Nineteenth-century scientists rewrote the nation’s best-selling almanacs, replacing astrological weather predictions with data from barometers and thermometers. This project examines that clash between established folk wisdom and the emerging science of meteorology. The research addresses a gap in understanding how scientists used a mass-market medium—the almanac—to build public trust in weather forecasting. At a time when astrological almanacs outsold scientific ones, meteorologists had to win credibility not just through accuracy but through communication. The project draws on extensive archives at the Royal Society and elsewhere to reconstruct the editorial decisions, data-gathering methods, and public responses behind two key almanacs: the *British Almanac* (1828–1914) and the *Illustrated London Almanack* (1845–95). This is fundamental historical research. It will not directly improve modern weather apps or climate models. But by showing how scientists once navigated public scepticism and misinformation through a powerful communication medium, the study offers a reference point for today’s science communicators and sociologists grappling with similar challenges around climate science and public trust.
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The current climate crisis has raised pressing questions concerning the public authority and credibility of science, the persistence of misinformation, and the role of new media. This project throws that cluster of questions into historical relief, taking a “long view” of public scepticism concerning atmospheric sciences. In particular, it focuses on the way in which scientists sought to reconfigure one of the nineteenth century’s most successful media, the almanac, replacing astrological lore with the latest meteorological science. By examining this history for the first time, the project will reveal the role of scientists’ interaction with a powerful communication medium in the battle to establish the controversial new science of weather prediction, shedding light on issues of contemporary as well as historical relevance. The project builds on a uniquely strong research focus at the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds, and at the Royal Society of London, relating to science in nineteenth-century periodicals in combination with the history of meteorology. It is also built on an exceptional set of archival resources relating to the behind-the-scenes processes by which scientists sought to engage the public. The research will focus especially on two ground-breaking almanacs – the British Almanac (1828–1914) and the Illustrated London Almanack (1845–95) – in which scientists were heavily involved, and for which extensive scientific archives survive, notably at the Royal Society but also at other institutions. Focusing on the key period of innovation between the 1820s and the 1860s, the project will seek to understand the issues involved in securing authority for Victorian scientific weather prediction in the context of the previously little-studied astrological almanacs and examining the significance of their international circulation. The research will involve analysing the editorial and data-gathering processes, the almanacs themselves (including through digital techniques), but also the public response. The resulting study will have wide relevance for historians of science and of periodicals but will also offer an important reference point for contemporary science communicators and sociologists.
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