Bugs and the Victorians (review)

As an entomologist, I am intrigued not only by insects, but also by the history of my science. J. F. M. Clark’s engaging, yet occasionally densely written Bugs and the Victorians presents the coming-of-age of entomology as a science within the milieu of rapid social and economic change in nineteenth-century Britain. He explores the fascination of nineteenth-century British culture with science and nature and how those who engaged in the study of insects took part in the most pressing questions of the day: the nature of God, mind, governance, and the origins of life. This meticulously researched book, drawn from many disparate resources, depicts the entomological personalities, devices, pursuits, and controversies of the day.

By the end of the seventeenth century, Clark notes, fear and superstition were replaced by a fervent curiosity about the natural world that manifested itself by amassing knowledge in the form of specimens and objects. Botany advanced quickly because of interest in the medicinal uses of plants, but the study of insects lagged behind because of a relative lack of interest. However, advancements in microscopic technologies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries soon generated interest in insects and other animals. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the activity of insect collecting, formerly considered a sign of lunacy in some circles, had become socially acceptable, even fashionable, although it was still considered quaint by many.

Social and economic forces within Victorian society were changing rapidly. A growing middle class with greater disposable income could now afford to purchase exotic insect specimens for their growing natural history collections. Natural history books became more affordable and widespread thanks to improved and less costly printing technologies. The appearance of William Kirby and William Spence’s Introduction to Entomology (1815) marked its beginning as a true science. Kirby, a Tory parson-naturalist and committed High Churchman joined forces with Spence, a merchant capitalist from Hull, to create a seminal work on insects that was, for its time, a unique mix of economic entomology, insect physiology, and classification based on the Linnean principles of binominal nomenclature. It became the mainstay text on the subject for most of Britain and its Empire throughout the rest of the 1800s.

In the middle of nineteenth century, Britain’s natural theology gave way to the scientific naturalism espoused by secular scientists. Clark observes, “Scientific naturalists based their cultural authority on their ability to control and manipulate the natural world through rigorous experimentation” (91). Reliance on accidental observations was out of favor; universal truths would be revealed as the results of experimental research. John Lubbock, scientist and neighbor of Charles Darwin, presented the results of his own scientific experiments with ants and bees in artificial nests in clear, everyday language that greatly helped to promote scientific naturalism to a popular audience.

With their polished exoskeletons and unblinking eyes, insects are utterly alien. But the human-like social organization of ants and bees provided Victorian scientists with the necessary link between insects and humans. As a result, social insects became central to nineteenth-century discussions of natural history and biology, and their nests the lens through which human society could be observed, compared, and modeled. Scientists and naturalists of the day ascribed their own beliefs and motivations to the social insects and then used their observations to explain or justify the natural order of society and government. Beehives were no longer just beehives, but microcosms of social order that symbolized the rational management of the agrarian and industrial elements of Victorian Britain.

Clark’s chapter dealing with Darwin the entomologist is an engaging review of the transition of entomology from the naturalists’ propensity for taxonomy to a more staunchly academic discipline rooted in evolutionary theory. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), in which he made about fifty references to insects, was at first severely criticized by prominent and influential entomologists, none of whom were willing to accept the transmutation of species. Papers on...