Piracy_ The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates - Adrian Johns [158]
FIGURE 10.1. Sir William Armstrong (First Lord Armstrong ofCragside). Portrait by Henry Hetherington Emmerson (1831-95), Cragside. Reprinted by permission of The National Trust Photograph Library. The Armstrong Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1977), © NTPL/Derrick E. Witty.
FIGURE 10.2. The Armstrong gun. ScientificAmerican, n.s., ,, no. 1 July 2, 1859): 16. Courtesyofthe University of Chicago Library.
FIGURE 10.3. Ahttgemachinery shop atElswick."The ElswickShip-Building Yard. VII," The Navy andArmy Illustrated 6, no. 73 (June z5,1898): 314-16, at 314. Courtesy of the University of Chicago Library.
But Armstrong, Grove, and MacFie were only the leaders of a movement that had representatives in every class, region, and profession. Laissez-faire ultras, many of them veterans from Cobden's anti-Corn Law campaign, were one constituency; Ricardo was one of these, and another J. E. Thorold Rogers, professor of political economy at Oxford and of economic science and statistics at King's College, London. Such figures created a political economy of antipatenting. And powerful allies arose in the legal, manufacturing, engineering, and scientific fields too. In the law, Sir Roundell Palmer, soon to be solicitor general and lord chancellor, was a somewhat wavering supporter. Glasgow manufacturer James Stirling represented the manufacturers. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the greatest of all Victorian engineers, came forward to make that profession's case for abolition. AndJ. A. Wanklyn, professor of chemistry at the London Institution, represented the "men of science" by maintaining that patents were obstructing science itself.
FIGURE I0.4. Cragside. Reprinted by permission of National Trust Photograph Library.. © NTPL/ Rupert Truman.
More broadly, antipatent arguments were rehearsed in countless forums across the country, and in the press too. Literary and philosophical societies and mechanics' institutes held debates, and then petitioned Parliament for reform or, less frequently, outright abolition. Many chambers of commerce did likewise; MacFie's in Liverpool was an especially prominent voice for abandoning patents altogether as equivalent to a lottery. In most cases such bodies were split on the issue, however, with abolitionists proving avocal minority of around 30-5o percent. The National Association of Chambers of Commerce held a whole day's debate on the issue in 1864, which revealed it too to be divided. So was the Institution of Civil Engineers, although its president, William Cubitt, favored abolition. Its counterpart body of mechanical engineers heard a highly controversial statement of the case for abolition byArmstrong, who was its president in 1861. MacFie also appeared frequently at the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, founded in 1857 on a similar model to the BAAS, and the Society of Arts, which charged a committee with exploring the issues.30 Meanwhile Rogers made another strong abolitionist statement to the London Statistical Society in 1863.
Most notably of all, perhaps, the BAAS now returned to the fray, probably because of the growing presence in its ranks of civil and mechanical engineers. MacFie himself addressed the Association, of which he was a member. And in 1863, at a key moment in the national debate, Armstrong even served as the BAAS's president. He duly took the opportunity once again to regale its members with his own, almost miasmatic account of creativity. It bears interesting comparison to the organicism of Kant and the earlier Romantics: `As in the vegetable kingdom fit conditions of soil and climate quickly cause the appearance of suitable plants, so in the intellectual world fitness of time and circumstances