In this paper, we complement a previous study of the UK natural science elite, as
represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, with a comparable study of the humanities
and social sciences elites, as represented by Fellows of the British Academy. We seek
to establish how far similarities and differences exist in the social composition of these
three academic elites and in the routes that their members have followed into elite
positions. We are also concerned with the consequences of the humanities and social
sciences elites being brought together in the British Academy, in contrast with the
situation in most other countries where elite natural and social scientists are located
in the same academy. We pursue these issues in the context of C. P. Snow’s discussion
of the social underlay of the cultural disjunction that he saw between the natural
sciences and the humanities, while also considering how the social sciences fit in. We
find that there is support for Snow’s position at the time of his writing. However, a
notable development in more recent years is that the growing social sciences elite is
moving in its social composition away from the humanities elite and closer to the
natural science elite. This is primarily due to changes in the social origins and education
of Fellows in those sections of the British Academy that are on the borderline between
the social and the natural sciences. A widening difference thus arises with Fellows in
the humanities sections most representative of Snow’s ‘traditional culture’.
