Migrations, scientific culture and entrepreneurship: lessons from the nineteenth century english industrial development

In reconstructing the social process that, in the nineteenth century, led the English economy to increase its agricultural and industrial capacity in a scale never seen before, Max Weber incidentally mentioned the fact that it was established at that time an unprecedented connection between scientific and industrial activities. Both the way in which such connection was established and the crucial role that it happened to play are themes studied by economic historians. However, they have not paid due attention to the decisive importance of the immigrants presence in the English scientific scenario. The above mentioned connection is usually attributed do an alleged English scientific culture, which is said to have started its development in England since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The article argues that it was on account of the presence of German and Scottish men of science that England became able to develop, only in the nineteenth century, the scientific culture consistent with its unparalleled economic development. In this sense, the article stresses especially the importance of German chemist Justus von Liebig and Scottish educational reformer Henry Brougham.