Encouragements and constraints in the development of experimental animal behaviour studies in Great Britain since the late nineteenth century

• Main Author: Wilson, David Andrew Huddleston
• Published: University of Leicester 1998
• Subjects: 156
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.696534

This thesis sets out to identify and explain the encouragements and constraints (both 'internal' academic, and 'external' institutional, political, legislative and social) bearing upon the progress of British scientific studies of animal behaviour between the late nineteenth century, when Great Britain held a dominant position resulting from the influence of Darwinian theories, and the 1970s, when, internationally, animal behaviour studies reflected a wide range of methods and applications. The analysis of these influences is supported by an accompanying consideration of the nature of the work that resulted. Although a focus is held on British contexts, the early loss of the lead in the subject has required an investigation of contrasting conditions encouraging its ensuing development especially in the United States of America, where the favourable institutional and cultural environment help to explain why its absence in the United Kingdom restricted development there. The later interactions of laboratory animal psychology and ethology, the continuing role of key figures (a significant proportion of whom in the first quarter of this century were women) including their backgrounds, interests and achievements, together with political attitudes to science, organized professional activity, and the policies of individual academic establishments, bring the study through later decades to the point of further influences, such as that concerning the expansion of the universities, international collaboration in the development of new theories, and the strengthened awareness of ethical cost in experiment. Original surveys reveal the pattern of output in terms of named investigators, work bases, subject areas and animals used, from the main specialist British journals between 1938 and 1959; the principal investigators of the 1960s, with an assessment of their work; and all known published work undertaken in Britain in the 1970s, including full details of two specimen years, and of the activities of the decade's more productive workers.