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Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

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1826–1846 British organization

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK ) was founded in London in 1826, mainly at the instigation of Whig MP Henry Brougham, with the object of publishing information to people who were unable to obtain a formal education or who preferred self-education. It was a largely Whig organisation, and published inexpensive texts intended to adapt scientific and similarly high-minded material for the rapidly-expanding reading public over twenty years until it was disbanded in 1846.[1]

Origins<br>[edit]

Lecture-Hall of the Greenwich Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge at its opening on 15 February 1843<br>Henry Brougham considered that mass education was an essential prerequisite for political reform. In October 1824 he contributed an article on "scientific education of the people" to the Whig Edinburgh Review, in which he argued that popular education would be greatly enhanced by the encouragement of cheap publications to complement the numerous recently founded provincial mechanics' institutes. The following year a version of this article was issued as a pamphlet entitled Practical Observations upon the Education of the People Addressed to the Working Classes and Their Employers,[2] selling at least 19 editions. In April 1825 Brougham set about trying to found a society to produce cheap educational books, although it was not until November 1826 that the SDUK was formally founded.[3]<br>One of those present at the first meeting was the philosopher James Mill, and the founding committee included many Fellows of the Royal Society and Members of Parliament, as well as twelve founding committee members of the newly formed University College London.[4]

Aims<br>[edit]

SDUK publications were intended for the working class and the middle class, as an antidote to the more radical output of the pauper presses. The Society set out to achieve this by acting as an intermediary between authors and publishers by launching several series of publications. Its printers included Baldwin & Cradock, later succeeded by Charles Knight. The SDUK commissioned work and dealt with the printers, and finally distributed the publications; profits were used to continue the Society's work. By using the new technologies of mass production, such as steam presses and stereotype, the Society and its printers kept costs low and were able to sell the books at much cheaper prices than was usual.[5]

The Society was not without opposition, and the Literary Gazette mounted a campaign on behalf of the book trade, supported by publications such as the Royal Lady's Magazine, who complained in the early 1830s that:

Few persons are aware that the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge have done, and are still doing, more to ruin the Book trade than all the change of times, the want of money, the weight of taxes, and even the law of Libel have accomplished; yet they – a committee of Noblemen and pretended Patriots – are permitted to go on in their unfeeling, nay, considering the hundreds of thousands engaged in the Book trade, we may add brutal, career, without interruption.[6]

Activities<br>[edit]

"A Box of Useful Knowledge" (1832), artist unknown. The image portrays Brougham as Lord Chancellor, with SDUK and other publications inside.The SDUK publishing programme began with the Library of Useful Knowledge.[7] Sold for sixpence and published fortnightly, its books focused on scientific topics. Like many other works in the new genre of popular science—such as the Bridgewater Treatises and Humphry Davy's Consolations in Travel—the books of the Library of Useful Knowledge imbued different scientific fields with concepts of progress: uniformitarianism in geology, the nebular hypothesis in astronomy, and the scala naturae in the life sciences. According to historian James A. Secord, such works met a demand for "general concepts and simple laws", and in the process helped establish the authority of professional science and specialised scientific disciplines.[8]

The first volume of the Library of Useful Knowledge, an introduction to the series by Brougham on the "objects, advantages and pleasures of science", sold over 33,000 copies by the end of 1829. Despite the initial success of the series, however, it soon became clear that it was too demanding for many readers, and the Society began to offer more varied and attractive publications, starting with the Library of Entertaining Knowledge (1829–38) and the Penny Magazine (1832–1845), a lavishly illustrated[9] weekly that achieved unprecedented success, with sales in excess of 200,000 copies in the first year.[10] The scope and scale of the...