Ranking Rankine: W. J. M. Rankine (1820–72) and the Making of ‘Engineering Science’ Revisited

Rather, there is evidence to support the view that scientific and engineering communities, or their temporary representatives, repeatedly assessed Rankine as a 'marginal' figure.5 His reputation as man of science, for example, was if anything higher amongst the engineers even if it was not always valued by them; and his competence as a practical, rather than philosophical, engineer seems to have been as readily granted by scientific leaders as it was by engineering professionals. "92 An army of pedagogic popularizers, in colleges across Britain, Europe and the United States, had to set about digesting Rankine for fuzzy thinkers.93 If Rankine's largely self-induced problem was marginality, as he took his messages to constituencies oftentimes uncomfortable to hear them, part of his solution, I suggest, was institutional - a factor that has rarely been seriously considered hitherto in studies of Rankine's relationship with 'engineering science'.