The London evening courses of Benjamin Martin and James Ferguson,eighteenth-century lecturers on experimental philosophy

A study of some London newspapers of the early 1770s has shown that Martin and Ferguson gave continuous courses of evening lectures during the winter, in direct competition with each other. In this paper the coverage of their courses is derived from their advertisements, and related to their publications and other activities. In some subjects, such as Electricity, Hydrostatics, and Air-pump Experiments, there was close correspondence between the courses, but others reflected the lecturers' primary interests: for Martin, Optics, and for Ferguson, Mechanics and Astronomy.