Dr Ben Marsden

Dr Ben Marsden
Dr Ben Marsden
Dr Ben Marsden

Senior Lecturer

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
b.marsden@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 272637
Office Address

School of Divinity, History, Philosophy and Art History
Crombie Annexe,
Meston Walk,
King's College,
University of Aberdeen,
Old Aberdeen,
AB24 3FX
Room: Crombie Annexe 204

School/Department
School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History

Biography

BA (MA) Hons in Mathematics, University of Cambridge (1987); Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics (MMath) (Mathematical Tripos Part III), University of Cambridge (1988); PhD in History, Philosophy and Social Relations of Science, University of Kent at Canterbury (1992); British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Leeds (1993-1995); Royal Society - British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow in History of Science, University of Kent at Canterbury (1995-1999) and University of Aberdeen (1999-2000); Lecturer in Cultural History, University of Aberdeen (2000-2009); Senior Fellow, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, MIT/Harvard (2005-2006); Senior Lecturer in History of Science and Technology (2009-present); Deputy Head of School of Divinity, History and Philosophy (2009-2011); Director, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (2009-2010); Director, Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine (2010-2011, 2012-present); Head of Department of History (2018-2023)

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Founding Director of the CASS Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, now a Centre in the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy and Art History

External Memberships

Include, or have included: Council, British Society for the History of Science (2000-2003); Book Reviews Editor and Editorial Board Member, British Journal for the History of Science (2000-2005); Advisory Editor, Isis (2009-2011); Chair, BSHS Conferences Committee (2013-2016); Editor, Notes and Records: the Royal Society's Journal for the History of Science (2015-2018)

Latest Publications

  • 'Whewell and mechanics'

    Marsden, B.
    William Whewell: Victorian Polymath. Verburgt, L. M. (ed.). University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 46-60, 290-296, 23 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • The Role of Transport and Telecommunications Technology in the Development of the Scottish Highlands and Islands Medical Service: A Historical Perspective

    Quinn, M., Marsden, B., Wilson, P.
    Rural and Remote Health, vol. 21, no. 3
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Institutionalizing the "metropolis of mechanics": Philosophical engineering in the city of Glasgow c. 1825 - c. 1875

    Marsden, B.
    Urban histories of science: Making Knowledge in the City, 1820-1940. Nieto-Galan, A., Hochadel, O. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 37-58, 22 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • [Review of] Don Leggett, Shaping the Royal Navy, Manchester University Press

    Marsden, B.
    International Journal of Maritime History , vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 208-210
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • A Protean system of apparatus: Robert Willis and the material invention of mechanism

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings

View My Publications

Research

Research Overview

Science and technology in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture, especially the cultural history of engineering and technology in Britain; the historical relationship between science and music; engineers as authors and readers; cultural history of food.

Selected publications have addressed: the history of engineering education (esp. of W. J. Macquorn Rankine), in the British Journal for the History of Science (1992) and in Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar (eds.), Making space for science (Macmillan, 1998); technological success and failure in History of Science (1998); the history of energy and the relationship between science and music in Hessenbruch (ed.), Readers' guide to the history of science (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000); and the reading practices of I. K. Brunel in Marsden, O'Connor and Hutchison (eds.), Uncommon contexts (Pickering & Chatto, 2013). His account of James Watt and the separate condenser appeared as Watt's perfect engine: steam and the age of invention (Icon, 2002; Columbia, 2004). He has also contributed extensively to the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). With Crosbie Smith he has written Engineering empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain (Macmillan, 2005 (hbk), 2006 (pbk)). The first part of an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between the mechanical analysis, architectural history and comparative anatomy of Cambridge professor Robert Willis was published in the British Journal for the History of Science (2004) and a discussion of Willis's models and apparatus appears in the proceedings (eds Alexandrina Buchanan et al.) of a conference on Willis held at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in September 2016. He revisited the history of heat engines, especially those using air as a working substance, in Transactions of the Newcomen Society (2006). He contributed a new entry on meteorologist John Aitken to the new edition of the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2007); and his study of attitudes towards the engineering science of naval architecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science appeared in a thematic volume of the Journal for European Administrative History (2008). A further paper on John Aitken's 'outdoor physics' has appeared in a Norwegian journal of cultural history (2009); and a study of perceptions of French technological culture amongst British artisans in the early ninteenth century has appeared in a volume edited by Liliane Hilaire-Perez (2010). He is completing the first major biography of Macquorn Rankine for Ashgate: a preliminary study, 'Ranking Rankine', appeared in History of Science (2013). With Peter McCaffery he edited the Reader in Cultural History (Routledge, 2014). With Ralph O'Connor and Hazel Hutchison he edited Uncommon Contexts, a collection of studies in literature and science in the nineteenth century, including his own study of I. K. Brunel as reader and author. He has also published, in Hochadel and Nieto-Galan (eds) Urban Histories of Science: Making Knowledge in the City (Routledge) a study of nineteenth-century Glasgow as the 'metropolis of mechanics'.  He edited Notes and Records: the Royal Society's Journal for the History of Science (2015-2018).

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in History.


Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Email Me

History

Supervising
Accepting PhDs

Research Specialisms

  • Cultural Studies
  • History of Medicine
  • History of Science

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

He is currently: completing the first book-length study of W. J. M. Rankine and the origins of academic engineering in nineteenth-century Britain (for Ashgate). 

Collaborations

He has worked closely with Crosbie Smith on the AHRC-funded project on the cultural history of the ocean-going steamer in nineteenth-century Britain; he maintains close links with staff at the National Museum of Scotland (Science and Technology Division).

Funding and Grants

He received a major grant from the Dibner Institute of the History of Science and Technology, MIT/Harvard (2005-2006) as Senior Fellow there.

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

Includes: 

Contributions to the University's interdisciplinary Sixth Century Courses, including 'Fearsome Engines' 

Europe in the 20th Century (level 1)

Scientific Revolution (level 1)

Renaissance and Reformations (level 1)

Birth of Modernity (level 2)

History of Medicine for Medical Students (level 3)

Eating History (level 3)

Thinking History (level 3)

Cultures of Victorian Science and Technology (level 4)

Undergraduate Dissertation (level 4)

Engaging with Historiography (level 5)

MLitt in Museum Studies and MLitt in Literature, Science and Medicine

Publications

Page 1 of 2 Results 1 to 50 of 73

  • 'Whewell and mechanics'

    Marsden, B.
    William Whewell: Victorian Polymath. Verburgt, L. M. (ed.). University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 46-60, 290-296, 23 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • The Role of Transport and Telecommunications Technology in the Development of the Scottish Highlands and Islands Medical Service: A Historical Perspective

    Quinn, M., Marsden, B., Wilson, P.
    Rural and Remote Health, vol. 21, no. 3
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Institutionalizing the "metropolis of mechanics": Philosophical engineering in the city of Glasgow c. 1825 - c. 1875

    Marsden, B.
    Urban histories of science: Making Knowledge in the City, 1820-1940. Nieto-Galan, A., Hochadel, O. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 37-58, 22 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • [Review of] Don Leggett, Shaping the Royal Navy, Manchester University Press

    Marsden, B.
    International Journal of Maritime History , vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 208-210
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • A Protean system of apparatus: Robert Willis and the material invention of mechanism

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings
  • Editorial: The view from somewhere

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 207-208
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials
  • Editorial for Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 105-106
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials
  • Editorial for Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 5-7
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials
  • Editorial

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 69, no. 4, pp. 357-359
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials
  • Good vibrations: [Review of] Peter Pesic, Music and the Making of Modern Science, MIT Press

    Marsden, B.
    TLS: The Times Literary Supplement, no. 5871, pp. 24
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Editorial

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 105-107
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials
  • The Cultural History Reader

    McCaffery, P., Marsden, B.
    Routledge, London. 358 pages
    Books and Reports: Books
  • Ranking Rankine: W. J. M. Rankine (1820-72) and the making of ‘engineering science’ revisited

    Marsden, B.
    History of Science, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 434-456
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Introduction

    Marsden, B.
    Uncommon Contexts: Encounters Betweeen Literature and Science, 1800-1914. Marsden, B., Hutchison, H., O'Connor, R. (eds.). Pickering & Chatto, pp. 1-19, 187-192, 25 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Re-reading Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Engineering literature in the early nineteenth century

    Marsden, B.
    Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914. Marsden, B., Hutchison, H., O'Connor, R. (eds.). Pickering & Chatto, pp. 83-109, 206-214, 35 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914

    Marsden, B. (ed.), Hutchison, H. (ed.), O'Connor, R. J. (ed.)
    Pickering & Chatto, London. 239 pages
    Books and Reports: Books
  • Anti-metrication in metre

    Marsden, B.
    Viewpoint: Magazine of the British Socierty for the History of Science, vol. 100, pp. 8-9
    Contributions to Specialist Publications: Articles
  • David Philip Miller, James Watt, Chemist: Understanding the Origins of the Steam Age (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009)

    Marsden, B.
    British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 298-300
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Carriages, coffee-cups and dynamometers: Representing French technical cultures in the London Mechanics’ Magazine, 1823-1848

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings
  • Counting dust and domesticating clouds: inside the "outdoor physics" of John Aitken (1839-1919)

    Marsden, B.
    Tidsskrift for Kulturforskning, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 45-56
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Daniel Cohen, Globalization and Its Enemies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007)

    Marsden, B.
    The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 748-749
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Robert Fox and Graeme Gooday (eds.), Physics in Oxford 1839-1939. Laboratories, Learning, and College Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)

    Marsden, B.
    Ambix, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 194-195
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • The administration of the "engineering science" of naval architecture at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831-1872

    Marsden, B.
    Jahrbuch für Europäische Verwaltungsgeschichte, vol. 20, pp. 67-94
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • John Aitken

    Marsden, B.
    New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Koertge, N. (ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
  • Geoffrey Cantor, Quakers, Jews and Science. Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)

    Marsden, B.
    History, vol. 92, no. 305, pp. 122-124
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Michael A. Taylor, Hugh Miller. Stonemason, Geologist, Writer (Edinburgh: NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing, National Museums Scotland, 2007)

    Marsden, B.
    Northern Scotland, vol. 27, pp. 218-220
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Hasok Chang, Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

    Marsden, B.
    Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 177-178
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Deconstructing discovery: David Philip Miller, Discovering Water: James Watt, Henry Cavendish and the Nineteenth-Century ‘Water Controversy’. Science, Technology and Culture, 1700-1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 105-106
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Harro Maas, William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics. Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

    Marsden, B.
    Isis, vol. 97, pp. 770-772
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Superseding Steam: the Napier and Rankine Hot-air Engine

    Marsden, B.
    Transactions of the Newcomen Society, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 1-22
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Bernard P. Cronin, Technology, Industrial Conflict and the Development of Technical Education in 19th-Century England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001)

    Marsden, B.
    Isis, vol. 96, no. 2, pp. 288-289
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Engineering Empires: A Cultural History of Technology in Nineteenth-Century Britain

    Marsden, B., Smith, C.
    Palgrave Macmillan. 351 pages
    Books and Reports: Books
  • 'The progeny of these two "Fellows''': Robert Willis, William Whewell and the sciences of mechanism, mechanics and machinery in early Victorian Britain

    Marsden, B.
    British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 401-434
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Gompertz, Lewis (1784?-1861)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Gordon, Lewis Dunbar Brodie (1815-1876)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Gregory, Olinthus Gilbert (1774-1841)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Hann, James (1799-1856)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Rankine, William John Macquorn (1820-1872)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Robison, Sir John (1778-1843)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Stirling, Robert (1790-1878)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Willis, Robert (1800-1875)

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Donald Cardwell, the development of science and technology in nineteenth-century Britain: the importance of Manchester: edited by Richard L. Hills. Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS765 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)

    Marsden, B.
    Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 318-320
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • W. J. M. Rankine

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • William Youatt

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • R. Angus Buchanan, The life and times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2002)

    Marsden, B.
    Journal of Transport History, vol. 25, pp. 112-114
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Engineer

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Engineering science

    Marsden, B.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Entries for Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • John Cantrell and Gillian Cookson (eds.), Henry Maudslay and the Pioneers of the Machine Age (Stroud: Tempus, 2002)

    Marsden, B.
    Economic History Review, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 570-571
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Gillian Cookson and Colin A. Hempstead, A Victorian Scientist and Engineer: Fleeming Jenkin and the Birth of Electrical Engineering (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000)

    Marsden, B.
    Ambix, vol. 49
    Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles
  • Watt's Perfect Engine: Steam and the Age of Invention

    Marsden, B.
    Icon, Cambridge. 214 pages
    Books and Reports: Books
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