Reign of the Beast: The Atheist World of W. D. Saull and his Museum of Evolution - cover image

Copyright

Adrian Desmond

Published On

2024-05-08

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-239-6
Hardback978-1-80511-240-2
PDF978-1-80511-241-9
HTML978-1-80511-244-0
EPUB978-1-80511-242-6

Language

  • English

Print Length

676 pages (xii+664)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 35 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.38" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 37 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.46" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback937g (33.05oz)
Hardback1120g (39.51oz)

THEMA

  • NHD
  • RBX
  • QRYA5
  • NHB
  • JNB

BIC

  • HBLL
  • HRQA5
  • JPF
  • JPA

BISAC

  • HIS015060
  • SCI054000
  • REL004000
  • HIS037060
  • POL042040
  • EDU016000

Keywords

  • Evolution theories
  • W. D. Saull
  • Science Museums in London
  • Geology
  • 1830s radical thinking
  • Atheism
  • Co-Operation
  • Fossils
  • Dinosaurs
  • Prehistoric Archaeology

Reign of the Beast

The Atheist World of W. D. Saull and his Museum of Evolution

  • Adrian Desmond (author)
In the 1830s, decades before Darwin published the Origin of Species, a museum of evolution flourished in London. Reign of the Beast pieces together the extraordinary story of this lost working-man's institution and its enigmatic owner, the wine merchant W. D. Saull. A financial backer of the anti-clerical Richard Carlile, the ‘Devil's Chaplain’ Robert Taylor, and socialist Robert Owen, Saull outraged polite society by putting humanity’s ape ancestry on display. He weaponized his museum fossils and empowered artisans with a knowledge of deep geological time that undermined the Creationist base of the Anglican state. His geology museum, called the biggest in Britain, housed over 20,000 fossils, including famous dinosaurs. Saull was indicted for blasphemy and reviled during his lifetime. After his death in 1855, his museum was demolished and he was expunged from the collective memory. Now multi-award-winning author Adrian Desmond undertakes a thorough reading of Home Office spy reports and subversive street prints to re-establish Saull's pivotal place at the intersection of the history of geology, atheism, socialism, and working-class radicalism.

Endorsements

In this spell-binding book, Adrian Desmond tells the compelling story of political radical, wine merchant, and evolutionist, William Saull, and of the museum of evolution he ran in London from the 1830s to the 1850s. Using an astonishing range of new sources and drawing on an unrivalled knowledge of the politics of evolution in this pivotal period, he takes us to the very heart of British radicalism and freethought, yielding compelling new insights into the remarkable potency of evolutionary ideas in the decades before the Origin of Species.

Jon Topham

Professor of History of Science at the University of Leeds

Contents

Preface

(pp. 1–12)
  • Adrian Desmond

1. Underground Evolution : Setting the Stage

(pp. 13–58)
  • Adrian Desmond

2. Introducing Saull

(pp. 59–74)
  • Adrian Desmond

3. From Eternity to Here: Blasphemy, Eternalism, and the Emerging Question of Origins

(pp. 77–116)
  • Adrian Desmond

4. From the Devil’s Chaplain to That Dirty Little Jacobin

(pp. 117–156)
  • Adrian Desmond

5. Perfectibility

(pp. 159–174)
  • Adrian Desmond

6. Founding the Museum: June 1831

(pp. 175–200)
  • Adrian Desmond

7. Monkey-Man : The Bristol Lecture 1833

(pp. 201–222)
  • Adrian Desmond

8. The Antichrist and the Shaven Monkey

(pp. 223–238)
  • Adrian Desmond

9. Damned Monkeys

(pp. 239–246)
  • Adrian Desmond

10. An Appeal to the Revolutionary Enemy

(pp. 247–256)
  • Adrian Desmond

11. Creation on the Cheap

(pp. 257–266)
  • Adrian Desmond

12. Making Sense of the Museum

(pp. 267–276)
  • Adrian Desmond

13. A Purpose-built Museum : 1835

(pp. 277–288)
  • Adrian Desmond

14. Satires on Saull

(pp. 289–308)
  • Adrian Desmond

15. Martyrs, Churches and Vestries

(pp. 309–320)
  • Adrian Desmond

16. Lease-holder of the New Moral World

(pp. 321–334)
  • Adrian Desmond

17. Halls of Science

(pp. 337–356)
  • Adrian Desmond

18. The Atheist Breakaway

(pp. 357–384)
  • Adrian Desmond

19. Backlash

(pp. 385–396)
  • Adrian Desmond

20. Peace and Harmony

(pp. 397–404)
  • Adrian Desmond

21. Secularism and Salvage

(pp. 405–416)
  • Adrian Desmond

22. British Aborigines

(pp. 417–442)
  • Adrian Desmond

23. Reforming Scientific Society

(pp. 443–468)
  • Adrian Desmond

24. Museum and Pantheon for the Masses

(pp. 469–488)
  • Adrian Desmond

25. Celebrating the Dead

(pp. 489–500)
  • Adrian Desmond

26. Provisions for the Afterlife

(pp. 503–530)
  • Adrian Desmond

27. Death and Dissolution

(pp. 531–552)
  • Adrian Desmond

Contributors

Adrian Desmond

(author)

Adrian Desmond was educated at University College London and Harvard University, where he was Stephen Jay Gould's first history of science PhD student. He has two MSc's, one in history of science, another in vertebrate palaeontology, and a PhD for his work on radical Victorian evolutionists. For twenty years he was an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London. He is the multi-award-winning author of nine books, which include: The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs, Archetypes and Ancestors: Palaeontology in Victorian London 1850-1875, The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London, Darwin, Huxley: The Devil’s Disciple, Huxley: Evolution’s High Priest, Darwin’s Sacred Cause (with James Moore)