Emily Whittingham

Thesis

The World of the Infinitely Small: Sizing up the microscope in Georgian England

Supervisors: Mark Jenner and Kevin Killeen

Research

This project examines how the ability to view the invisible or subvisible world using the microscope influenced the construction of scientific and medical knowledge between 1660 and 1830. Specifically, it aims to contradict the historiographical narrative that microscopy stagnated in the eighteenth century, devolving from a scientific enterprise into an amateur hobby. It will argue instead for the value of illusion, imagery, and play in shaping the microscope’s contribution to science and pedagogy, emphasising the importance of frivolity and amusement in the construction and dissemination of natural knowledge.

The project explores four main research themes. The first considers the role of light and illumination in the microscope’s construction of natural knowledge to examine the intersection between spectacle and science in Georgian England. The second foregrounds the agency of microscopic specimens to evaluate the tension between polite and impolite research practices, engaging with scholarship on the categorisation of waste and vermin. The third emphasises the importance of entertainment, leisure, and play as a method of scientific investigation by considering the microscope’s relationship with children and toys. The final theme examines the microscope’s impact on the production of medical knowledge by exploring how contemporaries used the instrument to investigate the mechanics of life and death.

The project brings together a range of manuscript and printed texts, including observation notebooks, scientific publications, and creative outputs like poetry and prose. It also engages with visual sources like microscopic illustrations and satirical prints. Finally, it considers the material culture of microscopy by examining the instruments and related accessories themselves.

Before starting my PhD, I read History at the University of Cambridge (BA Hons) and completed an MA with distinction in Medical Humanities at the University of York. My current research is funded by WRoCAH through the AHRC.

Papers and publications

Previous Conferences

• ‘The “World of the Infinitely Small”: Microscopic Boundaries between Sickness and Health in Early Modern England’, Boundaries in the Long Seventeenth Century, University of York (January 2025).
• ‘Newes from the Dead: Poetic Responses to the Case of Anne Greene’, Feathers: Collaborative and Mediated Authorship in Early Modern English Manuscripts, Leiden University (May 2025); Illuminating Nature: IMEMS 19th Annual Conference, Durham University (July 2025).
• ‘“This appears to be quite a new discovery, unknown to any naturalist”:  Microscopy and the Illumination of Natural Knowledge in Georgian England’, A Sense of Nature: SHNH International Summer Meeting, University of Glasgow (June 2023); Façades: BSECS Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference, Bath Spa University (July 2025); Trans/Formations: Congress of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Regina (October 2025).
• ‘“Pins, corks, nippers, bottles, hand microscopes &c. Nothing escapes us”: Sizing up the microscope in eighteenth-century England’, Autumn PGR Conference, University of York (September 2025).

Upcoming Conference 

• ‘Big ideas’ and ‘small phenomena’ in the material culture of science and medicine in
  Georgian England’, Panel in collaboration with Anya Griffiths and Rachel Feldberg at Big and
  Small: BSECS Annual Conference, University of Oxford (January 2026).
• ‘Ink blots, full stops, and exclamation points: Punctuating the poetics of microscopy in the
  work of Henry Baker’, Poetry and Science, Renaissance to Enlightenment, University of York
  (June 2026).