page_title: Science and technology in Spain
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Science and technology in Spain / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: Español: Excavación en Minas de Riotinto, 1873
context_page_description: The presence of science and technology in Spain dates back to Spain's prehistoric period. It is taken to include firstly an account of the historical development of these fields of study, and secondly a description of the current institutional and regulatory framework for continuing this development into the future.
context_section_description: The Peninsular War, better known in Spain as the War for Spanish Independence, was truly a disaster for Spanish science and technology, which in some fields had achieved a leading position. Spanish science had contributed to the discovery of two – platinum and tungsten – of the 21 chemical elements identified in the 18th century and then to that of vanadium in 1801; but played no part in the discovery of another 50 elements during the rest of the 19th century. Of greater importance even than the systematic destruction of infrastructure by both French and British armies, such as the textile industry of Béjar or the porcelain manufacture of Buen Retiro in Madrid, was the "brain drain" resulting from the exiling in turn of Francophiles and Liberals. The closure of universities – whose reform, aimed at by proponents of the Enlightenment, had proved just as impossible as any other reform that threatened to disturb the structural underpinnings of the ancien régime – was offset only by the opening in 1830 of a bullfighting school in Seville headed by Pedro Romero.
  At any rate, the gathering together of funds scattered during the sackings allowed the opening of the Prado Museum in Madrid, in the building originally intended as the base for the Royal Office for Science, the National Library, and other academic institutions. \ Gradually, the university sector was renewed: one major act was the move of the former University of Alcalá to Madrid as the Universidad Central. Primary and secondary education were developed as the foundation of a far-reaching educational programme (es:Ley Moyano), which however was not implemented effectively or widely until the Second Republic of 1931–36.
  The economy of the 19th-century "liberal revolution" was hampered by the Carlist Wars and by the confiscation of church property. These factors severely held back an insecure process of industrialisation that had begun much earlier, as with textiles in Barcelona, or steel making in Málaga. The liberal programmes, especially those of the progresistas (in power 1854–56 and 1868–74), but also to a lesser extent of the moderados, included the promotion of railway-building and mining, opening Spain to foreign investment from France, Belgium and Britain. However, the protectionism of the end of the century meant closure of the economy to the outside world. Economic thinking during these periods reflected opposing demands: those of agrarian interests (the landowning oligarchy of Castile and Andalusia) and those of industrial interests (the bourgeoisie of the Catalan textile trade).
  Awareness of having fallen behind was growing all the time, especially in the liberal élites, among whom were spreading strongly expressed slogans deriving from the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition.
  If, overlooking those centuries during which the Arab civilisation made Spain the first country in the world as regards science, we focus only on the modern era, from the fifteenth century onward, you will well understand that this is not, and cannot be, the history of science in Spain, because a people without science can hardly have a scientific history. The flawed account you have heard is an historical summary of mathematical science, yes, but in Italy, France, England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland...; it is not the history of science here, where there was only the whip, iron, blood, prayers, braziers and smoke.
  — José de Echegaray (1866), Speech on admission to the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences
  Such views were condemned in their turn as anti-Spanish propaganda, drawing on the studies of Julián Juderías. His 1914 work "The 'black legend' and historical truth" claimed that a wide range of Spanish scientists had been active during the Spanish Golden Age.  His list can be found in a footnote to the Spanish Wikipedia article.
  The "polemic of Spanish science", in which the reactionary thought of Menéndez and others was opposed by the "krausista" followers of the German philosopher Krause, developed following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1875. Later, as reaction t
caption: Machinery from the Rio Tinto mines,  1873.
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