Speculative metaphysics and the culture of ideas in early Victorian Britain: the case of Francis Foster Barham

Abstract

This article focuses on the social and intellectual world of Francis Foster Barham (1808–1871) from the late 1830s to the mid-1850s. Barham was a prolific polymathic writer and lecturer whose oeuvre ranged from the classics to theology to esotericism, contemporary drama and literature. Based on wide reading and his interactions with fellow transcendentalists and idealists, he elaborated his own philosophy, ‘syncretism’, a universalising system of thought with applications to political, religious and social reform. This article uses the example of Barham, his philosophical speculations, and the small groups with which he was affiliated in London and the West Country, to illuminate the trajectory of a humanistic discourse—in this case speculative metaphysical philosophy—in the life of relatively obscure people who, outside of academic and scholarly circles, interpreted ‘high’ ideas in their own way. The article suggests that there is much more to be done to understand fully the cultural and intellectual history of the humanities in modern Britain, especially in the thought and experience of lesser-known people and associations. Recovering the history of ideas through such figures, their networks, and their own terminologies can point the way to fresh understandings of the history, nature and processes of intellectual development, including its ‘freaks’ and dead-ends, as well as its manifestation in and as culture.