Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

255: 59: 247: 145: 406:, a contemporary art gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga, has published a series of free print and PDF broadsheets since 2018, which adopt the SDUK moniker. These publications reflect on contemporary issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences by questioning the nature of “useful knowledge,” in dialogue with the history of the SDUK. 134:

Few persons are aware that the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge have done, and are still doing, more to ruin the Book trade than all the change of times, the want of money, the weight of taxes, and even the law of Libel have accomplished; yet they – a committee of Noblemen and pretended

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Although sales of these publications may have been more among the middle- than the working-classes, the Society had a significant role in pioneering "the idea of cheap, improving publications, freely and easily available, well produced and distributed on a scale hitherto unknown," and became iconic

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SDUK publications were intended for the working class and the middle class, as an antidote to the more radical output of the pauper presses. The Society set out to achieve this by acting as an intermediary between authors and publishers by launching several series of publications. Its printers

399:; while many communities in North America have established Societies for Learning in Retirement which are partially modelled along the same lines with the goal of disseminating knowledge amongst people who, although retired, are still interested in continuing to learn. 84:, selling at least 19 editions. In April 1825 Brougham set about trying to found a society to produce cheap educational books, although it was not until November 1826 that the SDUK was formally founded. One of those present at the first meeting was the philosopher 217:(1832–1845), a lavishly illustrated weekly that achieved unprecedented success, with sales in excess of 200,000 copies in the first year. The scope and scale of the Society's activities expanded further over the following decade, and included the production of a 449:

The archives of the Society are held by University College London, having been deposited by the Society after it closed in 1848. The archive spans 200 volumes and 121 boxes. It includes minutes, financial records, unpublished manuscripts, and correspondence.

384:, published by Oxford University Press as a World's Classic in 1980, P. D. Edwards writes that Trollope's character, Lord Boanerges, "may have been modelled in some respects on Lord Brougham.... founder of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge". 205:, sold over 33,000 copies by the end of 1829. Despite the initial success of the series, however, it soon became clear that it was too demanding for many readers, and the Society began to offer more varied and attractive publications, starting with the 1097: 50:. It was a largely Whig organisation, and published inexpensive texts intended to adapt scientific and similarly high-minded material for the rapidly-expanding reading public over twenty years until it was disbanded in 1846. 231:". The publisher Charles Knight bears much of the credit for the success that SDUK publications had; he engaged in extensive promotional campaigns, and worked to improve the readability of the sometimes abstruse material. 109:. The SDUK commissioned work and dealt with the printers, and finally distributed the publications; profits were used to continue the Society's work. By using the new technologies of mass production, such as 1010:

Janet Percival, 'The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1826–1848: A handlist of the Society's correspondence and papers', The Library of University College London, Occasional Papers, No 5 1978,

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The Society's continuing commitment to the high intellectual standards with which it was conceived probably contributed to its ultimate decline, as subscribers and sale of publications fell away. The

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Henry Brougham considered that mass education was an essential prerequisite for political reform. In October 1824 he contributed an article on "scientific education of the people" to the Whig

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culture, it is not entirely uncommon to refer to the Society itself and/or its better-known publications in an attempt to lend Victorian verisimilitude. The in-house publishing organ of the

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as the 'Steam Intellect Society': a vicarage is almost set on fire by a "cook taking it into her head to study hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society".

194:, such works met a demand for "general concepts and simple laws", and in the process helped establish the authority of professional science and specialised scientific disciplines. 1180: 996:

Thomas Palmelund Johansen. 'The World Wide Web of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge: On the Global Circulation of Broughamite Educational Literature, 1826–1848,'

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Patriots – are permitted to go on in their unfeeling, nay, considering the hundreds of thousands engaged in the Book trade, we may add brutal, career, without interruption.

58: 1185: 43: 76:, in which he argued that popular education would be greatly enhanced by the encouragement of cheap publications to complement the numerous recently founded provincial 254: 1137: 841: 460:. The papers consist primarily of Brougham's incoming correspondence, totalling around 50,000 items, and material relating to his legal and political career. 246: 1146: 545: 457: 728: 792:

Helen R. Deese; Guy R. Woodall (1986). "A Calendar of Lectures Presented by the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1829–1847)".

1175: 148:"A Box of Useful Knowledge" (1832), artist unknown. The image portrays Brougham as Lord Chancellor, with SDUK and other publications inside. 160:

and published fortnightly, its books focused on scientific topics. Like many other works in the new genre of popular science—such as the

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Monica C Grobel, 'The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1826-1846' (Unpublished MA diss., 4 vols, London University, 1933).

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cites the Society in his essay "Walking" in which he jestingly proposes a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance.

1165: 1117: 924: 873: 433: 179: 117:, the Society and its printers kept costs low and were able to sell the books at much cheaper prices than was usual. 46:, with the object of publishing information to people who were unable to obtain a formal education or who preferred 1108: 895: 106: 1121: 1112: 1077: 816:"The American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is Founded in New York : History of Information" 453: 93: 962:

Ian J. Barrow, 'India for the Working Classes: The Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,'

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Practical Observations upon the Education of the People Addressed to the Working Classes and Their Employers

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Practical Observations upon the Education of the People Addressed to the Working Classes and Their Employers

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Jonathan R. Topham, ‘Science and Popular Education in the 1830s: The Role of the Bridgewater Treatises’,

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Richard Johnson, '"Really Useful Knowledge:" Radical Education and Working-Class Culture 1790–1848.' In

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Bennett, Scott (1982). 'Revolutions in Thought: Serial Publication and the Mass Market for Reading.' In

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Mead T. Cain, 'The Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge: A Publishing History',

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