Overview

In the nineteenth century the science of biology, including botany and zoology, was just beginning to mature while astronomy, physics, and math were already established sciences. Victorian members of the middle class were affluent and interested in learning about the natural world. They had leisure time to attend lectures, visit museums, and collect specimens of plants, insects, animals, and fossils. Many of these enthusiasts provided specimens for naturalists and added to scientific knowledge and understanding of the natural world in a material way. By the end of the century, enthusiasm for amateur scientific enterprise waned...