Jessica Ratcliff - Monopolizing Knowledge

The New York History of Science Lecture shows how the East India Company became part of the cultural fabric of science in Britain.

In the nineteenth century, an ambitious new library and museum for Asian arts, sciences and natural history was established in the City of London, within the corporate headquarters of the East India Company. This library-museum, as well as two new colleges on the outskirts of London, were funded with taxes from British India and run by the East India Company. The establishment of major institutions for education and science marked a new chapter in the history of knowledge at the East India Company. Using the case of these institutions, this talk investigates the changing patterns of knowledge resource management at the British East India Company in the years between 1757-1858. Jessica Ratcliff will show how the growth of science at the East India Company depended on peculiar aspects of its monopoly form. She will then show how Company science became part of the cultural fabric of science in Britain, and will argue that, as the Company’s monopoly collapsed and its property was absorbed by the British state, British India’s “public science” became British “public science,” feeding into Britain’s rising preeminence on the scientific world stage.

By The Center for Science and Society
Fayerweather Hall, Room 513
New York, NY