Preaching at the British Association for the Advancement of Science: sermons, secularization and the rhetoric of conflict in the 1870s CIARAN TOAL* Abstract. Much attention has been given to the science–religion controversies attached to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, from the infamous 1860 Huxley–Wilberforce debate at Oxford to John Tyndall’s 1874 ‘Belfast Address’. Despite this, almost no attention has been given to the vast homiletic literature preached during the British Association meetings throughout the nineteenth century. During an association meeting the surrounding churches and halls were packed with men of science, as local and visiting preachers sermonized on the relationship between science and religion. These sermons are revealing, particularly in the 1870s when the ‘conflict thesis’ gained momen- tum. In this context, this paper analyses the rhetoric of conflict in the sermons preached during the meetings of the association, exploring how science–religion conflict was framed and understood through time. Moreover, it is argued that attention to the geography of the Sunday activities of the British Association provides insight into the complex dynamic of nineteenth-century secularization. At the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) at York in 1831, the president, the Reverend W.V. Harcourt, proclaimed that the discussion of ‘religious and political topics’ was forbidden; nothing, it was suggested, would be ‘more destructive’ to the fledgling association than their intro- duction. 1 However, prohibiting the discussion of religious topics from the association had no effect beyond the confines of official functions. And, from the earliest meet- ings of the British Association, it became customary for local and visiting preachers and men of science to sermonize on science, religion and the association in the churches and halls of the host town or city around the time of the visit. There was no official British Association sermon, and the association did not endorse the range of Sunday activities that surrounded it. But still, the Sunday of the British Association meeting – when all official business was suspended and members were free to engage in various acts of worship – is an indelible part of the history of the association. * School of Geography, Archaeology and Paleoecology, Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN. Email: ctoal08@qub.ac.uk. I am grateful to Dr Diarmid Finnegan and Professor David Livingstone for their kind comments and guidance on drafts of this paper. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for their valuable help and suggestions in strengthening this argument. The support of Florence Gray and the staff of the Inter-library Loans department of the McClay Library, Queen’s University, has been invaluable. 1 Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 229. BJHS, Page 1 of 21. © British Society for the History of Science 2011 doi:10.1017/S0007087411000598