Midlands Enlightenment

The Midlands Enlightenment was a cultural and intellectual movement centered in Birmingham and the West Midlands during the late eighteenth century, driven by inventors, economists, scientists, authors and entrepreneurs[2]. Although the Midlands Enlightenment has attracted less study as an intellectual movement than the European Enlightenment of thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, or the Scottish Enlightenment of David Hume and Adam Smith, it dominated the experience of the Enlightenment within England[5]. The movement has been characterized as an 'Industrial Enlightenment' that emerged in the late 18th century[1][7], representing a process whereby useful knowledge was fused with technological 'know how'[10].

Origins and Character

This cultural revolution was pivotal in the development of England, with leading thinkers driving industrial and scientific advancements[2]. In Brummie fashion, the movement centred on practicality as opposed to the philosophical and cultural movements in leading European cities[2]. Birmingham was using science and economics to drive technological advancements[2].

The Midlands Enlightenment was unique because it connected "abstract knowledge" (like the rules of chemistry or Newtonian mechanics) with "useful knowledge" (like how to build a better machine or make a new product)[6]. This connection created a "chain-reaction of innovation." New scientific discoveries led to new technologies, and those technologies then helped scientists learn even more[6].

The Lunar Society of Birmingham

At the core of the movement were the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, who included Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, James Keir and Thomas Day[5]. The Lunar Society, or Lunar Circle as it was first called, met in and around Birmingham, England between 1765 and 1813[17].

Formation and Early Development

The Lunar Society began with a few friendships in the late 1750s. Matthew Boulton, who made metal goods, met Erasmus Darwin, a doctor and poet. They both loved experiments and inventions. Darwin had a strong understanding of science, and Boulton was great at putting ideas into practice[20]. The beginnings were rooted in the meeting of Darwin and Boulton in Lichfield in the late 1750s. Darwin, a polymath of dazzling intellectual range, had friends in common with James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Son of a Birmingham buckle and toy maker, Boulton left school aged fourteen, became his father's partner, and founded his famous "Soho manufactory" at Soho House, Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1761. A sociable, impulsive man, his technical knowledge and business acumen complemented Darwin's intellectual and imaginative powers[18].

The group changed a lot when William Small, a Scottish doctor, moved to Birmingham in 1765. He had been a professor in America and taught Thomas Jefferson. Small arrived with a letter of introduction to Matthew Boulton from Benjamin Franklin. His arrival made the existing group more organized, and they started inviting new members[20].

Organization and Meetings

The Lunar Society was very particular about who was allowed to become a member. An exclusive club, it never had more than fourteen core members, and each member was noted for their special area of expertise including the greatest engineers, scientists and thinkers of the day[17]. Their meetings took place at the time of the full moon, this enabled the members to proceed home by its light[14]. Their preferred venue was Soho House in Handsworth, the home of Mathew Boulton who was the heart of the Lunar Society[17].

The meetings held here were lively affairs, where all the latest ideas and inventions were discussed and scientific experiments carried out[14]. Their informal meetings were a mixture social gatherings, experiments and discussion[12]. Their debates brought together philosophy, arts, science and commerce, and as well as debating and discovering, the 'Lunarticks' also built canals and factories, managed world-class businesses — and changed the face of Birmingham[16].

Key Members and Their Contributions

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a man of extraordinary intellectual insight with his own pioneering ideas on evolution[16]. Erasmus Darwin (1731 – 1802), poet, inventor and botanist. He published a theory of evolution 60 years before his grandson Charles. He developed a steering system that was used by Henry Ford and a mechanical copying machine. A visionary, who predicted the use of steam powered propulsion[17].

Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) was the flamboyant entrepreneur[16] who left an extraordinary archival record of his activities at his Soho Manufactory[10]. Matthew Boulton and the polymath physician Erasmus Darwin led the Lunar society[18].

James Watt (1736-1819) was the brilliantly perceptive engineer whose inventions harnessed the power of steam[16]. James Watt (1736 – 1819), of Boulton and Watt, developed the world beating steam engines that provided the power for the new factories that were springing up across the country[17].

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was the radical polymath who, among his wide-ranging achievements discovered oxygen[16]. Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804), the rebellious cleric and scientist, famous for isolating oxygen, discovering carbon dioxide and carbonated (fizzy) drinks[17].

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1793) was the innovative potter and social reformer[16]. Josiah Wedgwood (1730 – 93), the father of English pottery, who was also Charles Darwin's other grandfather. As an industrialist, he was dedicated to improving everyday life and brought affordable tableware to the masses[17].

Women in the Network

Also, in the Lunar founders' circle were several prestigious women, key to the society's progress, including astronomer Caroline Herschel and banker Charlotte Matthews[16]. Other notable figures included the author Anna Seward, the painter Joseph Wright of Derby, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the typographer John Baskerville, the poet and landscape gardener William Shenstone and the architects James Wyatt and Samuel Wyatt[5].

Scientific and Technological Achievements

Social and mechanical advancements in the period included: improved process of printing, development of the steam engine and pressure for the abolition of slavery[2]. The group pursued similar interests to the Lunar Society, including electricity, pneumatic chemistry, and meteorology[1].

The science of Derby and the West Midlands comprised much more than popular versions of Newtonian mechanics. Chemistry was at least as crucial as mechanics, and other preoccupations – such as electricity and astronomy – had their uses but bore little relation to manufacturing industry[7].

The Priestley Riots and Decline

The movement faced a critical challenge in 1791 with the outbreak of the Priestley Riots. In 1791 Birmingham saw rioting sparked by the French Revolution that divided the city in two[2]. Friday 14 July 1791, Bastille Day in the Republic of France, saw the beginning of Birmingham Riots, also known as the Priestley or Church & King Riots[28].

Background to the Riots

The national-level factor that poisoned the atmosphere of civic cooperation in the town after 1785 was undoubtedly the dissenter campaign for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts[23]. Tensions, arising from the Dissenters' campaign to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts and their public enthusiasm for the French Revolution, are seen as playing a critical role in causing the riots[22].

As an intellectual talking shop, the Lunar Society was sympathetic to the ideals they saw in the French Revolution. They agitated for increased civil rights, and clashed with the Church of England. For that reason, they were branded as Dissenters'[25].

The Violence and Its Impact

Birmingham was the site of the notorious 'Priestley riots' in 1791, when a loyalist mob attacked Priestley's own house and those of other prominent Dissenters[1]. What followed was one of the most shocking episodes in late 18th-century Britain, during which "the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses" over a period of three nights and four days[27].

Priestley's own house at Fairhill was ransacked and set alight, as were the properties of more than twenty other prominent citizens – most of them dissenters. Priestley fled to London, to be joined shortly thereafter by his family. He would never again set foot in Birmingham[26].

Consequences for the Movement

The riots led to what Jones calls a 'retreat from Enlightenment'[1]. But it was the Priestley riots in Birmingham in 1791 that really hurt the society. Joseph Priestley was forced to leave town and moved to the United States in 1794. William Withering's house was attacked by rioters, and Matthew Boulton and James Watt had to arm their workers to protect their factory[20].

There are few things I regret [more] in consequence of my removal from Birmingham", he informed his Lunar friends, "than the loss of your society. It both encouraged and enlightened me, so that what I did there of a philosophical kind ought in justice to be attributed almost as much to you as to myself."[26]

Legacy and Influence

Although the Midlands Enlightenment has attracted less study as an intellectual movement than the European Enlightenment of thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, or the Scottish Enlightenment of David Hume and Adam Smith, it dominated the experience of the Enlightenment within England and its leading thinkers had international influence[5].

Their ideas also had a big impact on other areas: Art and Literature: Their ideas influenced the birth of British romanticism. Poets like Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, and William Blake were inspired by their thinking[6].

Whatever claims were made for the dependence of the practical arts upon the sciences, historians are discovering that the actual relations between scientific knowledge and technical innovation were subtle and ambivalent. They also turn out to have depended to a significant degree on broader social and political forces. In both Birmingham and Derby, enlightened scientific culture proved vulnerable in the political crisis of the last decade of the eighteenth century and during the ensuing wars[7].