Perhaps a simple but quite real inherent fear of the Anglican church was a motive in that.

But the timeline is roughly the same, with this group perhaps predating the Theosophical society by a decade or so. So obviously they were all peers and sharing information and ideas somewhere. It would be inappropriate to suggest they were ignorant of each others' 'work' or writings. Theosophy is a combination of the words theology and philosophy, essentially giving us the same innate meaning as 'agnostic' and greatly influencing liberal movements in the chuch as well. Considering that they were contemporaries, lack of mention of each other by either group is more likely to be viewed as silent approval rather than discord.

I read that Thomas Huxley studied with a mesmerist early on. Aldous Huxley, his grandson, was openly influenced by the Theosophical Society so the relationships obviously existed for him, he seems even to be have been born bred and raised within that frame of ideas so the question literally begs.

Also since no hard evidence of evolution actually exists to permit one to actually say 'scientists were convinced of the evidence', all one can truly say is, they were convinced by the narrative, by the ideas, eg;theories, set forth in certain eloquent ways.