1. Dionysius Lardner was a 19th century Irish scientist and author who was hugely influential in his time but is now largely forgotten. 2. He pioneered the use of mathematics in economics and helped popularize science through his books and lectures. Some of his early predictions about technology like steamships and trains were later proven wrong. 3. Lardner's personal life was scandalous, involving divorce and lawsuits over an affair. He lectured widely in Britain and America, becoming very wealthy but was rejected by the scientific community after his predictions were disproven.

1. 1
Anna Martin, Project Manager
Villain of Steam Project
anna@marlinspikepublishing.co.uk

2. Dionysius Lardner overview
World famous in his day
His books and lectures inspired many including Darwin and
Jevons to take up science as a career
Involved in a very famous scandal and his name became a taboo
Forgotten today except for half remembered quotes:
“A successful steam boat passage across the Atlantic was
about as likely as
a man walking on the moon”, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,
1999
“If a train travelled as sixty miles an hour all the passengers
would be asphyxiated” (i.e. suffocate).

3. Marlborough Street, Dublin
Born Dublin c.1793
Son of a Marlborough
Street Whig lawyer
Decided age 19 to seek a
career as a TCD professor

4. Educated at Trinity College Dublin

5. TCD students - The Royal Dunsink Observatory
Frances
Bacon
William
Petty
The importance of
science to a
successful society
The importance of
scientific
education
The importance of
scientific
publication
The importance of
systematic
experiment
Woodhouse
Babbage
John Brinkley
Bartholomew
Lloyd
The value of
Analytical calculus

6. Babbage, Hershel,
Whewell and
Cambridge Analyticals
Lardner and
Dublin Analyticals
Newton
Fluxions (Dot
Notation)
(Arthur) Brown
(St Johns,
Cambridge)
(Philip ?)Hudson
Supported the
value of Newton’s
Fluxions
Leibnitz
d’Alembert,
Euler
Lagrange and
Laplace
Taught the value of
Analytical calculus
(Algebreic
notation)
Rowan Hamilton
Darwin
Rowan Hamilton
Mallet, Jevons
Re-wrote the
textbooks and
syllabus (Dublin
1813, Cambridge
1817)
Re-wrote science

8. Babbage, Hershel,
Whewell and
Cambridge Analyticals
Lardner and
Dublin Analyticals
Newton
Fluxions (Dot
Notation)
(Arthur) Brown
(St Johns,
Cambridge)
(Philip?)Hudson
Supported the
value of Newton’s
Fluxions
Leibnitz
d’Alembert,
Euler
Lagrange and
Laplace
Taught the value of
Analytical calculus
(Algebreic
notation)
Rowan Hamilton
Darwin
Rowan Hamilton
Mallet, Jevons
Re-wrote the
textbooks and
syllabus (Dublin
1813, Cambridge
1817)
Re-wrote science

9. Dionysius Lardner by Daniel Maclise
William Rowan Hamilton trained using textbooks
Goes on to apply Analytical calculus to invent Quaternions
Highly regarded by economists for his late masterwork Railway
Economy mentioned in Das Kapital
First use of a graph in an economics book

11. Lardner suggests using mathematics in economics
“…I have of late been devoting a small portion of time to a science
as new … to me as it is interesting. I mean Political Economy. I
am quite fascinated with it and cannot persuade myself that it is
not susceptible of all the rigor of mathematical reasoning. Nay I
see no positive reason why the language and operations of
analysis should not be applied to it.”
Lardner to Babbage, TCD, April 8, 1826 Babbage
Correspondence British Library MsADd37183, f.274
Babbage’s On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers,
was published in 1835 .

12. Cambridge Analyticals
Babbage, Hershel,
Whewell and (?)
Lardner
Cournot
Ellet and
Dupuit
Idea of using
complicated
mathematics in
economics
Marginal
Untilitarians
Marx
Lardner’s Railway
Economy
Re-wrote
economicsJevons
Idea of price
differentiation
Idea of changing
figures into a
graph
Idea of allowing
for
maintenance
Whewell
Group

13. Henry Brougham promotes education
Brougham
+
Fear of revolution
=
Educational reforms
Politicians and ‘scientists’ become partners
Brougham’s 1825 pamphlet starts a nationwide craze
for mechanics’ institutes and the diffusion of useful
knowledge
The funding of the London University and the SDUK

14. Foundation of the University of London

15. The rise of cheap literature
Steam Printing
invented
Economies of
scale
Mass production
A rise in demand
and literacy

16. Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia
Financed with
Longman and
John Taylor
Edited by Lardner
The six shillings
sciences
Monthly
collectible
volumes built into
libraries
Publihsed by
authoritative
writers

17. Augstus De Morgan
Sir Walter Scott
Mary Shelly
John Hershel
Sir Thomas Moore
Robert Southey

18. Passion for new inventions
Futurologist
Lecture tour in Northern
England Scientific and Literary
societies
Climax at the Royal Institution,
where Ada Lovelace attended
and was inspired
Article in the Edinburgh Review
inspires real life Scheutz
calculating Engine

19. Involvement in railway research and controversy
Lectures and book on the steam
engine
Interested in experiments with speed
and wind resistance
Expert witness in the Atmospheric
railway, Box Hill and Broad Gauge
controversies
Tried to guess the effects of air in
tunnels
Tried to guess whether steam ships
could cross the Atlantic

24. Successful crossing of
the Atlantic turns
Lardner into a laughing
stock

25. Much in demand showing
the aristocracy the scientific
sights

26. Lardner’s wife left him when he was a
grinder
He had an affair with his friend George
Darley’s sister Mary Bourciquot and
fathered Dion Boucicault (Dionysius Lardner
Boucicault)

27. Can you spot:
Lardner
(centre stage)
Lady
Blessington,
Dickens,
Bulwer Lytton,
Disraeli
Gets divorced,
Seeks new
wife/life?

28. Runs away with the
Mary, the wife of
Captain Heavisides
and daughter of
Colonel Spicer.
Dear John letter
Punch up in a Calais
hotel
Sued for £13,000
damages

29. Travel incognito to
America
Unmasked
Rejection by the
international
scientific community

30. Lectures in theatres
and opera houses to
a quarter of the
population of
America
Makes $40,000
Involved in a fire

31. It has nice pictures It is Cheap
It is written by himself.
The book goes global and inspires readers to
take up science
Horace Greeley
loves the lectures
The New York Tribune writes up
all his articles and turns them
into a book, later reworked as “Dr
Lardner’s Museum of Science and
Art’.

37. Full list of references,
sources and picture credits
are given in Villain of Steam.