21 April 2026, 4pm
CHSTM Seminar Room: Simon 2.57 [maps and travel]
Online Access tbc.

Dr Sarah Qidway, University of York

Aligarh’s Scientific Society (est. 1864)

Abstract

On 9 January 1864, the Scientific Society held its inaugural meeting in Ghazipur, India. Founded by Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the Society aimed to make scientific and historical knowledge accessible to Indian readers through the translation of English-language texts into Urdu. In his opening address, Sayyid Ahmad identified three priority fields: history, natural philosophy, and political economy. More than one hundred European and Indian members joined the Society at its first meeting.

Although translation lay at the core of the Society’s founding vision, its activities rapidly expanded. Within its first year, members raised funds to establish a dedicated institute for meetings and scientific instruments; by 1866, the Society had inaugurated a programme of public lectures and begun publishing a journal. These developments reveal the Scientific Society not merely as a translation project, but as an ambitious institutional experiment in the organization, circulation, and public performance of scientific knowledge.

This paper draws on a chapter from my forthcoming monograph to situate the Scientific Society within the broader landscape of educational reform in British India. The Scientific Society offers a case study in how science, vernacular language, and associational life were mobilized to negotiate authority, reform, and knowledge dissemination in the late colonial period.

Sarah Qidwai is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of York. She is a historian of science and religion working on transnational and local perspectives of various scientific disciplines during the long nineteenth century. Her research specialties and teaching interests include the history of science and religion, British Imperialism in the long nineteenth century, science and colonialism, South Asian studies, the relationship of science and Islam, and the history of evolutionary biology.

She completed her MA and PhD at the University of Toronto’s Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST). She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Germany at the University of Regensburg (Wissenschaftsgeschichte).

All welcome!

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