In 1876, an unlikely candidate was considered for election to the Royal Society. Whilst his sunken eyes betrayed a lifetime spent in intellectual study, his body was crippled by years of working-class labour. The candidate was James Croll (1821-90). His qualifications for election were considerable: 92 articles in the Philosophical Magazine, Geological Magazine, and Chemical News, and four original monographs. Where Croll is remembered, it is as a geologist and climatologist, whose influential theories about ice ages caused Charles Darwin to revise Origin of Species (1869, 5th edn.). However, of Croll’s 17 proposers, half never met him in person. Whilst his contributions rewarded entry to the most prestigious scientific societies, the man himself remained a mystery.
Croll was in fact born in poverty in rural Scotland. After learning to read from his elder brother, Croll became a fervent autodidact. By becoming a janitor at a college in Glasgow, he used the library to teach himself geology, metaphysics, and philosophy. In 1867, he was appointed to the Geological Survey and published a controversial but widely-read theory of climate change. Croll mediated seemingly antithetical worlds of emergent professional science, theology, and poverty through an extensive correspondence network. He exchanged 300 letters with gentlemen, churchmen, and ‘scientists’. In this paper, I argue that Croll used personae to be accepted as authoritative by men of different social, theological, and professional statuses, whilst also remaining true to his own convictions. By analysing correspondence, I consider multiple perspectives on status and theory in nineteenth-century science.
