Chris Herde: The politics of German Science

While the contribution of German science to Australia in the 19th century has been investigated, the political influences on the scientists remains unexamined. The numbers of German men and women engaged in scientific pursuits in the colonies was out of proportion with the general Teutonic population. This paper argues that this can be linked to the nature of German liberalism, which developed at a different pace and with a different emphasis than English liberalism. This paper will look at the liberal ideology of two German men of science- Hermann Beckler and Richard Semon- who wrote extensively about their work in Queensland and other colonies during the 1850-60s and ‘90s respectively. I will argue two major influences on German liberalism- Romanticism and Darwinism- can be seen in their lives and observations while in Australia