All the Lunar Men were crazy. They even called themselves “Lunartiks.” How else to explain some of their activities?
- Item: intentionally self-inflicted suffocation (while developing a vacuum sealing apparatus).
- Item: static electricity parties (while studying effects of electricity).
- Item: condensed urine injections (while exploring the uses of microscopes in medicine).
Some might counter the Lunar Society of Birmingham, England was simply one of many 18th century philosophical clubs dedicated to expanding the general knowledge base. The Lunar Society convened between 1765 and 1813. Their roster included some of the era’s most brilliant movers and shakers including Matthew Bolton, James Watt, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. The Lunar Society typified the animating spirit of the Industrial Revolution, a.k.a. the “Age of Reason.”
They met on the Sunday before each month’s full moon so there would be light to travel home by. Lunar meetings featured forays into the world of the possible. Experimentation was the game of the day. The world was their oyster to study, test, exploit, devour and profit from.
But the urine thing?
Well, maybe they all didn’t do that. Still, to be a Lunar Man (yes, they were all men) meant being into that sort of thing. Each Lunar Man brought his own interests and perspectives on scientific topics of the day. Everyone was equally excited about the others’ revelations. So if they didn’t all inject condensed urine, they heartily embraced its premise of scientific exploration.
One thing they didn’t agree on was politics. The polemics of the French Revolution ultimately broke them apart.
Lunar Men’s inventions included some of the most critical innovations of the time: steam engines, standardized coin minting, geologic, chemical and biological discoveries, improvements in transportation, advances in educational methodology, etc. And of course Lunar Man Josiah Wedgwood’s thermocouple revolutionized precision firing in the pottery industry.
Potters remember Wedgwood for his thermocouple, his organizing genius and his long list of pottery achievements. But we should also remember his penchant for experimenting solely for experimentation’s sake. In other words, for howling at the moon.
Readings:
The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. Jenny Uglow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux/New York. 2003.
Ingenious Pursuits, Building the Scientific Revolution. Lisa Jardine. Doubleday/New York. 1999.
Staffordshire Pottery and Its History. Josiah Wedgwood. McBride Nast & Co./New York & London. 1913.
This Day in Pottery History 