Science in a structured society

Researchers often use the idea of “class” to help people understand social relations. Does class have any bearing on scientific knowledge? When many people hear the word “science,” they think of highly educated individuals, often dressed in lab coats, participating in some mysterious activity.

While the stereotype may have some truth to it, it does not include the range of people curious about the world. At one point, Mechanics’ Institutes provided adult education in Canada and around the English-speaking world, especially to those in the working class.

In addition, natural history used to be a very popular pastime, and artisan botany, botany practised by craftsmen, helped shape nineteenth-century science. John Davidson’s membership in the Aberdeen Workingmen’s Natural History and Scientific Society kept him connected to the world of working-class science.

Like so many other immigrants to North America, Davidson wanted to escape the social restrictions of his homeland. His job as a museum attendant in Aberdeen required some technical skill and scientific understanding but did not come with much prestige. Davidson tried to improve his chances for career advancement by taking university classes whenever he could. After he was denied a promotion in 1908, Davidson looked for a place where the unwritten rules of Scottish university culture would not hold him back. He found such a place in British Columbia.

In the past, as in modern times, Most British Columbians did not seem to identify with a particular class, at least not as strongly as people elsewhere did. British Columbians placed more importance on differences of race than they than they did on differences in class.

Davidson had originally — and mistakenly — viewed BC as a botanical “empty land.” Upon arrival, he wrote back to a fellow member of the Aberdeen Workingmen’s Natural History and Society, telling him:

I should say that the Botanical possibilities are great, because I landed practically in virgin soil, there having been no systematic botanists here previous to my appointment; so that if I am spared with health and strength for a few more years’ botanical work I may consider myself one of the botanical pioneers of this Province.

Davidson quickly became aware of several other British Columbians working in the field of botany: Professor John Macoun, recently retired from the federal geological survey, and amateur botanists James Robert Anderson in Victoria, A.J. Hill of New Westminster, J.K. Henry of Vancouver and Eli Wilson of Armstrong. Once he became familiar with botanical activities in the province and started work on an herbarium of his own, Davidson hoped that “the collection, which [he has] had the honour of bringing together, will be the nucleus of what will ultimately become the most complete herbarium of the Provincial Flora.”

In 1916, Davidson applied for a job at the future University of British Columbia. His application detailed all of his honours and painted a picture of a man still haunted by his experiences back in Scotland. He began with an apology:

I should state at the outset, that I possess no University Degrees, and because of this, I feel myself considerably handicapped, knowing that nowadays these are taken so much into account in making appointments.

Davidson outlined his botanical career, stressing his technique for treating fluid specimen preparations and his disappointment about not being considered qualified to teach in Aberdeen because of new “unwritten laws” that did not “prevail in all British Universities.” He mentioned his work with the “Aberdeen Natural History and Scientific Society,” but dropped the word “workingmen’s” from the title.

Davidson also told of his accomplishments in British Columbia. He noted that his 18 years of experience and training “under one of the most eminent Professors of Systematic Botany in Great Britain” had prepared him well, and that he was “fully alive” to the importance of economic botany to the fields of forestry and agriculture.

A thick bundle of 21 testimonials by former colleagues and superiors accompanied Davidson’s application. These glowing reports recommended him for “teaching or museum work” and indicated prestige — for both Davidson and themselves — in a scientific universe in which British Columbia was barely a participant. Letters from high-ranking scientists and officials commended Davidson’s skills as a model maker, photographer and curator of botanical collections.

John Davidson did not get the job of professor but in 1916, he became “demonstrator in charge of the herbarium and botanical garden.” From this modest beginning, he was able to rise to the rank of associate professor in 1930. His move to British Columbia had allowed him to realize dreams that that had been impossible to realize in Europe.

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Further reading

David Brownstein (2006). Sunday Walks and Seed Traps: The Many Natural Histories of British Columbia Forest Conservation, 1890–1925, unpublished PhD Thesis, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Anne Secord (1996). “Artisan Botany” in The Cultures of Natural History, edited by N. Jardine, J.A. Secord, and E.C. Spary, Cambridge University Press, pp 378-393.

W. Peter Ward (1980). “Class and Race in the Social Structure of British Columbia, 1870-1939” in BC Studies, vol 45, pp 17-35.