Observing Human Difference: James Hunt, Thomas Huxley and Competing Disciplinary Strategies in the 1860s

Summary

During the 1860s the sciences relating to human diversity were undergoing significant intellectual and methodological changes. The older generation of practitioners including James Cowles Prichard, Thomas Hodgkin and John Crawfurd were slowly passing away. Recognising that there was an opportunity to take a leading role in reforming the study of human variation, two competing intellectual camps vied for control of the nascent discipline; anthropologists led by James Hunt, and ethnologists led by Thomas Huxley. Taking their observational practices and vocational strategies as its starting point, this paper seeks to expand our understanding of the debates surrounding British race studies during the 1860s. In doing so, this paper takes seriously Hunt and Huxley's self-descriptions as scientific reformers. Both of these figures promoted strategies for transforming the sciences relating to human diversity. Each believed they were strengthening anthropology and ethnology's best aspects and dispensing with their weakest. Moreover, their training in natural history, anatomy and physiology can be seen to have influenced their observational practices when it came to identifying and classifying human varieties.

The author wishes to thank Gregory Radick, Jonathan Topham, Sadiah Qureshi and Nanna Kaalund for their support and helpful suggestions. He would also like to acknowledge Trevor Levere for his encouragement and patience, and the useful reports he received from the anonymous referees.

Notes

¹ James Hunt ‘Introductory Address on the Study of Anthropology’, Anthropological Review, 1 (1863), 4.

² By observational practices I do not simply mean the physical act of looking at an object, rather the way in which a researcher engages with their object of study. For more discussion on the meaning of the term observational practices see my recent paper: Efram Sera-Shriar ‘Ethnology in the Metropole: Robert Knox, Robert Gordon Latham and Local Sites of Observational Training’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42 (2011), 486–96. For more on observational practices and the sciences see: Lorrain Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York, 2007). Daniela Bleichmar, ‘Training the Naturalist's Eye in the Eighteenth Century: Perfect Global Visions and Local Blind Spots’, in Skilled Visions: Between Apprenticeship and Standards, edited by Cristina Grasseni (Oxford, 2007), 166–90.

³ For more on the transformation of ethnological and anthropological observational practices in the first half of the nineteenth century see: Efram Sera-Shriar, Beyond the Armchair: Early Observational Practices and the Making of British Anthropology, 1813–1871 (Leeds, 2011).

⁴ For more on Knox's ethnology see: E. Sera-Shriar (note 2). For more on the British ethnological community during the 1850s see: George Stocking ‘What's in a Name? The Origins of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1837–71)’, Man, 6, (1971), 369–90. Stocking Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1987), 238–45. Robert Kenny, ‘From the Curse of Ham to the Curse of Nature: The Influence of Natural Selection on the Debate on Human Unity before the Publication of the Descent of Man’, BJHS, 40 (2007), 367–88. Henrika Kuklick, ‘The British Tradition’, in A New History of Anthropology, edited by Henrika Kuklick (Oxford, 2008), 52–6.

⁵ I recognised that the term ‘racially-sensitive’ is anachronistic. However, it is instructive and I want to emphasize how the historiography has positioned members of the ESL in opposition to members at the ASL.

⁶ The terms ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ are contentious because nineteenth-century European ideas about extra-Europeans and gender roles vary substantially from twentieth and twenty-first century understandings. For an account of Hunt and his views on slavery and race consult: Douglas Lorimer, Colour, Class and the Victorians: English Attitudes to the Negro in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century (Leicester, 1978). For an account of Hunt and Huxley's views on women and societies consult: Evelleen Richards, ‘Huxley and Woman's Place in Science: The Woman Question and the Control of Victorian Anthropology’, in History, Humanity and Evolution, edited by James Moore (Cambridge, 1989), 253–84.

⁷ G. Stocking (note 4), 249.

⁸ For more on the relationship between nineteenth-century gender politics and anthropology see: Elizabeth Fee, ‘The Sexual Politics of Victorian Social Anthropology’, Feminist Studies, 1 (1973), 23–39.

⁹ G. Stocking (note 4), 376.

¹⁰ For historiography on Hunt see: J.W. Burrow, ‘Evolution and Anthropology in the 1860's: the Anthropological Society of London, 1863–71’, Victorian Studies (1963), 7, 137–49. Stocking (note 4), 369–90. Kuklick (note 4) 52–78. Kenny (note 4) 367–88. Frank Spencer, ‘Hunt, James (1833–1869)’ in History of Physical Anthropology, edited by Frank Spence 2 vols. (London, 1997), I, 506–8.

¹¹ In the first half of the nineteenth-century, an early treatment for ‘stammering’ and ‘stuttering’ involved a series of painful injections into the patient's throat. See James Hunt, Stammering and Stuttering, their Nature and Treatment (London 1861), 157–60.

¹² Douglas Lorimer, ‘Hunt, James 1833–1869’ in Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, edited by Bernard Lightman 4 vols. (London 2004), II, 1034.

¹³ The degree to which Hunt dominated the ASL was not entirely realized until 1868 after an exchange of letters were published in the Athenaeum. Hunt further declared his control of the anthropological community in an 1868 article from his self-financed journal the Anthropological Review. For more see: Hyde Clarke ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2129 (1868) 210. Hyde Clarke, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2131 (1868), 271–2. Hyde Clarke, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2143 (1868), 681–2. Hyde Clarke and H. Brookes, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2134 (1868), 368–9; H. Brookes and Edward William Brabrook, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2132 (1868), 302. Charles Harding and Dunbar Isidore Heath, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2133 (1868), 334. James Hunt, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2135 (1868), 402; James Hunt and J. Frederick Collingwood, ‘Anthropological Society of London’, Athenaeum, 2130 (1868), 239–40. James Hunt ‘On the Origin of the Anthropological Review and Its Connection with the Anthropological Society’ Anthropological Review, 6 (1868), 431–42.

¹⁴ For examples see: Hunt (note 1), 1–20; James Hunt, ‘On Physio-Anthropology, Its Aim and Method’, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 5 (1867), ccix–cclxxi. James Hunt, On the Negro's Place in Nature (London, 1863).

¹⁵ J. Hunt (note 13), 432–4.

¹⁶ The best examples of Hunt's manipulation of his periodicals are from his reports of the proceedingsat the BAAS. These reports were written anonymously and were highly critical of the leading members of the ethnological community at the BAAS. See: Anon., ‘Anthropology at the British Association’, Anthropological Review, 1 (1863), 379–464. Anon., ‘Anthropology at the British Association, A.D. 1864’, Anthropological Review, 2 (1864), 294–335. Anon., ‘On the Prospects of Anthropological Science at the British Association of 1865’, Anthropological Review, 3 (1865), 224–9.

¹⁷ James Hunt, ‘Abstract of a Report of the Ethnological Papers read at the Manchester Meeting of the British Association in September 1861’, Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London 2 (1863), 2.

¹⁸ Richard King, ‘Address to the Ethnological Society of London Delivered at the Anniversary, 25th May 1844’, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 2 (1850), 9–42. Thomas Hodgkin, Richard Cull, ‘A Manual of Ethnological Inquiry’, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 3 (1854), 193–208.

¹⁹ J. Hunt (note 17), 2.

²⁰ D. Lorimer (note 12), 1034. For several examples of Hunt's criticisms of ethnology see: Hunt (note 1) 1–20. James Hunt, ‘On the Origin of the Anthropological Review and Its Connection with the Anthropological Society’ Anthropological Review, 6 (1868), 431–42.

²¹ Wallace wrote a short article in 1864 where he outlined some of the differences between anthropological and ethnological theories and methods. For more see: Alfred Russel Wallace, ‘On the Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity Man Deduced from the Theory of Natural Selection’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 2 (1864), clviii–clxxxvii.

²² G. Stocking (note 4), 252. For more on the X-Club see: Roy Macleod, ‘The X Club a Social Network of Science in Late-Victorian England’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 24 (1970), 305–22. Frank Turner, ‘The Victorian Conflict Between Science and Religion: A Professional Dimension’, Isis, 69 (1978), 356–76. Ruth Barton, ‘Huxley, Lubbock, and Half a Dozen Others’, Isis, 89 (1998), 410–44. Adrian Desmond, ‘Redefining the X Axis: “Professionals”, “Amateurs” and the Making of Mid-Victorian Biology – A Progress Report’, Journal of the History of Biology, 34 (2001), 3–50.

²³ Thomas Huxley's letter to Lizzie Cooke 4 May 1863 located in: Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols. (London, 1900), I, 251.

²⁴ Sherrie Lyons, Thomas Henry Huxley: The Evolution of a Scientist (Amherst, 1999), 25. For more information on Thomas Henry Huxley see the following biographies: William Irvine, Thomas Henry Huxley (London, 1960). Cyril Bibby Scientist Extraordinary: The Life and Scientific Work of Thomas Henry Huxley 1825–1895 (Oxford 1972). Mario DiGregorio T.H. Huxley's Place in Natural Science (New Haven, 1984). Adrian Desmond, Huxley The Devil's Disciple (London: 1994). Adrian Desmond, Huxley Evolution's High Priest (London, 1997).

²⁵ Thomas Huxley, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (London, 1863). Thoms Huxley, ‘On the Methods and Results of Ethnology’, Fortnightly Review, 1 (1865), 257–77.

²⁶ S. Lyons (note 24) 27–8.

²⁷ Henrika Kuklick, The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–1945 (Cambridge, 1991), 43–4. Julian Huxley, T.H. Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake (London 1935), 154–71.

²⁸ S. Lyons (note 24), 29–34; H. Kuklick (note 27), 43–4 and G. Stocking (note 4), 249–57.

²⁹ Huxley (note 23), 249, 262.

³⁰ Huxley's drive to place all the scientific discipline onto an evolutionary framework is far to big a subject for a discussion here. For more on Huxley and evolutionary theory see: M. Digregorio (note 24) 53–67.

³¹ For the relationship between ethnology and Darwinism and the debates between monogenists and polygenists see chapter eight of Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin's Sacred Cause Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins (London, 2009), 199–227.

³² For more on the debates relating to politics, religion and human origin in the nineteenth century see: David Livingstone, Darwin's Sacred Cause Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins (Baltimore, 2008).

³³ Martin Fichman, ‘Biology and Politics: Defining the Boundaries’ in Victorian Science in Context, edited by Bernard Lightman (Chicago, 1997), 94–101.

³⁴ For more on Huxley's vocational strategy see: Edward Caudill, ‘The Bishop-Eaters: The Publicity Campaign for Darwin and on the Origin of Species’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 55 (1994), 441–60. Paul White, Thomas Huxley Making the “Man of Science” (Cambridge, 2003), 51–58. James Elwick, Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences: Shared Assumptions, 1820–58 (London, 2007), 131–59.

³⁵ E. Richards (note 6), 267.

³⁶ E. Richards (note 6), 262–7.

³⁷ G. Stocking (note 4), 252–4 For one of the best examples of Hunt attacking Huxley and the other scientific naturalists see: James Hunt ‘On the Application of the Principle of Natural Selection to Anthropology, in Reply to the Views Advocated by Some of Mr Darwin's Disciples’, Anthropological Review, 4, (1866), 320–40.

³⁸ J. Hunt (note 13), 433.

³⁹ James Hunt, ‘Dedication to Dr. Paul Broca’, in Lectures on Man: Place in Creation, and in the History of the Earth, edited by James Hunt, (London 1864), viii.

⁴⁰ J. Hunt (note 39), viii and J. Hunt (note 13), 434 For more on Hunt's views on women at ESL meetings see: E. Richards (note 6), 254–7.

⁴¹ Hunt responded to the critiques of his opponents in his 1868 article. See: Hunt (note 13), 431–2.

⁴² See ASL minute book for 5 August 1863, and Richards (note 6), 263.

⁴³ Thomas Huxley, ‘Emancipation – Black and White’ Reader 5 (1865), 561.

⁴⁴ See Wallace to Huxley 26 Feb 1864 reference number: ICL.HP 28.91.

⁴⁵ Anon., ‘Front Matters’, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 1 (1869), xiv.

⁴⁶ Anon. (note 45), xiv.

⁴⁷ For more information on Victorians and race consult: Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the Reform Act of 1867 (Cambridge 2000). John Haller, ‘Concepts of Race Inferiority in Nineteenth-Century Anthropology’, Journal of the History of Medicine, 25, 1970, 40–51.

⁴⁸ See ESL Minute Book for 13 March 1861 In addition the newly revamped periodical for the Ethnological Society of London was renamed the Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London.

⁴⁹ G. Stocking (note 4) 247. ESL Minute Book, 4 March 1862, and ESL Minute Book, 5 May 1863.

⁵⁰ The best example of Hunt's views on race was published in his first major contribution to anthropology entitled On Negro's Place in Nature. See: J. Hunt, (note 14).

⁵¹ J. Hunt, (note 37), 336 For more on Knox's racial determinism see Robert Knox, The Races of Man: A Fragment (London, 1850), 1–7.

⁵² For Hunt's critiques of Darwinian evolutionary theory see James Hunt, ‘On the Doctrine of Continuity Applied to Anthropology’, Anthropological Review, 5 (1867), 110–20. J. Hunt (note 37) 320–40.

⁵³ J. Hunt (note 14), 4.

⁵⁴ J. Hunt (note 14), 27.

⁵⁵ G. Stocking (note 4), 247–8.

⁵⁶ For example, Knox argued in his Races of Man that Africans were unable to progress to the same level as Europeans. See Knox (note 51).

⁵⁷ Robert Clarke, ‘Sketches of the Colony of Sierra Leone and its Inhabitants’, Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 2 (1863), 329.

⁵⁸ R. Clarke (note 57), 329.

⁵⁹ J. Hunt (note 14), 27.

⁶⁰ Unfortunately Robert Clarke does not give his wife Mrs Clarke's given name.

⁶¹ For more information on nineteenth-century visual representations of Africans consult Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent’ Critical Inquiry, (1985), 12, 166–203. P.D. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (Madison, 1964). David Bindman, Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century (London, 2002), 23–78.

⁶² R. Clarke (note 57), 348.

⁶³ R. Clarke (note 57), unnumbered between pages 347–8.

⁶⁴ ESL Minute Book for 5 May 1863; and Stocking, (note 4) 376.

⁶⁵ R. Clarke (note 57), unnumbered after page 352.

⁶⁶ Thomas Wright, ‘Preface’, Transactions of the Ethnological Society, 2, (1863), v.

⁶⁷ T. Wright (note 66), v.

⁶⁸ R. Clarke (note 57), unnumbered after page 352.

⁶⁹ See Huxley's letter to Darwin: the Charles Darwin, Correspondences, 2 July 1863.

⁷⁰ Anon., ‘Back Matters’, Transactions of the Ethnological Society, 2 (1863b), 8 (back pages). The ESL lists Hunt as an honorary member right up until 1867. See: Anon., ‘Back Matters’, Transactions of the Ethnological Society, 5 (1867), 10 (back pages).

⁷¹ R. Kenny (note 4), 337. G. Stocking (note 4), 375–381. J.W. Burrow (note 10), 137–49.

⁷² See Thomas Huxley's letter to Lizzie Cooke 4 May 1864 located in L. Huxley (note 23), 251–2.

⁷³ T. Huxley (note 43), 561.

⁷⁴ T. Huxley (note 25), 257.

⁷⁵ T. Huxley (note 25), 257–9.

⁷⁶ T. Hunt (note 14), 3.

⁷⁷ J. Hunt (note 1), 2.

⁷⁸ J. Hunt (note 1), 2.

⁷⁹ Knox (note 51), 9. Robert Knox, A Manual of Human Anatomy (London, 1853), vii. See also E. Sera-Shriar (note 3).

⁸⁰ J. Hunt (note 14), ccx.

⁸¹ J. Hunt (note 14), ccxi.

⁸² J. Hunt (note 14), ccxii.

⁸³ J. Hunt (note 14), ccxii.

⁸⁴ J. Hunt (note 14), ccxii.

⁸⁵ J. Hunt (note 14), ccxii–ccxiii. For more on rhetorical strategies in science between 1830 and 1917 see: Richard Yeo, ‘Scientific Method and the Rhetoric of Science in Britain 1830–1917’, in, The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method, edited by John Schuster and Richard Yeo (Lancaster, 1986), 259–97.

⁸⁶ J. Hunt (note 14), 4.

⁸⁷ J. Hunt (note 14), 6.

⁸⁸ A. Desmond and J. Moore (note 31), 199–227.

⁹⁰ James Hunt, ‘Address Delivered at the Third Anniversary Meeting of the Anthropological Society of London’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 4 (1866), lxv–lxvi.

⁹¹ For more on the North American school of anthropology see: Sydel Silverman, ‘The United States’, in One Discipline Four Ways: British, German, French and American Anthropology, edited by Fredrik Barth (Chicago, 2005), 257–347. Regna Darnell, ‘North American Traditions in Anthropology: The Historiographic Baseline’, in A New History of Anthropology, edited by Henrika Kuklick (Oxford, 2008), 35–51.

⁹² J. Hunt (note 52), 111–2.

⁹³ J. Hunt (note 52), 113 Darwin does not discuss human evolution until the publication of the Descent of Man in 1871. In it he responded to some of the criticisms levelled at him by the anthropologicals. See Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex 1871 2 vols. (London, 1871) I, 228.

⁹⁴ J. Hunt (note 52), 113.

⁹⁵ J. Hunt (note 52), 114.

⁹⁶ Hunt attacked the theory of ‘natural selection’ in his response to Huxley's article on ‘On the Methods and Results of Ethnology’. See: Hunt (note 37), 320–40 and Huxley (note 25), 257–77.

⁹⁷ J. Hunt (note 52), 117–8.

⁹⁸ P. White (note 34) 54. Michael Bartholomew, ‘Huxley's Defence of Darwin’, Annals of Science, 32 (1975) 525–35.

⁹⁹ P. White (note 34), 56 For more on Huxley's institutional reforms see also Sophie Forgan, ‘The Architecture of Display: Museums, Universities and Objects in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, History of Science, 32 (1994), 139–62. Graeme Gooday, ‘“A Fungoid Assemblage of Buildings”: Diversity and Adversity in the Development of College Architecture and Scientific Education in Nineteenth-Century South Kensington’, History of Universities, 13 (1994), 153–92. Graeme Gooday, ‘Constructing South Kensington: The Buildings and Politics of T.H. Huxley's Working Environments’, British Journal for the History of Science, 29 (1996), 435–68.

¹⁰⁰ T. Huxley (note 25), 257.

¹⁰¹ T. Huxley (note 25), 257–8. Huxley only provided his readers with descriptions of the four ‘sub-branches’. Thus, the designations above were based on the key components/words of Huxley's descriptions.

¹⁰² T. Huxley (note 25), 257.

¹⁰³ J. Hunt (note 37), 322–3.

¹⁰⁴ T. Huxley (note 25), 263.

¹⁰⁵ T. Huxley (note 25), 263–4.

¹⁰⁶ T. Huxley (note 25), 263.

¹⁰⁷ T. Huxley (note 25), 263–4. Prichard outline a system for observing and classifying skulls in his Researches into the Physical History of Man from 1813. It was based on Blumenbach's system from the late eighteenth century. See James Cowles Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Man, (London, 1813), 56–8.

¹⁰⁹ T. Huxley (note 25), 269.

¹¹⁰ T. Huxley (note 25), 269.

¹¹¹ For instance see: J. Prichard, (note 107), 17–24.

¹¹² T. Huxley (note 25), 269–70.

¹¹³ Mike Dixon and Gregory Radick, Darwin in Ilkley, (Stroud, 2009), 101. For further readings on Huxley and natural selection see: Thomas Huxley's letter to Charles Darwin 6 May 1862 located in Huxley (note 23), 205–6. Bartholomew (note 98), 525–35. Gregory Radick, The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal language (Chicago, 2007), 32–3.

¹¹⁴ Thomas Huxley, ‘Time and Life: Mr. Darwin's “Origin of Species”’, Macmillan's Magazine, 2 (1859), 148.

¹¹⁵ Anon., ‘Death of the Best Man in England’, Anthropological Review, 8 (1870), 97.

¹¹⁶ E.S. Collingwood, ‘Death of Dr. James Hunt: Science or Sun-Stroke’, British Medical Journal, 2 (1869), 355.

¹¹⁷ E.S. Collingwood (note 116), 355.

¹¹⁸ For more on Huxley's efforts to amalgamate ethnology and anthropology at the end of the 1860s see: G. Stocking (note 4) 369–90. R. Kenny (note 4), 367–88.

¹¹⁹ E. Sera-Shriar (note 2), 487–488.