Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées explained

Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées were gatherings held by the mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage at his home in Dorset Street in London from 1828 and into the 1840s. The soirées were attended by the cultural elite of the time.

Scientific soirées

See also: Salon (gathering). Babbage left England when his wife and father died in 1827. On his return in 1828, now in possession of a considerable inheritance, he began to host Saturday evening parties.^[1] The science historian James A. Secord describes the parties as "scientific soirées". Secord writes that Babbage imported the idea from France, and once established, such soirées "became one of the chief ways in which scientific discussion could take place on a more sustained basis within polite society."^[2]

In her autobiography, the English writer and sociologist Harriet Martineau wrote: "All were eager to go to his glorious soirées and I always thought he appeared to great advantage as a host. His patience in explaining his machine in those days was really exemplary."^[3]

According to biographers Bruce Collier and James H. MacLachlan, "Babbage was a bon vivant with a love of dining out and socialising. He sparkled as a host and raconteur. His Saturday soirées were glittering events attended by the social and intellectual elite of London."

Guests

Hundreds of prominent people attended the soirées, including Ada Lovelace, Lady Byron, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin,^[4] Charles Dickens,^[5] Michael Faraday, Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, Mary Somerville, Harriet Martineau, photographic inventor Henry Fox Talbot, the actor William Macready, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, telegraph inventor Charles Wheatstone, the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, geologist Charles Lyell and his wife Mary Lyell, Mary's sister Frances, the Belgian ambassador Sylvain Van de Weyer, electrical inventor Andrew Crosse and many others. According to C. R. Keeler, up to 200-300 people might attend one evening event.^[6]

Attractions

A demo of Babbage's unfinished Difference engine was on display for guests at some of the gatherings.^[7] He also displayed a mechanical dancer.^[8] In her autobiography, Harriet Martineau describes Babbage's disappointment at his guests being more interested in this dancing doll - a toy - than in his demo of a computing machine.

Influence

Ada Lovelace (then Ada Byron) first met Charles Babbage when her mother took her to one of his soirées on 5 June 1832,^[9] and the meeting led to a lifelong friendship and collaboration, culminating in Lovelace's notes on the Analytical engine.

References

1. Book: Collier . Bruce . Charles Babbage and the engines of perfection . MacLachlan . James H. . 1998 . Oxford Univ. Press . 978-0-19-508997-4 . Oxford portraits in science . New York . "Before long, the Babbage soirées formed an important part of the London social scene. Often, the guest list exceeded 200. They came from all parts of polite society: lawyers and judges, doctors and surgeons, deacons and bishops, and scholars and artists by the score. There were aristocrats like the Duke of Wellington, hero of Waterloo, and the Marquis of Lansdowne, a reforming minister in Liberal cabinets. From the arts and letters came Shakespearian actor William Macready, historians Thomas Macauley and Henry Milman, the novelist Charles Dickens, and the celebrated wit Sydney Smith. The scien- tists included telegraph inventor Charles Wheatstone, geol- ogists Charles Lyell and William Fitton, and the young biologist and world traveler, Charles Darwin. Photographic inventor William Fox-Talbot came with his friend John Herschel. Visitors from abroad were also welcomed: the German composer Felix Mendelssohn; Camillo Cavour, the Italian statesman who was later active in the unification of his country; Alexis de Tocqueville, the French author of Democracy in America; and from America, the physicist Joseph Henry.".
2. Secord . James A. . 2007 . How Scientific Conversation Became Shop Talk . Transactions of the Royal Historical Society . en . 17 . 129–156 . 10.1017/S0080440107000564 . 161438144 . 0080-4401.
3. Book: Martineau, Harriet . Harriet Martineau's Autobiography . 1877 . Houghton, Mifflin . en.
4. Book: Loy, James . Emma Darwin: a Victorian life . Loy . Kent M. . 2010 . University Press of Florida . 978-0-8130-3478-2 . Gainesville, Fla.
5. Lamouria . Lanya . 2023 . Charles Dickens, Charles Babbage, Richard Babley: Material Memory in David Copperfield . Dickens Quarterly . 40 . 1 . 73–74 . 10.1353/dqt.2023.0003 . 257207080 . 2169-5377.
6. Keeler . C. R. . 2004-06-01 . Babbage the unfortunate . British Journal of Ophthalmology . en . 88 . 6 . 730–732 . 10.1136/bjo.2003.018564 . 0007-1161 . 1772188 . 15148201.
7. Book: Green, Christopher D. . The Transformation of Psychology: Influences of 19th-Century Philosophy, Technology, and Natural Science . 2001 . . Green . C. D. . Washington, DC . 133–152 . Charles Babbage, the Analytical Engine, and the Possibility of a 19th-Century Cognitive Science . Shore . M. . Teo . T..
8. Sussman . Herbert . 2000 . Machine Dreams: The Culture of Technology . Victorian Literature and Culture . en . 28 . 1 . 197–204 . 10.1017/S1060150300281114 . 162414760 . 1470-1553. subscription .
9. Book: Toole, Betty Alexandra . Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers:Poetical Science . 2010 . Critical Connection . Kindle . Location 641.