Edward Sabine - Scientific Adviser To The Admiralty

Scientific Adviser To The Admiralty

On the abolition of the Board of Longitude in 1828, it was arranged that three scientific advisers to the Admiralty should be nominated from the council of the Royal Society. Sabine, Michael Faraday, and Thomas Young were chosen. Sabine's appointment was violently attacked by Charles Babbage, the father of the computer, (largely on account of his associations with the Royal Society, whose scientific credentials Babbage did not recognise) in a pamphlet entitled Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of its Causes. Sabine, however, refused to be drawn into the controversy.