Literature and Science :  

Notable  (Male) Victorian Scientists and Inventors

Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871), English mathematician and computer pioneer: invented the precursor of the modern computer, the Analytical Engine in 1837.

Alexander Bain (1818 - 1903), Scottish philosopher and educationalist: applied the scientific method to psychology.

William Buckland (1784 - 1856), English geologist: wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur in 1824.

Nicholas Callan (1799 - 1864), Irish priest and scientist: best known for his work on the induction coil.

George Combe (1788 - 1858), Scottish lawyer and writer on phrenology and education: founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society in 1820.

Robert Chambers (1802-1871), Scottish geologist and thinker: used fossil evidence to exhibit a progression in fossils from simple to more complex organisms and to humans.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), English physician, philosopher, botanist, naturalist and grandfather of Charles Darwin: proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have descended from a single micro-organism.

Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English naturalist: suggested the theory of evolution by natural selection in his On the Origin of Species.

Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867), English chemist and physicist: discovered electro-magnetic induction in 1831 and Faraday's laws of electrolysis in 1834.

George FitzGerald (1851 - 1901), Irish physicist: fundamental contributions to relativity theory.

Francis Galton (1822 - 1911), English anthropologist, eugenicist and statistician and cousin of Charles Darwin: pioneering studies of human intelligence.

William Rowan Hamilton (1805 - 1865), Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician: made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra.

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 - 1895), English biologist: known for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875), British lawyer and geologist: popularised the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation today.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831 - 1879), Scottish physicist and mathematician: formulated classical electromagnetic theory - his Maxwell's equations demonstrated that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon, namely the electromagnetic field.

Richard Owen (1804 - 1892), English biologist and paleontologist: created a new order of reptiles, which he called Dinosauria, for the new discovered dinosaurs.

William Paley (1743-1805), British Christian apologist and philosopher: proposed that evolutionary complex adaptations are evidence of divine design.

William Ramsay (1852 - 1916), Scottish chemist: discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 for this.

Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903), English philosopher, biologist and sociologist: developed the "Social Darwinism" theory that applied the law of the survival of the fittest to society.

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824 - 1907), British physicist and engineer: fundamental contributions to many fields and among others formulated the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

John Tyndall (1820 - 1893), British physicist: the first to prove the existence of the greenhouse effect.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913), British naturalist, anthropologist and biologist: best known for independently proposing a theory of evolution due to natural selection that prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own theory.

Charles Wheatstone (1802 - 1875), English scientist and inventor: best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy.

William Whewell (1794 - 1866), English scientist, Anglican priest and historian of science: contributed to the development of the scientific method.