ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Forgotten in the Archive: William Thomson and the Politics of Scientific Memory,

• In Event: The Plural Worlds of Earth Science: Visual, Material, and Institutional Transformations Across Disciplines, Scales, and Territories 1

English Abstract

William Thomson (1760–1806) was among National Museums Scotland’s most significant benefactors, donating 10,000 specimens and endowing funds for mineralogical teaching. Yet today his presence in the collections has nearly vanished. Thomson’s career began in medicine at Oxford and Edinburgh, where encounters with figures such as James Hutton, John Walker, and Joseph Black fostered his geological interests. These interests deepened at Oxford, but an early-career scandal and the prejudice of the time pushed him into exile—a moment that reshaped his scientific trajectory.

Settling in Naples, Thomson collaborated with leading Italian geologists, studied volcanism at Vesuvius, described new minerals, and produced the earliest published account of what are now known as Widmanstätten patterns in meteorites. Despite his contributions, political tensions and the circumstances of his exile led to his marginalization within British science. This erasure extended to Edinburgh, where curator Robert Jameson’s opposition to Thomson’s ideas on volcanism contributed to the neglect, misattribution, and eventual disappearance of his donated specimens. Today, only 50 “Thomsonian” specimens remain, none from the original gift.

This paper uses the rediscovery of Thomson’s collection and story to examine how institutional practices shape whose scientific voices endure. By tracing the afterlives of his work and materials, it argues for more plural, accountable archival approaches that resist singular narratives and make room for marginalized scientific histories.

Author

• Emily Brown, National Museums Scotland