Tag Archives: science

MP of the Month: Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785-1840), soldier, scientist and politician

Like many of our MPs, Nicholas Vigors had a varied career, as a soldier, landowner, politician and eminent zoologist. Although best known as a founder and secretary of the Zoological Society of London, Vigors also enjoyed a lively career as … Continue reading

Posted in Biographies, Ireland, MP of the Month | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

MP of the Month: Sir Charles Tilston Bright (1832-1888), pioneering telegraph engineer

An important aspect of our study of the reformed Commons is the degree to which representatives of science and industry were incorporated into the legislature during a period of great economic expansion. Our MP of the Month was among those … Continue reading

Posted in Biographies, MP of the Month | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Science, parliamentary inquiry and the Whig decade of reform

In January two members of the Victorian Commons project spoke in Oxford at the ‘From “Old Corruption” to the New Corruption?’ conference, organised jointly by Oxford Brookes and Newman Universities. This week Dr Martin Spychal takes a look at one of the … Continue reading

Posted in Conferences and seminars, Legislation | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

MP of the Month: Sir George Cayley, ‘the man who discovered flight’

In 1909 the pioneering aviator Wilbur Wright paid tribute to an Englishman who had a century earlier ‘carried the science of flight to a point which it had never reached before and which it scarcely reached again during the last … Continue reading

Posted in Biographies, MP of the Month | Tagged , , | Leave a comment