‘Working with Charles Lyell’ Workshop

The CRC provides access to, and cares for, the University of Edinburgh's cultural and heritage collections, including rare books, archives, art and musical instruments.www.ed.ac.uk/is/crc

Centre for Research Collections

A free two-day workshop exploring the life, work, and worlds of the leading geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875).

St Cecilia’s Hall: Concert Room & Music Museum

Tickets are now sold out. To be added to our waiting list please contact Pamela McIntyre at Pamela.McIntyre@ed.ac.uk. University of Edinburgh, 8-9 February 2024BackgroundIn 2020, the University of Edinburgh acquired for the nation the Notebooks of the distinguished geologist and earth scientist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and, in 2021, the University received a further substantial tranche of Lyell’s scientific papers and correspondence. Staff in the University’s Centre for Research Collections have since been working to conserve, catalogue, digitise and promote the Lyell materials. The exhibition on Lyell’s work and scientific importance – ‘Charles Lyell: Time Traveller’ – opened in the University of Edinburgh Main Library, on 27 October 2023 and will run until 30 March 2024). A website on the Lyell material in Edinburgh is to be launched shortly. This workshop – ‘Working with Charles Lyell’ – builds upon these initiatives. Workshop PurposeThe purpose of the Workshop is to bring together researchers, museum curators and others with an interest in the life, work, and collections of Charles Lyell, to learn more of the Lyell materials held in Edinburgh, to explore how best to connect the disparate holdings of Lyell’s specimens and texts, and to consider future research possibilities on Lyell’s work and world. Workshop ProgrammeOur exciting and diverse programme presents 16 papers on Lyell’s work, the world of nineteenth-century science, the context to and the lasting significance of his work. There are also two panel sessions:1) Curatorial and archival staff in institutions holding Lyell material will explore the opportunities and problems involved in linking archival holdings and object collections across institutions.2) We consider the opportunities and possibilities for further research and collaboration on Charles Lyell’s work and significance. Workshop LocationsThe Workshop will be based at St Cecilia’s Hall, with the afternoon of Day 2 featuring a visit to see some of the Lyell materials held at the Centre for Research Collections at the Main Library, George Square, University of Edinburgh, and an opportunity to visit to the current ‘Time Traveller: Charles Lyell at Work’ exhibition. Day 1 will end with an evening drinks reception at the Playfair Library, generously supported by the British Society for the History of Science. Workshop Itinerary Day 1 Thursday 8 February 2024 - St Cecilia’s Hall, 50 Niddry Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LG 9.15am – 9.25am Welcome and Introductory Remarks (Charlie Withers) 9.30am – 11.00am Paper session 1 Beginning with Notebooks (Chair: Charlie Withers)· Pamela McIntyre (University of Edinburgh) ‘A journey through time: navigating Charles Lyell’s 19th century global database at the University of Edinburgh’· Joshua Hillman (University of Leeds) ‘The prehistory of the geological field notebook, c. 1690 - 1780’· Matthew Eddy (University of Durham) ‘Drawing theories together: diagrams as realtime thinking tools in the geological notebooks of Charles Lyell’· Tim Fedak (Dalhousie University) ‘The significance of Charles Lyell’s notebooks andtravel in Nova Scotia in the summer of 1842’ 11.00am – 11.30am Coffee/tea 11.30am – 1.00pm Paper session 2 Lyell’s Travels in Space and Time (Chair: Ralph O’Connor)· Maria Toscano (Warburg Institute, London) ‘“Time writes”: Lyell and the Neapolitan entourage’· Will Adams (University of Glasgow) ‘An unsolicited authority: Charles Lyell’s contribution to the human antiquity debate’· Mary Orr (University of St Andrews) ‘The French Lyell: debating The Antiquity of Man and L’Homme fossile en France in 1863-1864’· Alison Martin (Johannes Gutenberg Universität-Mainz) ‘Reforming geology: Charles Lyell’s works in nineteenth-century German translation’ 1.00pm – 2.15pm Lunch at St Cecilia’s Hall 2.15pm – 3.45pm Paper session 3 Lessons of Earth History (Chair: Rebekah Higgitt)· Susan Newell (University of Oxford) ‘Geological teaching in the early nineteenth century: William Buckland, Lyell’s Oxford lecturer and what Lyell may have learnt from his approach to teaching’· Jim Secord (University of Cambridge) ‘Charles Lyell and the singularity of reason’· Marika Ceschia (University of Leeds/IASH Fellow, University of Edinburgh) ‘Unsettling the colonial archive: rewriting Charles Lyell’s extractive grammars’· Sarah A. Qidwai (University of York/ Universität Regensburg) ‘Charles Lyell's influence in colonial spaces: a study of John Colenso and Sayyid Ahmad Khan’ 3.45pm – 4.15pm Coffee/tea Panel Session 14.15pm – 5.30pm Combining Lyell’s texts and specimens (Chair: Jim Secord)Gillian McCay (University of Edinburgh), Eliza Howlett (University of Oxford), Liz Smith (University of Cambridge), Consuelo Sendino (National Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid) 6.30pm – 7.45pm Reception (Playfair Library, Old College)Reception sponsored by the British Society for the History of Science Day 2 Friday 9 February 2024 - St Cecilia’s Hall, 50 Niddry Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LG 9.30am – 11.00pm Paper session 4 The Public and Private Faces of Geology (Chair: Aileen Fyfe)· Felicity Mackenzie (Independent scholar) ‘Charles Lyell’s principles of reform’· Jon Topham (University of Leeds) ‘Making geology “useful”: the sciences of the earth and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’· Martina Kölbl-Ebert (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich) ‘Geological scenes from two marriages – Mary Elizabeth Lyell and Emma Darwin compared’· Grace Exley (University of Leeds) ‘A sisterhood of the hammer?: Mary Horner Lyell and her geological network’ 11.00am – 11.30am Coffee/tea Panel session 211.30pm – 12.30pm Furthering Lyell research – opportunities and possibilities, open discussion chaired by Jim Secord. 12.30pm – 12.45pm Closing remarks 12.45pm – 2.00pm Lunch at St Cecilia’s Hall, then walk to University Main Library, GeorgeSquare 2.30pm – 3.30pm Display of Lyell archival material (Centre for Research Collections, 6th floor, University Main Library)* 3.45pm – 5.00pm Tour of Lyell Exhibition (Exhibition Gallery, ground floor, University Main Library)*

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‘Working with Charles Lyell’ Workshop

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