William Cheselden was born in Somerby, Leicestershire, in 1688. He probably attended the free grammar school in Leicester. In 1703 Cheselden became apprenticed for 7 years with James Ferne, surgeon in London. He also studied anatomy under William Cowper. He completed his apprenticeship, and passed the final examination of the Barber-Surgeons' Company in 1711. He started a successful course of thirty-five lectures on anatomy, comparative anatomy, and animal economy (physiology), combined with indications for surgical operations, publishing the syllabus in 1711. He was appointed assistant surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital in 1718, and was made a principal surgeon within a year, enabling him to develop his own operative techniques, especially for bladder stone extraction. He was also appointed surgeon for the stone at the Westminster Infirmary and St George's Hospital. His methods had a good record of success. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society in 1711. His reports in the Transactions of the Royal Society included an examination of a skeleton in a Roman Urn at St Albans in 1712, and the restoration of sight in a thirteen year old boy in 1728. Cheselsden, as well as being known for successful lithotomies, was also well known as an eye surgeon. He was appointed surgeon to Queen Caroline in 1727. He resigned his hospital appointments in 1737, to take up the post of resident surgeon in the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. Cheselden was involved in the negotiations towards the separation of surgeons from barbers. He was admitted to the court of assistants of the Barber-Surgeon's Company in 1739, he became an examiner in surgery and by 1744 was renter warden. In 1745 the Company of Surgeons was established with John Ranby as master and Cheselden as senior warden. He died in 1752.
Richard Wilson Brown of Bath, attained the MRCS in 1811, and the FRCS in 1843. He was one of the original 300 members admitted to the Fellowship in 1843. He was surgeon to the Bath United Hospital. He died in 1860.
John Flint South was born in 1797. He was educated by Rev Samuel Hemming DD, at Hampton, Middlesex, in 1805-1813. He was apprenticed as an articled pupil to Henry Cline the younger, a Surgeon at the St Thomas' Hospital, in 1814. He attended Sir Astley Cooper's lectures on anatomy. He was admitted MRCS in 1819. He became Prosector to the Lecturers on Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital, and was appointed Conservator of the Museum and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy, in 1820. He was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy jointly with Bransby Cooper in 1823, and on the retirement of Sir Astley Cooper he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1825 in preference to Bransby Cooper, an event which brought to a head disagreements between the two Borough Hospitals and led to the separation of the Medical Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in 1834, and full Surgeon in 1841. He resigned this post in 1863, having retired from the lectureship of surgery in 1860. At the Royal College of Surgeons, South was a Member of the Council from 1841-1873. He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1844; he was Professor of Human Anatomy from 1845-1847; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1849-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1859; and a Member of the Dental Board from 1864-1868. He served as Vice-President during the years 1849, 1850, 1858, and 1859, and was elected President in 1851 and 1860. As Vice-President in 1859 he marked his year of office by getting the body of John Hunter re-buried in Westminster Abbey, and wrote the inscription for his monument. South died in 1882.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Philip Syng Physick was born in 1768. He was an American physician, who mainly studied in Philadelphia, but was also a pupil of John Hunter whilst in London. He became known as 'The Father of American Surgery.' He died in 1837.
Jacques Vivier was probably a professional scribe working in Paris at the end of the 16th century. No further biographical information is currently available.
Pierre Seguin was born in 1566. He was a doctor in Paris; Professor of Surgery at the College Royal de France, 1594-1599; Professor of Medicine, 1599-1618 and 1623-1630; surgeon to King Louis XIII; and Principal Physician to the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria. He died in 1648.
Guy de Chauliac, a French surgeon, also known as Guido de Cauliaco, was one of the most famous surgical writers of the middle ages. At Avignon, he was physician to Pope Clement VI as well as two further popes. His major work Chirurgia magna (1363) was used as a manual by physicians for three centuries.
Lyon Playfair was born in Bengal, India, in 1818. He was sent from India to St Andrews to be raised by an aunt, in 1820. His mother joined him, but he did not see his father until he was 22 years old. He was educated at the parish school, a grammar school and then entered the University of St Andrews in 1832. He was sent to train as a merchant in Glasgow with an uncle, but his medical ambitions prevailed. He enrolled at Anderson's University and attended the chemistry classes of Thomas Graham. He continued his medical studies at Edinburgh University, and then University College, London. Here he became laboratory assistant to Thomas Graham. Playfair studied with the eminent organic chemist, Justus von Liebig, in 1839. His discoveries of a new fatty acid in the butter of nutmeg, and a new crystalline substance in cloves gave him an excellent reputation with Liebig. Playfair became honorary Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Manchester. He was a member of the Royal Commission on sanitation, and received a grant to study the efficiency of charcoal iron furnaces. He moved to London in 1845, becoming chemist to the Geological Survey, and worked on various research assignments for the Crown and the government, including trying to combat a series cholera epidemics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1848. He was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the new government-run School of Mines, in 1851. He was appointed Secretary for Science in the new Department of Science and Art (DSA), in 1853. He accepted the Presidency of the Chemical Society, and also took up the Professorship of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, in 1858. He chaired a Royal Commission on the restrictions on herring fishing in 1862-1863, and then the cattle plague. He lobbyed for an investigation of the outcome of the Paris Universal Exhibition, in 1867. He presided over a commission looking into the administration of the civil service, which reported in 1875. At this time he was also involved in heated parliamentary debates on vivisection. He was appointed by William Gladstone as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways in 1880. The issue of Irish Home Rule dominated this administration. He found he had a lack of support and resigned in 1882. In 1883 he was made KCB, and spent some years on the back benches. He served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1885. He published his principal public addresses in Subjects of Social Welfare, 1889. Playfair was created Baron Playfair of St Andrews in 1892, whereupon he left the Commons and was made lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. He was appointed as GCB in 1895. He proposed the creation of a new museum at South Kensington in 1897, proposing the title 'Victorian Museum' in honour of the Queen's jubilee. He did not live to see the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899. He died in 1898.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
John Hunter was born in East Kilbride, in 1728. He received little formal education. He moved to London in 1748, with his elder brother William Hunter (1718-1783) who was a midwife and physician, and a private lecturer in surgery and anatomy. Initially John made dissections and prepared specimens for William's lectures, and he started attending lectures in 1749. He became a surgeon-pupil at St George's Hospital in 1754, and started to give lectures for William. By 1750 John was so proficient at dissection that he was able to make the first set of preparations for his brother's comprehensive study of pregnancy, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, published in 1774. John was commissioned as an army surgeon in 1761, and joined the British military expedition to Belle Île, off the northern coast of France. He was posted to Portugal in 1762. While serving with the army he laid the foundations for future work by studying the regeneration of the tails of lizards. He also carried out researches on the treatment of venereal disease and gunshot wounds. On his return to London he taught practical anatomy and operative surgery, and worked with the dentist James Spence. The latter resulted in two major publications: The Natural History of Human Teeth (1771) and A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth (1778) which included important accounts of the transplantation of teeth in people, as well as the more famous experiment of the transplantation of a human tooth into a cock's comb. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767 and became a Member of the Company of Surgeons in 1768. He was appointed surgeon at St George's Hospital. He gave lectures in anatomy at the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1769-1770. Shortly afterwards he started to lecture in surgery to his pupils from St George's Hospital. In 1775 Hunter began to advertise a course of lectures on 'The Principles and Practice of Surgery', and he continued to stage these each year until his death. His surgical achievements were recognised by his appointment as Surgeon-extraordinary to George III and as Croonian lecturer at the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society and received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the Court of Assistants of the Company of Surgeons in 1789. Hunter had been appointed Assistant Surgeon-General to the armed forces in 1785, and Surgeon-General and Inspector General of Regimental Hospitals in 1790. He drew up a scheme for training army medical staff which he successfully put into practice. Hunter was also one of the first vice-presidents of the London Veterinary College, established in 1791. He died in 1793.
William Hunter was born in Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1718. Intended for the church, he attended the University of Glasgow from 1731-1736 where he was exposed to the philosophical teachings of Francis Hutcheson which turned him against the rigid dogmas of Presbyterian theology. An acquaintance with the physician William Cullen (1710-1790) interested him in the medical profession, and he studied with Cullen for three years. Eager to widen his experience, he went to London in 1741 where he worked as an assistant to William Smellie MD (1697-1763) and then from 1741-1742 with James Douglas, both of whom fostered his interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. Between 1741-1749 he was tutor to William George Douglas. In 1750 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow. In 1749 he was appointed as a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, England, before transferring for a brief time to the British Lying-in Hospital. He was particularly interested in obstetrics and in 1762 was called to attend Queen Charlotte on the birth of her first child. Two years later, he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte and rapidly became the most sought after physician in London. His research, embodied in his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) and his practical example, including the establishment of specialist training for both physicians and midwives, did much to establish obstetrics as a respectable branch of medicine for the first time, though he took a perverse pleasure in continuing to describe himself as a despised 'man-midwife'. He died in 1783.
William Clift was born near Bodmin, Cornwall, in 1775. He was educated locally and demonstrated an aptitude for illustration. This was noticed by Walter Raleigh Gilbert and his wife Nancy, who had been a schoolfellow of Anne Home, who had married John Hunter in 1771. On Gilbert's recommendation, Clift was apprenticed to John Hunter as an anatomical assistant, until Hunter's sudden death in 1793.
After Hunter's death, his collection of specimens was offered for sale to the government. During the period of negotiations, Clift was employed to look after the collections for a small income. He did this until 1799 when the collections were purchased by the government. During this period, Clift feared for the safety of the collection, and copied out many of Hunter's unpublished manuscripts. This meant that much of the content was saved from loss through Sir Everard Home's destruction of his brother-in-law's manuscripts in 1823. In 1799 the government asked The Company of Surgeons (soon to become the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800) to look after the John Hunter collections. The Trustees of the College then made Clift conservator of the new Hunterian Museum paying him £80 per annum. He was a prolific record keeper and his diaries are a valuable resource for information about the workings of the College and Museum as well as wider social life in London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823; he was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry; and also a fellow of the Geological Society. Clift retired from the museum in 1842, when he was replaced by Sir Richard Owen as curator. He died in 1849.
Florence Nightingale was born Villia Columbia, Florence, in 1820. She lived in Embley Park, Hampshire and was educated by her father. She recorded in 1837, that 'God had called her to His service.' She became interested in the mystics and studied the lives of people such as St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. She travelled to the religious community at Kaiserwerth-am- Rhein, where she saw the possibility of changing nursing by training suitably motivated women of any class. She published an anonymous account of the community, The Institution of Kaiserwort on the Rhine for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, (1851). On her return to England she continued her interest in nursing, and accepted the post of unpaid superintendant to the Institute for Sick Governesses in Harley Street, London. She became an expert in hospital administration, demanding improvements in facilities, and insisting that Roman Catholics be admitted as patients. She assisted in the cholera epidemic in Soho, in 1851. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State at War, wrote to Nightingale asking her to take a party of nurses to Scutari, to help the neglected wounded. She took a party of 38 nurses to Scutari to assist at the 4 hospitals, in 1854, where she ensured conditions were improved. She used money from The Timesnewspaper to buy much needed equipment and improve hygiene. She insisted on attending to all the worst cases herself and made a point of visiting all the wards. Appalled by the inadequate feeding arrangements she persuaded Lord Panmure, Secretary of State for War to arrange for Alexis Soyer, Chef at the Reform Cub, to come out and organise the cooking. She proved a formidable administrator and organiser and her role at Scutari was as much that of a 'General Purveyor' as of a medical nurse. She collapsed with Crimean Fever (which she referred to as Typhus) in 1855. On her recovery she returned to Scutari to continue working. When news of her illness reached Britain there were prayers for her recovery and The Times referred to her as 'The Lady of the Lamp'. Many people made gifts to help her in her work, and raised £45,000. She returned to England after the war and set up a reform cabinet and established a highly effective relationship with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She managed to establish a Royal Commission, with Sidney Herbert as chairman, in 1857, and published her report Notes on matters affecting the health, efficency and hospital administration of the British Army, in 1858. She was also made a member of the Statistical Society, in 1858. She became an invalid in 1858, but continued to work for the promotion of sanitary science, the collection of statistics, the design of hospitals, and reform of nursing and midwifery services. She campaigned for a pure water supply in 1861, and stressed the importance of irrigation and sanitary reform in India. She used part of the Nightingale Fund to finance an experimental training scheme for midwives at King's College Hospital. She assisted the Association for Improving Workhouse Infirmaries which eventually resulted in the Metropolitan Poor Law Act (1867). She used the Nightingale Fund to provide a training scheme for nurses based at the Highgate Poor Law Infirmary, and in 1881, for a team of Nightingale Nurses at the St Marylebone Institute, thus laying the foundations for training nurses in the new municipal hospitals after the Local Government Act (1888). She conducted a survey with Florence Lees in 1874, which resulted in the Report of the National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. In 1875 the Metropolitan and National Nursing Home was opened in Bloomsbury. She was the recipient of many honours including membership of the German Order of the Cross of Merit, and the French Secours aux Blesses Militaires. She became the first woman to be made a member of the Order of Merit, in 1907. She died in 1910.
Giovanni Aldini was born in Bologna, Italy, 1762. He became Professor of Physics at Bologna in 1798. His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He travelled in Europe, publicly electrifying human and animal bodies, and his performances were extraordinary theatrical spectacles. He came to London in 1802. His most famous experiment took place at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, in 1803, on a hanged man named George Forster. According to newspaper reports of the time, some of the spectators genuinely believed that the body was about to come to life, and were suitably awestruck even though it did not happen. The Emperor of Austria made him a Knight of the Iron Crown and a Councillor of State in Milan. He died in 1834.
Henry Victor Martin was born in 1811. He studied in Birmingham, and St Bartholomews Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1834 and a fellow in 1859. He was surgeon to the 1st Devon Militia before taking medical charge of the military wards of the Barrington Hospital, Limerick. He practised at Staines, Middlesex, before retiring to Hounslow, and later to Epsom College. He died in 1901.
Thomas James Poole was born in Bridgwater, in 1809. He was apprenticed as a surgeon to Anthony Huxtable and Henry Clark in 1825. He went on to receive his medical education at St Bartholemews hospital, and passed his LSA in 1830, and his MRCS in 1832. Poole practised around the Somerset area and was Medical Officer to the Bridgewater Union, fl 1847. He died in 1881.
Anthony Huxtable MRCS, was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier apprenticed to John Ball in Williton, Somerset, in 1797. He was practising surgery in Bristol in 1825, and his address given as Union Street, King Square, Bristol in 1826.
Henry Clark was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier practising in Bristol, in 1825.
Hugh Owen Thomas was born in 1834. He came from 7 generations of bone-setters, originally from Anglesey in North Wales. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Dr Owen Roberts, at St Asaph in North Wales, in 1851. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and University College London. He become a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1857. He went to Liverpool in 1858, to help his father, and set up his own practice in 1859. He spent most of his working life in the slums of Liverpool treating the poor. From 1870, he ran a free clinic on Sundays, where he treated dockers, shipyard workers and seamen. In the treatment of tuberculosis and fractures, he strongly advocated the use of rest which should be 'enforced, uninterrupted and prolonged'. His ideas were published in Diseases of the hip, knee and ankle joints, with their deformities (1875). This was at a time when it was often suggested that excision or amputation were the solution for chronic bone disorders. In order to achieve rest and immobilisation he invented several types of splints that were manufactured in his own work shop by both a blacksmith and a saddler. He also invented a wrench for the reduction of fractures and an osteoclast to break and reset bones. He was elected a member of the Liverpool Medical Institution in 1876, published many works on orthopaedic surgery, and was given an honorary degree by the University of St Louis. He died in 1891.
Robert Keate was born in Laverton, Somerset, in 1777. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate (1745-1821), a surgeon. Robert Keate entered St George's Hospital, London, in 1793. He became hospital mate at Chelsea Hospital in 1794. He became a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1798, and was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Army. He retired from the army in 1810 with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. He was on the surgical staff of St George's Hospital, London, from 1800-1853. He was finally removed by the Governors. He was a member of the Court of Assistants, from 1822-1857, and the Court of Examiners, from 1827-1855. He was President of the College in 1831 and 1839. He held royal appointments to George III, George IV, William IV, and in 1841 to Queen Victoria. He supported the institution of a "higher grade" of surgeon which eventually became the Fellowship. He died in 1857.
Thomas Stone was the son of a beadle, and was appointed to assist in the Library in 1832. After Robert Willis retired in 1845, Stone took over all of the work in the Library. Dr John Chatto was appointed Librarian in 1853, and Stone was transferred to the College office as a clerk where he worked until 1871. His son, William Domett Stone (1840-1921), became a Fellow of the College in 1865.
Benjamin Travers was born in Cheapside, London, in 1783. He was educated at the grammar school in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and then privately. He was a pupil of Astley Cooper from 1800-1806. During this time he gave occasional demonstrations and set up a weekly clinical society. He took his diploma and became MRCS in 1806. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and was appointed surgeon to the East India Company's warehouses and brigade in 1809. He was elected surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital in 1815, as well as the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye (now Moorfields Eye Hospital), where he succeeded Astley Cooper, and remained until 1816. He resigned his joint lectureship with Astley Cooper in 1819. He began to lecture again in 1834, with Frederick Tyrell at St Thomas' Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to Queen Victoria in 1837 and to Prince Albert in 1840. He was elected FRCS in 1813; Member of Council, 1839-1858; Examiner in surgery, 1841-1858; Chairman of the Board of Midwifery Examiners, 1855; Vice-President, 1845, 1846, 1854 and 1855; President, 1847 and 1856; and he was Huntarian Orator in 1838. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. He was elected president of the Hunterian Society in 1827, as well as President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He died in 1858.
Eleanor Davies-Colley was born in 1874. Her father was John Neville Colley Davies-Colley, a surgeon at Guy's Hospital. On graduating in 1907, she became a house surgeon under Maud Chadburn at the New Hospital for Women, founded by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in 1917, it is now part of the University College London Hospitals). She then became demonstrator in anatomy at the London School of Medicine, and surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital. In addition to her work at the South London Hospital, she was also later a surgeon at the Marie Curie Cancer Hospital and senior obstetrician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.
Davies-Colley and her colleague Maud Chadburn began raising funds in 1911 for a new South London Hospital for Women and Children. Enough money was raised to open an outpatients' department in Newington Causeway in 1912. A purpose-built eighty-bed hospital on Clapham Common, staffed entirely by women, was opened by Queen Mary in 1916. Davies-Colley worked at the South London Hospital for Women and Children from its foundation until her death, holding various positions including senior surgeon. The hospital remained open until 1984. It was unusual in retaining the women-only staffing policy initiated by Davies-Colley and Chadburn right up until closure.
She became the first female fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1911.She was one of the founding members of the Medical Women's Federation, in 1917. She died in 1934. One of the lecture theatres at the Royal College of Surgeons of England was refurbished and dedicated in Eleanor Davies-Colley in 2004, with the aim of celebrating the role of women in surgery and encouraging more women to enter the profession.
Berkeley George Andrew Moynihan was born in Malta, in 1865. He moved with his mother to Leeds, in 1867. He was educated in Leeds, and then at the Blue Coat School, Newgate Street, London from 1875-1881. He studied at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, from 1881-1883, and then proceeded to the Medical School of Yorkshire College, in Leeds. He graduated MB at the University of London in 1887, and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the same year. He passed the examination for the Fellowship in 1890, and for Master of Surgery in 1893, being awarded the gold medal. After serving as house surgeon at the Leeds General Infirmary in 1887, he acted as demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School from 1893-1896. He was elected assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1896, was surgeon from 1906, and consulting surgeon from 1927 until his death. He was lecturer in surgery from 1896-1909, and from 1909-1927 he was professor of clinical surgery in the University of Leeds. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Moynihan was appointed an examiner in anatomy on the board of examiners in anatomy and physiology for the Fellowship in 1899. He gave three lectures as Arris and Gale lecturer in 1899, and three lectures in 1900. In 1920 he gave a lecture as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology, and in the same year delivered the Bradshaw lecture. He was Hunterian Orator in 1927. He served on the Council of the College from 1912-1933, and was elected President, 1926-1931. During World War One, he held the rank of major à la suite attached to the 2nd Northern General Hospital of the Territorial RAMC, with a commission dated 14 Oct 1908. He was gazetted temporary colonel, AMS, in 1914, and served in France. On demobilization in 1919 he was holding the rank of major-general. He had been chairman of the Army Advisory Board form 1916, and chairman of the council of consultants 1916-1919. He died in 1936.
Allen Thomson was born in 1809. He was the grandson of John Thomson (1765-1846), Professor of Military Surgery, and of General Pathology at the University of Edinburgh. He was also the first Professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Allen Thomson was educated in Edinburgh, graduating MD in 1830. He then travelled to Europe, visiting Amsterdam, Strasbourg and Berlin, where he studied anatomical and pathological museums before returning to Edinburgh in 1831, as Lecturer in Anatomy and Physiology. He set up a teaching partnership with William Sharpey, where he taught the physiology, and Sharpey taught anatomy. The partnership lasted until 1836 when Sharpey was appointed Professor of Anatomy at University College London. Thomson became a Fellow of the Edinburgh College in 1832. He travelled to London and Europe for further anatomical study in 1833. He became Private Physician to the Duke of Bedford and his family in 1837, before being appointed to the Chair of Anatomy in Aberdeen in 1839. He returned to Edinburgh to become a teacher of anatomy in the extramural school in 1841, and then became Professor of Institutes of Medicine (Physiology) at the University of Edinburgh. One of the innovations that he introduced on his return to Edinburgh was to use the microscope in the teaching of anatomy. He became Chair of Anatomy at the University of Glasgow in 1848, until his retirement in 1877. By the time of appointment to Glasgow he had amassed a large collection of material for anatomical and physiological teaching which was added to the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1838, and of London in 1848, later becoming President of that Scoiety. He became President of the British Association in 1876, and was honoured with the degrees of LLD from the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He died in 1884.
Cecil Henry Desch was born the son of Henry Thomas Desch in 1874. He attended the Birkbeck School in Kingsland as a child, and later went to the Finsbury Technical College. He studied at Würzburg University and also at the University College London. In 1902-1907, he worked at the Metallurgical Department of Kings College, London. In 1909 he married Elison Ann Macadam and they had two children. He was a lecturer in Metallurgical Chemistry at the University of Glasgow from 1909 to 1918. He then became Professor of Metallurgy at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow from 1918 to 1920. He was Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Sheffield from 1920 to 1931 and Superintendent of the Metallurgy Department at the National Physical Laboratory from 1932 to 1939. He was President of the Faraday Society from 1926 to 1928. From 1931 to 1932, he was the George Fisher Baker Lecturer at Cornell University. In 1936 to 1938, 1942 to 1944, 1946 to 1948 and 1949 to 1950, he was a Manager at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). He was also Vice-President at the RI in 1937 to 1938, 1942 to 1944, 1946 to 1948 and 1949 to 1950. He was President of the Institute of Metals from 1938 to 1940 and President of the Iron and Steel Institute from 1946 to 1948. He died in 1958.
George Porter was born in Stainforth, Yorkshire, in 1920. He was educated at Thorne Grammar School 1931-1938, and was Ackroyd Scholar at the University of Leeds, 1938-1941. He served as a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Radar Officer in the Western Approaches and the Mediterranean from 1941 to 1945. In 1949 he married Stella Jean Brooke and they had two sons, John Brooke and Andrew Christopher George. In 1945 he went to the University of Cambridge to research chemical kinetics and photochemistry. He stayed at Cambridge until 1954 when he became Assistant Director of the British Rayon Research Association in Manchester. He studied the problems of dye fading and phototendering of fabrics. He was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sheffield from 1955 to 1963 and became Firth Professor of Chemistry there from 1963 to 1966. He was also Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) from 1963 to 1966. In 1966 he became Director of the RI as well as Fullerian Professor of Chemistry of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI. He researched into applying flash photolysis to the problem of photosynthesis and extended it to the nanosecond and picoseocnd regions. He remained Director of the RI until 1985 and during this time, he gave many lectures including several broadcasts on television. He published many papers and also books such as Chemistry for the Modern World, 1962 and Chemistry in Microtime, 1996. He received many awards for his work, gaining the Davy medal in 1971, the Rumford medal in 1978, the Michael Faraday medal in 1991 and the Copley medal in 1992. In 1967 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with M. Eigen and R. G. W. Norrish. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960 and became President of the Royal Society in 1985 until 1990. He became Chairman of the Centre for Photomolecular Sciences, at Imperial College London in 1990. He was knighted in 1972, awarded the Order of Merit in 1989 and made a life peer in 1990.
James Dewar was born the son of Thomas Dewar, vintner and innkeeper, and Ann Eadie in Kincardine-on-Forth, Scotland. As a child he attended local schools such as the Dollar Academy and he also learnt the art of violin making. In 1858 he attended Edinburgh University under James David Forbes, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Lyon Playfair, Professor of Chemistry. He became an assistant to Lyon Playfair from 1867 to 1868, subsequently becoming assistant to Alexander Crum Brown from 1868 to 1873. In 1867 he invented a mechanical device to represent Alexander Crum Brown's graphic notation for organic compounds. He worked on heat, chemical reactions, atomic and molecular weight determinations and spectroscopy. In 1869 he became a lecturer at the Royal Veterinary College of Edinburgh. In 1871 he married Helen Rose Banks. In 1873 he became assistant chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society. He was elected Jacksonian Professor of Natural Experimental Philosophy, Cambridge, in 1873, and became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1877. At the RI, Dewar worked on cryogenics and from 1877 to 1904, he wrote 78 papers on the subject of spectroscopy with George Downing Liveing. During the course of his work on cryogenics he invented the silver vacuum vessels known as the Dewar or Thermos flask. In 1878 he achieved the liquefaction of oxygen. From 1892 to 1895, he worked with A. Fleming, Professor of Electrical Engineering at University College London. He worked on conduction, thermo electricity, magnetic permeability and dielectric constants of metal and alloys. In 1896 he became Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI. He worked on the liquefaction of gases and in 1898 he liquefied hydrogen. He was a member of the Explosives Committee from 1888 to 1889, inventing cordite with Sir Frederick Abel. From 1904 to 1914, he worked on low temperature calorimentry investigations; he later studied bubbles and thin films and infrared radiation from the sky by day and night. In 1904 he was knighted. He gained several awards for his work such as the Davy medal, the Copley medal and the Rumford medals of the Royal Society; the Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts; and the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for 1900-1904 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died, in office, in 1923.
William Lawrence Bragg was born the son of William Henry Bragg, physicist and Gwendoline Todd, in Adelaide, Australia, in 1890. As a child, he attended Queen's preparatory school and St Peter's College in Adelaide. He went to the University of Adelaide at the age of 15 in order to study mathematics and graduated in 1908 in physics and chemistry. In 1909 he came to England with his family and went to study at Cambridge. In 1910 he gained first class honours in part one of the mathematical Tripos and subsequently gained a first in part two of the physics Tripos in 1912. In 1914 he became a Fellow and lecturer in Natural Sciences at Trinity College Cambridge. He began researching under J. J. Thomson and worked on the reflection of x-ray waves by planes of atoms in crystals, in order to reveal the position of atoms thus developing crystal analysis. The relationship between the angle of incidence and wavelength, and between parallel atomic planes is known as Bragg's Angle' orBragg's Law'. He worked on crystal structure and its arrangement in sodium and potassium. He also worked with his father, William Henry Bragg, particularly on the structure of diamond, resulting in a joint publication in 1915 called X-Rays and Crystal Structure. It was for this work with his father that he jointly won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915, and at 25 years old, he remains the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize. During the First World War and until 1919, William Lawrence (he was known as Lawrence in order to distinguish him from his father) primarily served in the Royal Horse Artillery until he became Technical Adviser to the Map Section in order to research into sound ranging to locate enemy guns. In 1919 he became Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester, a position he held until 1937. He set up the School of Crystallography at Manchester and introduced the study of atomic radii, x-ray diffraction, scattering atoms, analysing structures, branch of optics, order-disorder changes and metals, alloys and silicate. He developed quantitative crystallography and worked on the structure of minerals and later, protein. In 1921 he married Alice Hopkins and they had four children, Stephen Lawrence, David William, Margaret Alice and Patience Mary. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1921. In 1937 he became Director of the National Physics Laboratory, but only until 1938 when he became Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge. He held this position until 1953 having reorganised the Cavendish Laboratory into separate branches of physics. It was split into nuclear physics, low temperature physics, radio physics, crystallography and metal physics. Whilst at Cambridge, he realised the potential of using crystal analysis on living cells, after Max Perutz had shown him an x-ray photograph of haemoglobin. In the Second World War, Lawrence became a consultant to the sound ranging section of the army, and also to the Admiralty on underwater detection using sound waves (known as asdic or sonar). He was also on the Ministry of Supply Committee and assisted the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1941 he went to Ottawa, Canada as a scientific liaison officer for the war effort. In 1941 he was knighted. From 1939 to 1943, he was President of the Institute of Physics, whereby he promoted x-ray research and also became the first President of the International Union of Crystallography. In 1947 he helped set up what became the Medical Research Council Laboratory of molecular biology at the Cavendish laboratory, Cambridge. Under his direction, Francis Crick and James Watson determined the double helix structure of DNA. In 1953 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). In 1954 he became Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI, and developed it into a major centre for x-ray analysis. He was the first person to be denominated Director of the RI. He introduced corporate membership to the RI and performed lectures on television for the first time. He worked closely with Max Perutz and John Kendrew at Cambridge (who gained a Nobel Prize for their work on proteins) and under his guidance David Phillips (later Lord), determined the structure of lysozyme in 1965 which was the first enzyme to have its structure identified. Lawrence was Chairman of the Frequency Advisory Committee from 1958 to 1960. He retired from the RI in 1966, but continued to lecture there until 1971. He gained several medals in his career including the Hughes medal in 1931, the Royal Medal in 1946 and the Copley medal in 1966 from the Royal Society. He published many articles and books such as `The Diffraction of Short Electromagnetic Waves by a Crystal' in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1912; The Crystalline State in 1934 and others in journals such as Philosophical Magazine, Transactions of the Faraday Society and Proceedings of the Royal Society. Lawrence died near Waldringfield, Suffolk in 1971.
Bawden was born in North Tawton, Devon, and educated at local grammar schools and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1926-1930, where he read for Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos and the Cambridge Diploma in Agricultural Science. After graduating from Cambridge he worked as Research Assistant to R.N. Salaman at the Potato Virus Research Institute in Cambridge. In 1936 he moved to Rothamsted Experimental Station, Hertfordshire, as Virus Physiologist, and became successively Head of the Plant Pathology Department, 1940-1958, Deputy Director, 1950-1958, and Director from 1958 to his death. Bawden served on many committees, and on the Council of the Royal Society of which he was also Treasurer. He lectured and travelled widely and was frequently invited to advise on overseas agricultural projects. He was elected FRS in 1949 (Leeuwenhoek Lecture 1959) and knighted in 1967.
The Roll proper ceased in 1940. It was superceded by the 'Personal Records', and subsequently the Sackler Resource (electronic database of Fellows).
Blagden was born at Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and received his M.D. in 1768. He was elected FRS in 1772 and served as a medical officer in the British Army from about 1776 to 1780. He was Henry Cavendish's assistant from 1782 to 1789, from whom he received an annuity and a considerable legacy. Blagden succeeded Paul Henry Maty as Secretary of the Royal Society in 1784 (while the Society was divided over the efficacy of its President, Sir Joseph Banks, a close friend of Blagden's), serving until 1797. Both in this capacity and as Cavendish's assistant he became involved in the prolonged 'water controversy' - who had priority in discovering the composition of water, claimed by both Cavendish and James Watt in England and A L Lavoisier in France. Blagden admitted responsibility for conveying, quite well-meaningly, word of the experiments and conclusions of both Cavendish and Watt to Lavoisier; and he overlooked errors of date in the printing of Cavendish's and Watt's papers. His experiments on the effects of dissolved substances on the freezing point of water led to what became known as 'Blagden's Law', where he concluded that salt lowers the freezing point of water in the simple inverse ratio of the proportion the water bears to it in the solution. In fact Richard Watson had first discovered the relationship in 1771. Blagden spent much of his time in Europe, particularly in France, where he had many friends among French scientists such as C L Berthollet. He died in Arcueil in 1820. He was knighted in 1792.
Born in Glencorse, Midlothian, Scotland; educated at Greenheyes Collegiate School, Manchester; BSc, Owens College Manchester; MA Cantab; BSc. Vict; Fellow, Sidney Sussex College, 1900; University Reader in Electric Meteorology, Cambridge; Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Cambridge, 1925-1934; elected FRS, 1900; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1928-1929; received Hughes Medal, 1911; Royal Medal, 1922; Copley Medal, 1935; Nobel Prize (Chemistry), 1927.
The origins of the Royal Society lie in an "invisible college" of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found 'a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning'. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker. The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. At first apparently nameless, the name The Royal Society first appears in print in 1661, and in the second Royal Charter of 1663 the Society is referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'. The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was not until 1710, under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand. In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn's Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society's Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication. From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows. The Society moved again in 1780 to premises at Somerset House provided by the Crown, an arrangement made by Sir Joseph Banks who had become President in 1778 and was to remain so until his death in 1820. Banks was in favour of maintaining a mixture among the Fellowship of working scientists and wealthy amateurs who might become their patrons. This view grew less popular in the first half of the 19th century and in 1847 the Society decided that in future Fellows would be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work. This new professional approach meant that the Society was no longer just a learned society but also de facto an academy of scientists. The Government recognised this in 1850 by giving a grant to the Society of £1,000 to assist scientists in their research and to buy equipment. Therefore a Government Grant system was established and a close relationship began, which nonetheless still allowed the Society to maintain its autonomy, essential for scientific research. In 1857 the Society moved once more, to Burlington House in Piccadilly, with its staff of two. The Royal Society Building Over the next century the work and staff of the Society grew rapidly and soon outgrew this site. Therefore in 1967 the Society moved again to its present location on Carlton House Terrace with a staff which has now grown to over 120, all working to further the Royal Society's roles as independent scientific academy, learned society and funding body .
Son of a London businessman, Dale was educated at Tollington Park College, London; The Leys School, Cambridge; and Trinity College, Cambridge. He received first class honours in the natural science tripos in 1898, and succeeded Ernest Rutherford to the Coutts-Trotter studentship at Trinity. He was influenced by the physiologists of the 'Cambridge School', Michael Foster, W.H. Gaskell, J.N. Langley and H.K. Anderson. He began his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital (1900-1903), receiving his B.Chir. in 1903 and his M.D. in 1909. He was George Henry Lewes Student and then Sharpey Student with the department of physiology of University College under Starling and Bayliss (1902-1904).
In 1904 he accepted the offer of a research post in physiology from (Sir) Henry Wellcome at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, where he worked for eighteen months as pharmacologist and the remainder of his ten years there as Director. In 1936, on the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, he became a trustee of the Wellcome Trust, becoming its chairman 1938-1960 and continuing as scientific advisor to 1968. In fact he continued to give advice until his death at age ninety three.
In 1914 he became Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Institute for Medical Research, which in 1920 became the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead. In 1923 he became chairman of the Committee of Departmental Directors, and in 1928, the first director of the Institute, a post he held until 1942, when he retired and became Director of the Royal Institution as well as Fullerian professor of chemistry until 1946.
While secretary of the Royal Society (1925-1935) he changed the form of publication of the obituary notices so they were published annually in one volume, and while president (1940-1945) he not only held a meeting of the Royal Society outside Britain for the first time, in India, but also raised the number of Fellows elected to twenty five, and enabled the revolutionary concept of admitting women as Fellows from 1945.
The Royal Society is the UK adhering body for the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).
John Frederick William Herschel was born on 7 March 1792, only child of William Herschel and Mary Baldwin Pitt, widow of a prosperous merchant. After Eton and Dr Gretton's private school at Hitcham and private tutoring in mathematics, Herschel entered St. John's College, University of Cambridge, in 1809, where his exceptional abilities were revealed. He became founding member and first president of the Analytical Society to promote study of continental mathematics at Cambridge. Other members were Charles Babbage (1792-1871), George Peacock (1791-1858) and William Whewell (1791-1866). In 1813 he became Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, was elected to the Royal Society, and became a Fellow of St John's College. He planned for a career in law, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1814, but in 1815 returned to Cambridge as sub-lector, though he found instructing undergraduates not to his liking. In 1816 he began to study astronomy, and left Cambridge to continue his father's observations. By 1820 astronomy had become his chief concern in science. He founded the Astronomical Society in that year, which in 1831 became the Royal Astronomical Society, becoming its President in 1827, 1839 and 1847. He took up the observation of double stars in collaboration with James South, their first catalogue being awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy and a gold medal from the Astronomical Society. His most important contribution to physics in the 1820's was his article 'Light' in 1827. From 1824 to 1827 he was Secretary of the Royal Society, an ideal choice both because of his effectiveness as a correspondent and because he knew personally many leading continental scientists through trips made during the 1820's. His contribution to the philosophy of science was in the publication of his much translated Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, which deeply influenced Charles Darwin and Willliam Whewell, and his Treatise on Astronomy in 1833, a highly successful presentation for the educated public. From 1834 to 1838 he was at the Cape of Good Hope with his family, involved in the detailed survey of the southern celestial hemisphere. In 1839 he made contributions to the development of photographic techniques, for which he was awarded the Royal Medal in 1840. He continued to make contributions to the philosophy of science, with his reviews of Whewell's publications, his role in John Stuart Mill's famous System of Logic of 1842 and his review of Adolphe Quetelet's Theory of Probabilities. Herschel also became involved in the discovery and arbitration of the controversy over the discovery of Neptune in 1846. In 1849 he published his authoritative Outlines of Astronomy, which like his earlier writings had concentrated on the two questions central to his father's researches - what is the structure of the Milky Way and what is the nature of nebulae. The great esteem in which he was held was shown by the honours and positions offered to him, including the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his Cape Results in 1847 and an obelisk erected on the site in South Africa where his telescope had stood. He was Master of the Mint from 1850 to 1854, then returned to writing, publishing Meteorology, Physical Geography and Telescope, originally as articles and then by 1861 as substantial books. During the last 6 years of his life he compiled a catalogue of all known double and multiple star systems, which appeared posthumously in 1874 with final editing by Charles Pritchard and Robert Main. Herschel died on 11 May 1871, being buried in Westminster Abbey next to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton. He had 12 children by Margaret Brodie Stewart, whom he married in 1829. His achievements were recognised with a knighthood in 1831, raised to a baronetcy in 1838.
Eldest son of Martin Folkes, a solicitor, and Dorothy his wife; attended University of Saumur, France; entered Clare Hall Cambridge to study mathematics, 1706; matriculated, 1709; MA, 1717; interested in coins; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 1719; lost Presidency of Royal Society to Sir Hans Sloane, 1727; succeeded to the Presidency following Sloane's retirement, 1741; under his Presidency the Society's meetings became very 'literary', and the Society lost much of its professional character; Folkes's papers to the Philosophical Transactions concentrated on astronomy; despite the criticisms, Folkes was elected to the 'Academie des Sciences' in succession to Edmund Halley, 1742; following his publication Table of English Gold Coins published at his own expense, his Table of Silver Coins from the Conquest was published by the Society of Antiquaries, 1744; the Tables were much consulted by antiquaries; President of the Society of Antiquaries from 1750 until his death; his communications were on Roman antiquities and coins; when his health failed, he resigned from his office at the Royal Society; died, 1754.
Buckland was born in 1784 at Axminster in Devon, educated at Tiverton School and St Mary's College Winchester, and proceeded on a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow in 1808, and displayed his interest in the new study of geology. This was expounded by Dr Kidd, Professor of Mineralogy, and cultivated in London by the founders of the Geological Society. Buckland had collected the sponges and fossils of the Chalk while at Winchester, and at Oxford he collected the shells of the Oolite, while walking with Mr Broderip of Oriel College, friend of the Rev J Townsend, friend and fellow labourer of William Smith. From 1808 Buckland rode over the south-west of England, collecting samples of the strata and groups of their organic contents, and then extending his travels to the north of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In 1813 he became Professor of Mineralogy in succession to Dr Kidd, and a Fellow of the Geological Society, where he delivered lectures not only on mineralogy but on the discoveries and doctrines of geology, which attracted the attention and admiration of the University. In 1818, geology was publicly recognized by the establishment of a Readership in this science, and Buckland was the first appointee to the post. He gave one course of lectures annually on mineralogy and one on geology, including always the very latest discoveries. He knew, and corresponded with, the most eminent and active inquirers into geology, such as Rev J J Conybeare and Rev W D Conybeare, both of Christ Church, and Rev Benjamin Richardson of Farleigh Castle, near Bradford, and Rev Joseph Townsend of Pewsey, friends of William Smith. In 1818 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, justifying his claim to this honour by the publication of his account of bones in Kirkdale Cave in 1821, which earned him the Copley Medal. Later reprinted as 'Reliquiae Diluvianae', it stimulated the cultivation of geology and palaeontology world wide. His travels in Europe had brought to the now celebrated Oxford Museum large and valuable collections, and observations of phenomena then little known to English geologists. As a result he was elected Chair of the Geological Society in 1824. His subsequent travels in the Alps led to the recognition of the late geological date of their great upward movement, and provided him with material for ten memoirs relating to Continental geology. This period, in association with Sir H T De la Beche, was spent in curious researches on coprolites and fossil Sepiae. His numerous publications included very largely the results of personal observation on features of physical geography, succession of strata, distribution of glacial detritus, structure, habits of life, manner of death, and mode of occurrence of extinct animals. In 1848 his labours in geology were celebrated by the award of the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society.
Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) was born in Hanover and came to England in 1757, where he taught music in Leeds, Halifax and Bath. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astronomy, built his own telescope in c.1773, and with it discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 (which he named 'Georgium Sidus' in honour of George III). He was appointed private astronomer to George III in 1782 and knighted in 1816, and is regarded as the virtual founder of sidereal science.
John Frederick William Herschel was born on 7 March 1792, only child of William Herschel and Mary Baldwin Pitt, widow of a prosperous merchant. After Eton and Dr Gretton's private school at Hitcham and private tutoring in mathematics, Herschel entered St. John's College, University of Cambridge, in 1809, where his exceptional abilities were revealed. He became founding member and first president of the Analytical Society to promote study of continental mathematics at Cambridge. Other members were Charles Babbage (1792-1871), George Peacock (1791-1858) and William Whewell (1791-1866). In 1813 he became Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, was elected to the Royal Society, and became a Fellow of St John's College. He planned for a career in law, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1814, but in 1815 returned to Cambridge as sub-lector, though he found instructing undergraduates not to his liking. In 1816 he began to study astronomy, and left Cambridge to continue his father's observations. By 1820 astronomy had become his chief concern in science. He founded the Astronomical Society in that year, which in 1831 became the Royal Astronomical Society, becoming its President in 1827, 1839 and 1847. He took up the observation of double stars in collaboration with James South, their first catalogue being awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy and a gold medal from the Astronomical Society. His most important contribution to physics in the 1820's was his article 'Light' in 1827. From 1824 to 1827 he was Secretary of the Royal Society, an ideal choice both because of his effectiveness as a correspondent and because he knew personally many leading continental scientists through trips made during the 1820's. His contribution to the philosophy of science was in the publication of his much translated Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, which deeply influenced Charles Darwin and Willliam Whewell, and his Treatise on Astronomy in 1833, a highly successful presentation for the educated public. From 1834 to 1838 he was at the Cape of Good Hope with his family, involved in the detailed survey of the southern celestial hemisphere. In 1839 he made contributions to the development of photographic techniques, for which he was awarded the Royal Medal in 1840. He continued to make contributions to the philosophy of science, with his reviews of Whewell's publications, his role in John Stuart Mill's famous System of Logic of 1842 and his review of Adolphe Quetelet's Theory of Probabilities. Herschel also became involved in the discovery and arbitration of the controversy over the discovery of Neptune in 1846. In 1849 he published his authoritative Outlines of Astronomy, which like his earlier writings had concentrated on the two questions central to his father's researches - what is the structure of the Milky Way and what is the nature of nebulae. The great esteem in which he was held was shown by the honours and positions offered to him, including the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his Cape Results in 1847 and an obelisk erected on the site in South Africa where his telescope had stood. He was Master of the Mint from 1850 to 1854, then returned to writing, publishing Meteorology, Physical Geography and Telescope, originally as articles and then by 1861 as substantial books. During the last 6 years of his life he compiled a catalogue of all known double and multiple star systems, which appeared posthumously in 1874 with final editing by Charles Pritchard and Robert Main. Herschel died on 11 May 1871, being buried in Westminster Abbey next to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton. He had 12 children by Margaret Brodie Stewart, whom he married in 1829. His achievements were recognised with a knighthood in 1831, raised to a baronetcy in 1838.
Educated at Westminster school with a good grounding in classics, tutored in his vacations in writing and arithmetic. His interest in optics and astronomy led to his study of mathematics as the essential tool for their proper study. He applied his knowledge to other aspects of natural philospohy, especially mechanics, pneumatics, and hydrostatics first at Catherine Hall and thenTrinity College Cambridge, graduating in 1754 as Seventh Wrangler. He was ordained in 1755 and accepted a curacy at Barnet in Hertfordshire, devoting his leisure hours to assisting the Astronomer Royal, James Bradley, in computing tables of refraction. Bradley's influence with the Royal Society sent Maskelyne in 1761 to the island of St Helena to observe the Transit of Venus. This was unsuccessful because of cloud cover. However, he kept tidal records and determined the altered rate of one of Shelton's clocks. His observations regarding the method of determining longitude at sea made on the voyage were more successful. He used the lunar tables of Tobias Mayer which had been submitted in 1755 to support his application for a parliamentary bounty offered for discovery of longitude at sea. The instrument used was a reflecting quadrant of the type invented by John Hadley in 1731. Maskelyne's second voyage, to Bridgetown in Barbados in 1764, was to assess the accuracy of the rival chronometer method of longitude determination championed by John Harrison, and two other methods based on observations of the satellites of Jupiter and on occultations of stars by the moon. He attended the Board of Longitude meeting of 9 February 1765 where the sums to be awarded to Harrison and Mayer were specified, where he testified to the usefulness of the lunar-distance method for finding longitude at sea to within one degree or 60 miles, and proposed the practical application of this method by a nautical ephemeris with auxiliary tables and explanations. This last resulted in the publication of the 'Nautical Almanac' for 1767, which Maskelyne continued to supervise until his death and was his major contribution to astronomical science. He was responsible for the publication of Mayer's lunar theory (1767) his solar and lunar tables (1770) and the preparation of 'Requisite Tables' (1767) for eliminating the effects of astronomical refraction and parallax from the observed lunar distances. As Astronomer Royal he also assessed the large numbers of chronometers submitted for official trial by such pioneers of watchmaking as John Arnold, Thomas Mudge and Thomas Earnshaw. This led to the establishment of a consistent system of rating and the introduction in 1823 of trial or test numbers , modified by George Airy in 1840 to a system which is still used. In 1774 with the aid of Charles Hutton and John Playfair he determined the earth's density in a famous experiment on Mt Schiehallion in Scotland, the first convincing experiment demonstrating the universality of gravitation, meaning it not only operates between the bodies of the solar system but also between the elements of matter of which each body is composed. For this he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1775. He was elected in 1802 one of eight foreign members of the French Institute. He died while working at the Observatory in 1811.
Faraday was born the son of a blacksmith in Newington Butts, Southwark. It is not known where he was educated as a child, but the family moved north near Manchester Square. At 13, he worked as a newspaper boy for George Riebau of Blandford Street. He then became an apprentice for seven years in bookbinding under Riebau. In 1810 and 1811, he attended lectures on science given by silversmith John Tatum (1772-1858) in the city of London and took notes. These were shown to the son of a Member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) who in turn showed them to the Member who was so impressed he gave Faraday tickets to see Humphry Davy (1778-1829) lecture at the RI in 1812. After writing to Davy to ask for a job, he was appointed as a chemical assistant at the laboratory at the RI in 1813. In 1813 he travelled with Davy to France as an assistant, secretary and valet; subsequently visiting laboratories in Italy, Switzerland and Germany until April 1815. In 1816 he began his 'Commonplace Book' and was elected Member of the City Philosophical Society from 1816 to 1819 giving lectures on chemical subjects. From 1816 to 1828, he published his work results in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Science, Philosophical Magazine and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1821 he was appointed Superintendent of the RI to maintain the building. In 1825 he was appointed Director of the Laboratory and in 1833 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the RI. In 1821 he discovered electro-magnetic rotations, the principle of the electric motor. In 1831 he discovered electro-magnetic induction; also in the early 1830s, he discovered the laws of electrolysis and coined words such as electrode, cathode, anode and ion. In 1845 he discovered the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism developing the theory of the electromagnetic field. In 1824 he was elected to the Royal Society. He gave lectures at the RI between 1825 and 1862, establishing the Friday Evening Discourses and the Christmas Lectures for the young. In 1827 he delivered a course of lectures on chemical manipulation to the London Institution and he also gave lectures for medical students from St George's Hospital from the mid 1820s onwards. In 1829 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Admiralty. In 1830 he was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich until 1851. In 1836 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Corporation of Trinity House, the English and Welsh lighthouse authority, until 1865. During the 1850s and 1860s, he introduced electricity to lighthouses under this position. In 1844 he conducted an enquiry with the geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875), into the Haswell Colliery, County Durham, explosion.
The Food (War) Committee was founded in 1915 to act as a scientific advisory body to government bodies regulating food policy, trade and distribution, and rationing schemes in the food shortage of WWI. Composed of eminent biochemists, physiologists, agricultural scientists and economists, headed by William B Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society. Prominent members include physiologists A D Waller, D Noel Paton, E P Cathcart, F G Hopkins, and W M Bayliss; agriculturalists T H Middleton, and T B Wood, and economist William J Ashley.
The Committee undertook pioneering work in researching dietary requirements, arriving at the minimum calorie needs to maintain a body at rest, and investigating the calorie requirements of different classes of workers. They advised against rationing of bread and developed distribution schemes based on sound science. Most of the correspondence deals with these research interests and policy advice.
Topics addressed include diet and mental work, scurvy and beriberi, nitrogen in the diet, early work on vitamins, and investigation of alternate food sources such as soya beans, cocoa butter, banana chips, and saccharine [MS/527/2]. The most successful scheme involved a public campaign to collect horse chestnuts to use in producing acetone for munitions manufacture, so that cereals usually used for this purpose could be saved to increase the nation's supply.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK's National Measurement Institute.The Royal Society appointed the first Director of the NPL, Richard Tetley Grazebrook, on 1 Jan 1900; the NPL was opened in Mar 1902.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK's National Measurement Institute. The Royal Society appointed the first Director of the NPL, Richard Tetley Grazebrook, on 1 Jan 1900; the NPL was opened in Mar 1902.
Born, 1733; Education: Trinity Hall, Cambridge; LLB (1758); Incorporated at Oxford (1767); DCL (Oxford 1774); Career: Rector of St Mary, Newington, Surrey (1758-1793); Rector of Albury, Surrey (1774-1779); Rector of Thorley, Hertfordshire (1777-1782); Archdeacon of St Albans (1781-1788); Vicar of South Weald, Essex (1782-1793); Prebendary of St Paul's (1783-1794); Prebendary of Gloucester (1787-1793); Bishop of St David's (1788-1793); Bishop of Rochester (1793-1802); Dean of Westminster (1793-1802); Bishop of St Asaph (1802-1806); was active in the improvement of conditions of junior clergy RSActivity; Fellow of the Royal Society, (1767); Secretary of the Royal Society Council, (1773-1778); died, 1806.
The British Antarctic expedition (1910-1913) disembarked from Cape Evans on their ship the Terra Nova 4 Jan 1911 with the dual aims of conquering the geographical south pole for the British empire, and conducting extensive scientific research. The expedition was led Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Scott reached the south pole on 17 January 1912, only to discover that the Norweigan party, led by Roald Amundsen, had arrived a month earlier. All five Britons perished on the return. A search party found the bodies of Scott, Bowers, and Wilson on 12 Nov 1912.
The British National Antarctic or Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904 was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross's voyage, 1839-1843. It was organised by a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and it aimed to carry out scientific research and geographical exploration. Its scientific results covered extensive ground in biology, zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism and King Edward VII Land, and the Polar Plateau via the western mountains route were discovered. The expedition did not make a serious attempt on the South Pole, its principal southern journey reaching a Furthest South at 82°17'S.
Born, 1814; Education: Mus Doc (1867, Oxford); Career: Articled to an engineer; Consulting engineer, Westminster; Professor of Engineering, Elphinstone College, Bombay (1844-1847); returned to England and was Consulting Engineer to the Government and other bodies; Professor of Civil Engineering, University College, London (1857) Lecturer at the Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham; Member of the Government Commission on the use of Iron for War Purposes; was colour blind; wrote on the game of whist; Memberships: FRAS; FGS; MICE (1840); Fellow of the Royal Society, (1861); Vice President of the Royal Society Council, (1875-1876 and 1888-1889); died (1900).
Born, 1819; Assistant in the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (1835-1845), cooperated with Sir Thomas Maclear in the extension of Lacaille's arc; produced oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in Southern Africa with the help of John Herschel; Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Regius Professor of Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (1845-1888), introduced time service for Edinburgh with time ball on the Nelson monument and later a time gun fired from Edinburgh Castle (1861); resigned Fellowship on 7 February 1874 on the Society denying him the reading of his paper on the interpretation of the design of the Great Pyramid, published "The Great Pyramid and the Royal Society"; Became obsessed with the metre - he believed the decimal system was foreign, French, and atheist. Claimed if the pyramids were measured very accurately, it was possible to tell that they were based on the British yard, given by God and built by the Hebrews. Led expeditions to Egypt to measure them accurately to prove this. Use of the yard in the Pyramids proved there were common values between the founders of Egypt and the Anglo-Saxons, and so helped to justify the Conquest of Egypt in 1881-2; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1857; died, 1900.
Professor Hartridge was a physiologist who made important contributions to knowledge of the mechanisms of hearing and sight as well as inventing apparatus, especially optical apparatus. He worked in the Physiology Department at Cambridge until 1927, then as Professor of Physiology at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School 1927-1947 and as Director of an MRC Unit at the Institute of Opthalmology 1947-1951. For further details see Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society vol 23, 1977, pp 193-211.
Born, 1731; Education: School at Nottinghamshire School, Chesterfield; St John's College, Cambridge; Edinburgh Medical School. MB (1755); MD (Edinburgh); Career: Practised medicine at Lichfield, Staffordshire; member of the Lunar Society; many inventions, including a vertical-axis windmill, used in Josiah Wedgwood's (FRS 1783) factory; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1761; died, 1802.
Pasteur's research on fermentation and rabies led to his discovery that most infectious diseases are caused by germs, the 'germ theory of disease'. He invented pasteurisation and his work became a key influence on developments in bacteriology and microbiology as well as in gerenal medical practise; The Pasteur Institute was founded in 1887 by Louis Pasteur; Louis Pasteur's grandfather was Jean Henri Pasteur, and his aunt Jeannette Pasteur, were both of Vuillafans, near Besançon. A cousin, Maximien Buchon, was of Salins; Magnan family correspondence includes letters Marie and Louise Pasteur, Jules Raulin, Eugène Magnan, and Mathilde Magnan (afterwards Fournery); Jules Raulin (1836-1896), was Pasteur's first assistant, afterwards Sous-Directeur of Pasteur's Laboratoire de Chimie Physiologique at the Ecole Normale and Professor of Chemistry at Lyons. 1862-84 and n.d; Louis Pasteur's assistant Fernand Boutroux, was the brother of Jeanne Pasteur; Henry Debray (1827-1888) and Eugène Viala were also assistants to Pasteur; Jules Vercel was a school friend of Pasteur's from Arbois.