‘IN THE NEWEST MANNER’: SOCIAL LIFE IN LATE GEORGIAN DEVIZES 5 
to the Royal Society on behalf of a local farmer ‘a 
very deserving Man — I wish he may meet with 
encouragement. Anstie probably — echoed 
widespread local sentiment when he wished 
‘success to the laudable endeavours of your Society 
for the promotion of useful knowledge’. In 1813 
this zeal for improvement led to the formation in 
Devizes of the Wiltshire Society for the 
Encouragement of Agriculture, whose 50 or so 
members included lawyers Locke and Salmon, and 
brewers and bankers John and Charles Tylee. The 
Society awarded prizes for stock, crops and 
husbandry, and held ploughing matches and sheep 
shearings, with monetary prizes, as well as 
publishing essays on agricultural topics. 
This institution was a local replica of the 
prestigious Bath and West Society founded in 1777, 
to which 14 of the town’s élite belonged.” The 
Society’s aims were ‘the encouragement of industry 
and ingenuity. . .to excite a spirit of enquiry... and 
to bring speculation and theory to the test of 
accurate experiment’.** At monthly meetings, 
members could mingle with gentlemen, farmers 
and manufacturers from Somerset, Gloucestershire, 
Dorset and Bristol, proud to be associated with 
such famous figures as Joseph Priestley, Arthur 
Young, Coke of Norfolk and Thomas Davis, and at 
the Annual General Meeting could indulge in 
‘much interesting debate’.*° They could also 
correspond with members in Russia and America, 
broadening their commercial and agricultural 
horizons, making useful contacts and learning of 
new techniques and inventions. One AGM was 
graced by the presence of a Mohawk Indian chief, 
visiting this country to learn about agriculture.”” 
The Society made its existence visible in Devizes by 
carrying out drilling experiments on Charles 
Fitchew’s farm at Roundway,** while John Gale of 
Stert near Devizes conducted trials for them in 
fattening oxen on potatoes dressed with steam.” 
Clothier John Anstie, a member of the Society’s 
Committee of Manufactures and Commerce and 
also a Vice-President, was much involved in the 
movement to improve British wool, regulariy 
evaluating different breeds of sheep and testing new 
inventions for the Society, such as a machine for 
drying cloth. 
In an age of growing intellectual curiosity, 
science, too, had its followers in the town, 
particularly among nonconformists. In 1770 Joseph 
Priestley (1733-1804), who had conducted his 
experiments at Bowood six miles away, published 
his work on electricity. Jan Ingen Housz (1730- 
1799) also developed some of his scientific ideas at 
Lord Shelburne’s house.” | Newspapers, 
encyclopaedias, The London Magazine, The Annual 
Register and The Gentleman’s Magazine were full of 
scientific information and enquiry. ' As John 
Locke had said ‘a gentleman must look into 
(natural philosophy) to fit himself for 
conversation’. Interest in the subject, the 
collection of scientific and natural history books, 
instruments and specimens became part of a late- 
eighteenth century gentleman’s culture , separating 
‘the middling sort’ from the lower orders. Thomas 
Gisborne recommended scientific experiments and 
botanical enquiries as suitable pursuits for an 
apothecary’s spare time.°* Prison Governor William 
Brutton had a day and night telescope, while John 
Anstie possessed a patent copying machine a ‘neat 
electrifying machine with apparatus, a reflecting 
telescope brass mounted and two 12-inch globes’.** 
In 1811, William Salmon ordered chemical 
apparatus from the catalogues of German-born 
scientist Friedrich Accum and Alexander Garden, 
experimental chemists in Soho.» Salmon’s interest 
had perhaps been stimulated by visiting scientific 
lecturers. Public lectures, made possible by 
improved transport, were the current craze in 
England among the fashionable bourgeoisie, who 
aspired to partake of upper class culture. Speakers 
concentrated on the gentry centres in southern 
England, their high charges — 2s. 6d. — being 
directed at the upper end of the market. Some 
members of the Anstie family attended lectures in 
Devizes on The Transparent Orrery, displaying the 
universe with its stars and planets.*° In 1784 Mr 
Waltire visited Devizes to give: 
His Courses of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry. . . 
Astronomy, Optics, 
Pneumatics, Hydrostatics, and Electricity. . .The 
including Mechanics, 
courses of Chemistry are applied to explain the 
principles of Mineralogy, Agriculture, the Various 
Arts, natural appearances, and particularly to impress 
such Manufactories as depend upon it. Both courses 
are very full of observations and Experiments and 
due care is taken to join the pleasing and the 
important.” 
It seems likely that Anstie and Salmon attended 
these lectures, along with other burgesses with 
enquiring minds. 
Some houses contained musical as well as 
scientific instruments and both sexes delighted in 
music, despite The Ladies’ Library advising caution 
in approaching music, which ‘enervates the soul 
