sarah Irving, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, and Tony Ballantyne, Science, Empire and the European Exploration of the Pacific.