Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer was born in the Netherlands in 1881; Research Field:
Mathematics; Foreign Member of the Royal Society, 1948; died, 1966.
Born, 1888; Education: BA (Camb); Career: Reader in Pure Mathematics, University of Manchester; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1924; Sylvester Medal, 1949; died, 1972.
Born, 1802; Education: MD; Research Field: Anatomy; FRSE; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1839; Secretary of the Royal Society 1853-1872; Vice President of the Royal Society 1872-1874; died, 1880.
Born, 1820; Education: PhD; Career: Taught at Queenwood College, Hampshire (to 1853); in 1859, his labortory experiments showed that water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb infra-red radiation and that they could therefore affect the climate of the Earth. As soon as his paper was published in 1861 in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', he put out a press release for the London newspapaers explaining that this result implied that all past climate changes were now understood and all future climate changes could be predicted simply from a knowledge of the concentrations of these 'greenhouse' gases. Tyndall restricted himself to describing his experiments and simply linking it to work of Fourier a few decades earlier. It took more than a century before the credible quantitative estimates of these effects and their influence on past and possibly future climates were made, along with good enough observations of the gases to know that they have (and continue) to change significantly. Fellow of the Royal Society, 1852; Rumford Medal, 1864; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1879-1880; died, 1893.
Walter White is an interesting example of the 19th century self-improver. A furniture maker with literary aspirations, White would eventually become acquainted with figures such as Lord Tennyson and Sir Charles Wheatstone thanks to his fervour for education and association with the Royal Society. White served the Society for over 40 years, rising to the post of Assistant Secretary.
Eldest son of John White an upholsterer and cabinet maker, in early life he was a manual worker, making wardrobes and bookcases. Educated at two local private schools, he left school at fourteen to work alongside his father. In 1830 he went to Derbyshire, where he married Maria Hamilton. Dissatisfied with his life, he sailed with his wife, daughter and three sons to New York in 1834 to try his luck in America. He found the cold winters hard to cope with, and his daughter died. He returned to England without making his fortune and in that decade he led a precarious existence, publishing essays and poetry in his spare time, working as secretary to Joseph Mainzer, a music teacher. When Mainzer went to Edinburgh as a candidate for the chair of music at the university there, he met many learned and self educated men, and attended lectures given by James Simpson to the working classes. Simpson intoduced him to Charles Weld, assistant secretary to the Royal Society, who offered him the post of the Royal Society's sub-librarian, where he began work on 19 April 1844 at an annual salary or £80. 'Have now been one month in my situation' he wrote in 1844, 'should like the occupation better if it were more intellectual'. He was responsible for the compilation of a catalogue of contents of all natural science periodicals in the Library, published in 1867, which was the forst of the series which eventually covered the century from 1800-1900.
'The Journals of Walter White' (London, 1898) chronicle his grass-roots level view of the most important scientists of the 19th century. Soon after his appopintment, White was conversing with the likes of Michael Faraday. Amusingly, he was present when the Society's original Newton telescope was processed through the streets of Grantham by local Grammar School boys as the statue of the great scientist was inaugurated in the town.
He resigned his post in 1884 due to age and ill health, with a life pension of £350, equivalent of his curent salary in recognition of his valuable service to the Royal Society.
Born, 1872; educated King's College, Cambridge, 1893-1897; research at Cambridge Physiological Laboratory, 1897-; lecturer at King's College, Cambridge, 1899; junior demonstrator in the physiological laboratory, 1904; senior demonstrator, 1907; fellow of the Royal Society, 1910; assistant tutor King's College, Cambridge, 1910; expedition to Tenerife, 1910; expedition to Monte Rosa, 1911; CBE, 1918; reader King's College, Cambridge, 1919; high-altitude expedition to Cerro de Pasco in Peru, in order to study pulmonary gas exchange, blood biochemistry, and several other topics, 1921-1922; professor of physiology at Cambridge, 1925; Copley medal of the Royal Society, 1943; died, 1947.
Publications: The Respiratory Function of the Blood (1914, 2nd edition, 1925).
Born, 1848; Education: Brasenose College, Oxford. BA (1871), MA (1874); Career:
Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford (1871-1876); Professor of Physics, Yorkshire College, Leeds (1874-1885); Professor of Physics, Royal College of Science, London (1886-1901); Fellow of the Royal Society, 1884; Royal Society Royal Medal, 1891; Secretary of the Royal Society Council, 1896-1901; died, 1915.
Born, 1685; Education: Educated at home; Secket's private school; St John's College, Cambridge; LLB (1709), LLD (1714); Career: Advocate in the Court of Arches (1714-c 1720); travelled to France several times; corresponded with Pierre Remond de Montmort (FRS 1715); worked on the application of calculus to various problems, including the refraction of light and the determination of the centres of oscillation and percussion and enunciated the principle of vanishing points; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1712; Royal Society Council: 1714-1717, 1721, 1723, 1725; Royal Society Secretary, 1714-1718; died, 1731.
Born 22 June 1903 in Poplar, son of Karl Henry and Ellen, (nee Biggs), one of five children. Childhood spent in Battle, Sussex. Educated at St Leonard's Collegiate School Hastings, then at Hastings Grammar School. Obtained an exhibition (£30) at the Royal College of Science London (later became part of the Imperial College of Science and Technology) and awarded his Associateship with first class honours in 1923, taking a London External B.Sc. with a different syllabus later in the year, again obtaining first class honours. Researched inorganic chemistry under H.B. Baker at the Royal College of Science, investigating some aspects of the luminiscent oxidation of phosphorus. Wrote initial paper with W.E Downey, and when the latter was killed while climbing in the Alps he continued the research alone, developing elegant experimental techniques. Awarded Dixon Fund Essay Prize in 1925 and degree of Ph.D (London) conferred 1926. He spent 1927-1928 at the Technische Hochschule, Karlsruhe, working at the laboratory of one of the greatest German exponents of preparative inorganic chemistry, Alfred Stock. With his assistant Erich Pohland they isolated and characterized decaborane fot the first time. In 1929 on his return to London he was awarded the D.Sc degree of the University of London, and with a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship spent 1929-1931at Princeton University with Professor (later Sir) Hugh Taylor. Here he also met his wife, Mary Catherine Horton of Lynchburg, Virginia. He came back to Imperial College, London, first as a demonstrator, then as lecturer and Reader (1931-1945). In 1945 he took up a Readership at Cambridge, and then a personal chair of inorganic chemistry, becoming a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and remained there for the rest of his life. He had a profound effect on the development of inorganic chemistry in Britain, and a lasting influence on the approach to the subject by research students from the UK, the Commonwealth, America and Europe. His book 'Modern Aspects of Inorganic Chemistry' (1938), co-authored with J S Anderson, revived interest in the subject. Subsequently in Cambridge he built up an internationally acclaimed school of inorganic chemistry which dominated the subject for several decades. Equally important was his influence on an astonishing number of students and collaborators who went on to distinguished careers and senior academic positions worldwide.
Born, 1902; Education: Cotham School, Bristol; BSc (Bristol); PhD (Camb); Career: Lecturer, University of Cambridge; Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, 1932-1969; Professor of Physics, Florida State University 1971-1984; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1930; Royal Medal, 1939; Copley Medal, 1952; Nobel Prize (Physics), 1933; died, 1984.
Born, 1604; Educated in Wallachia and at Rotterdam under James Beckman; in April 1624 admitted to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; BA (1627), MA (1631); five years in Padua, then the most celbrated school of medicine in theworld, and took his degree of medicine there, MD (28 April 1636); Incorporated at Oxford (9 November 1638) He was admitted a Candidate of the College of Physicians 8th April, 1639, and a Fellow 25th June, 1639; Styled as 'the ornament of his age' by Goodall, Epistle Dedicatory to historical account of the College of Physician’s proceedings. At a time when all educated men spoke Latin, and most of them with facility, Ent was renowned beyond all his contemporaries for the ease and elegance with which he did so. He was Goulstonian lecturer in 1642. Dr. Ent was Censor no less than twenty-two years; and with three exceptions, viz., 1650, 1652, and 1658, from 1645 to 1669; Registrar from 1655 to 1670; Elect, 1st October, 1657; Consiliarius, 1667, 1668, 1669, and again from 1676 to 1686 included; President, 1670, 1671, 1672, 1673, 1674, 1675; again, in place of Dr. Micklethwait, deceased, 17th August 1682; and for the last time, 24th May, 1684, in place of Dr. Whistler, deceased. He delivered the anatomy lectures at the College in April 1665, and on this occasion was honoured by the presence of Charles II, who knighted him in the Harveian Museum after the lecture. This was a solitary instance of such an honour conferred within the walls of the College.
Although born twenty-six years after him, Ent was a close friend of William Harvey, a man known best for his discovery of the circulation of blood. Ent met Harvey in Venice, shortly after his graduation from Padua. His 'Apologia' was a defense of Harvey's theory of circulation, and Ent is credited with convincing Harvey to release his 'de Generatione Animalium', which was actually edited and published by Ent.
Ent is also known for his correspondence with Cassiano dal Pozzo, who sent Ent fossilized wood specimens, including a tabletop made of petrified wood. Ent showed them to the Royal Society, where they led to increased interest in the origin of fossils.
Sir George Ent was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society, and is named in the first charter as one of the first council members.
Born, 1913; Education: Royal Grammar School, Guildford; Trinity College, Cambridge (1930-1935); Career: Commonwealth Fund Fellow, Princeton University (1935-1937); Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge (1937-1939, 1945-1946); Faculty Assistant Lecturer, Cambridge University (1937-1939); University Lecturer in Mathematics, Cambridge University (1945-1946); Reader in Theoretical Physics, Liverpool University (1939-1945); worked on radar with Admiralty Signal Establishment (1941) and on Joint Atomic Energy Project, Montreal (1944); Wykeham Professor of Physics, Oxford University, included a sabbatical as Visiting Professor at Princeton (1946-1954); appointed part time head of the theoretical physics division of the the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell (1950); Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physics, Bristol University (1954-1964); Professor of Physics, University of Southern California (1964-1968); Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of British Columbia (1968-1978); Fellow of the Royal Society (1951); died, 2003.
Education: School and University at Bremen; MTh (1639); Oxford (entered 1656). Career: Lived in England (1640-1648); travelled on the continent, returning to Bremen (1652); sent by the Council of Bremen to negotiate with Cromwell (1653); Tutor to Henry, son of Barnabas O'Brien, 6th Earl of Thomond, and Richard Jones (FRS 1663), son of Robert Boyle's sister, Catherine, Lady Ranelagh; accompanied Jones to France and Germany (1657-1660); published 'Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society' (1665-1677); imprisoned in the Tower of London (1667) on suspicion that his extensive foreign correspondence was political, rather than scientific; worked as a translator (1670).
Education: Merchant Taylors' School; St John's College, Oxford; BCL (1683), Incorporated at Cambridge (1685), DCL (1694); studied botany under Tournefort in Paris (1686-1688); Leyden (admitted 1694); Padua (admitted 1696). Career: Fellow of St John's (1683-1703); granted permission to travel abroad for three periods of five years each (1685); travelled to Geneva, Rome and Naples, Cornwall and Jersey, sending lists of the plants he saw to John Ray (FRS 1667); Tutor to Sir Arthur Rawdon at Moira, Co Down (1690-1694), Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend (FRS 1706), with whom he travelled in Europe (1694), Wriothesley, son of William, Lord Russell, with whom he travelled in France and Italy (1695-1699), Henry, Duke of Beaufort, at Badminton (1700-1702); Commissioner for Sick and Wounded Prisoners (1702); English Consul at Smyrna, where he grew many rare plants in his garden, formed a celebrated herbarium and travelled in Asia Minor (1703-1717); travelled in Europe (1721, 1723, 1727); bequeathed £3000 to found the chair of Botany at Oxford first occupied by his friend John James Dillenius (FRS 1724).
Born 1668 or 1673; educated in medicine, and served as a medical practitioner in south Wales; developed a method for ascertaining longitude using a theoretically derived table of the earth's magnetic variation (declination), in which the angle between geographic north and the direction indicated by a compass needle was calculated for different points of the globe; Williams also invented a device for desalinating sea water to make it drinkable; died, 1755.
Born, 1828; educated at Kensington grammar school and The Grange, Sunderland; earnt his living by teaching, first at Glasgow and than at the Royal Institution, Liverpool; attended St John's College, Cambridge, 1848-1852; second master of Bristol grammar school, 1852; headmaster, 1855; resigned his post at Bristol grammar school, 1860; opened a private school at Manilla Hall, Clifton, 1861-1881; devoted his leisure to microscopical research, in particular the study of the Rotifera; fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, 1872; president of the Royal Microscopical Society, 1888-1890; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1889; died, 1903.
Originally set to the family trade of broadcloth weaving, Canton's learning and mechanical talent, as shown by his creation of an accurate sundial proudly displayed outside the house by his father, brought him to the attention of Dr Henry Miles (Fellow of the Royal Society, 1843). Miles persuaded Canton's father to allow John to reside with him in Tooting, Surrey, until 1738, when John articled himself to Samuel Watkins, master of a school in Spital Square, London, whom he succeeded as master and owner of the school until his death in 1772. Canton's first contributions to science were routine calculations of the times of lunar eclispes, published in the Ladies Diary for 1739 and 1740. Through Miles he met London's best 'experimental philosophers' such as the apothecary William Watson and clockmaker John Ellicott. He rapidly acquired the same reputation, largely for his invention of a new method of making strong artificial magnets. He kept the method secret, hoping to make some income from it, until the publication of John Mitchell's A Treatise of Artificial Magnets (1750). His procedure appeared very similar to Mitchell's, who immediately accused him of plagiarism. This did not prevent the Royal Society from awarding him the Copley Medal for 1751; Canton had a method before Mitchell's publication, and from what is known of his character testifies to his innocence. In 1752 Canton learned of the French experiments confirming Franklin's conjecture about lightning. He was the first in England to repeat the experiments successfully, and in the process discovered independently that clouds came electrified both positively (as theory suggested) and negatively. His work on determining the sign of a cloud's charge led Canton to design the well known experiments on electrostatic induction which have earned him a place in the history of electricity. He also made the notable discovery that glass does not always charge positively by friction; the sign of the electricity developed depends upon the nature of the substance rubbed over it and the condition of the surface of the glass. Other contributions to the subject were a portable pith-ball electroscope (1754), a method for electifying the air by communication (1754), a careful account of that bewildering stone the tourmaline (1759) and an improvement in the electrical machine, coating its cushion with an amalgam of mercury and tin (1762). As a gifted amateur physicist of his time, Canton displayed interest in other topics, such as identifying the cause of the luminosity of seawater (putrefying organic matter); invented a strongly phosphorescent compound 'Canton's phosphor' made of sulphur and calcined oyster shells (CaS); kept a meteorological journal; recorded the diurnal variations of the compass; and demonstrated the compressibility of water, a notable achievement, which depended on measurements so minute he was challenged on his revolutionary interpretation of them, although they stood the scrutiny of a special committee of the Royal Society and earned him a second Copley Medal in 1765. He was a frequenter of the Club of Honest Whigs in the company of Franklin and Dissenting Ministers like Joseph Priestley, whose History and Present State of Electricity owed much to his patient assistance. Canton was one of the most distinguished of the group of self-made, self-educated men who were the best representatives of English physics in the mid-eighteenth century.
Not known
Reginald Robert Betts (1903-1961) was born in Norwich. After completing his studies at Oxford University he took up a post there as a temporary lecturer. This was followed by positions as lecturer at Liverpool and Belfast Universities. In 1934 he became a professor at Southampton University. As a medieval historian, Betts specialised in the history of Bohemia but later developed a great interest in the modern Czechoslovak state, becoming an expert in Czech affairs. This knowledge led to his appointment at the BBC, during the later years of the Second World War as editor of the broadcasting service for Czechoslovakia and later of the whole European service. After the war Betts was briefly, 1945-1946 a professor at Birmingham University before becoming Masaryk Professor of Central European history at SSEES in 1946, a position he held until his death. He was also head of the History Department at SSEES until 1957.
(Mary) Daisy Waldegrave (1871-?) was the daughter of Granville Waldegrave, 3rd Baron Radstock. She married Edwyn Bevan.
Not known
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the "Economic and social history of the World War" series.
Professor Francis (Frank) William Carter was Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL) and Honorary Fellow of the UCL Geography Department. After attending Wulfrum College of Education in Wolverhampton, he studied at the universities of Sheffield and Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He lectured at King's College before joining UCL in October 1966, where he researched primarily the historical geography of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, covering themes such as agriculture, migration, city development and the environment.
Sources: Clout, Hugh 'In Memorium Francis William Carter 1938-2001: An Appreciation' in Nations, Nationalism and the European Citizen; 'Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union: A Collection of Essays in Memory of Professor Francis 'Frank' Carter (Ed. Turnock, David 2005) and Turnock, David 'Obituaries: Francis William Carter 1938-2001' in The Geographical Journal Vol. 169, No. 3 (Sep. 2001) pp. 275-276
Not known
Hilda Fowlds (1891-1931) became a teacher after graduating from London University. She was appointed headmistress of William Gibbs' School Faversham, Kent in 1921. She made several visits to Eastern Europe particularly Hungary where she made a number of friends. It was while visiting Hungary in September 1931 that she became one of some thirty people killed in the Biastorbagy railway disaster when the Budapest-Paris Express was derailed by a bomb.
Vaclav Havel (1936-) was born in Prague and first published his writings in literary journals in 1955. In 1968 as a result of his campaigning for human rights Havel was identified by the Czech Government as a dissident. Resultingly in 1971 his works were officially banned and later Havel was forced to take work in a brewery. In 1977 Havel was a co-founder of Charter 77, a human rights movement. He was put under house arrest and in 1979 was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sedition. During this time his plays were becoming better known and performed in the West. In 1988 Havel assumed leadership of the Civic Forum opposition group and after the resignation of the Communist Government he was elected President of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1989.
Petar Hektorovic (1487-1582), was a Croatian nobleman and well known figure in sixteenth century Croatian literature. He lived on the island of Hvar which was at that time under Venetian rule but was under threat from invasion by the Ottoman Empire which had conquered most of South-Eastern Europe at that time.
Paul Ignotus (1901-1978) was a writer. He was born in Hungary but came to Britain in 1956 and lived here for the rest of his life.
David Mervyn Jones (29 Jul 1922-2009) was the son of John David Jones, a university lecturer, and Gladys Alicia Jones née Coombs. He attended the King Edward VII School in Sheffield between 1929 and 1939, where he passed Greek, French and History examinations with distinction and then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1948, during which time he also completed national service. He was elected a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and St. Antony's College, Oxford as a Hungarian specialist and later went on to work for the Foreign Office.
In 1966 he published a volume of essays entitled 'Five Hungarian Writers'. One of the five subjects of the volume was Baron József Eötvös (1813-1871), who Jones described as 'Hungary's Democrat Baron' and in 1996 he translated Eötvös' major treatise 'The dominant ideas of the nineteenth century and their impact on the state'. In 2000 he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.
Publications:
Jones, D Mervyn: Five Hungarian writers (Oxford: Clarendon , 1966).
Eötvös, József, 'The dominant ideas of the nineteenth century and their impact on the state; translated, edited and annotated with an introductory essay by D. Mervyn Jones. Volume 1, Diagnosis' (Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996)
Eötvös, József, 'The dominant ideas of the nineteenth century and their impact on the state; translated, edited and annotated by D. Mervyn Jones. Volume. 2, 'Remedy'. (Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996)
Stuart Edward Mann (1905-1986) undertook postgraduate study at Bristol University before going to Albania in 1929 where he taught English at a boys' high school in Tirana. He went on to become a lector at the Masaryk University of Brno, Czechoslovakia. Mann became reader in Czech and Albanian languages at SSEES and literature in 1947 and stayed there until 1972. He published a number of works mainly on Albanian, Czech and Indo-European linguistics.
The album in this collection depicts a British Miners' Delegation on a visit to the USSR hosted by Soviet miners that took place between August and Octber 1926. The delegation was led by the secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, A J Cook. The album was originally in the possession of H C Stevens, a translator who was part of the British Delegation. The timing of the visit is significant as 1926 was the year of the British General Strike in which miners played an important role. The General Strike itself began and ended in May but the miners began their strike in late April and did not return to work until November. Therefore this visit to the USSR was happening at a very crucial time in labour relations and one in which the issue of British trade union relations with the Soviet Union was very sensitive, particularly since there had been controversy relating to Soviet contributions to strike funds.
Prince Dmitry Petrovich Svyatopolk-Mirsky (1890-1939), literary critic and historian was born in Russia. He served in the Russian army during World War One, and in Denikin's Volunteer Army during the civil war. He emigrated to Britain in 1920. He was lecturer in Russian literature at SSEES from 1922 to 1932. In 1932 Mirsky joined the British Communist Party and in 1932 he returned to Russia. He was arrested in 1937 and died in a labour camp in 1939. Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928), whose obituary is part of this collection was an expert on ancient religions, teacher of Russian at Cambridge and a friend of Mirskys'.
Ref: Mirsky, D S & ed. Smith, G S "The letters of D.S. Mirsky to P.P. Suvchinskii, 1922-1931" (Birmingham, 1995)
Heinz Pannwitz (1911-?1981) (real name Paulsen) was born in Berlin. In 1940 he became criminal commissioner heading Department GII of the Prague Gestapo in German occupied Czechoslovakia. On 27 May 1942 an assassination attempt was made on the life of Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) which resulted in his death on 4 June. Heydrich was head of the Nazi security police and governor of Bohemia-Moravia. The assassins were intelligence agents sent by Czech military intelligence in exile in Britain, aided by the Special Operations Executive. Pannwitz was appointed head of a special commision to investigate the killing. His final report was submitted to Hitler and found its way to the archives of the Institute for Jewish Research, New York (YIVO). In 1959 Pannwitz wrote his account of the investigation found in this collection. He would have had to rely on his memory as few books had been published on the subject at that time.
Bernard Pares (1867-1949) visited Russia for the first time in 1898. On his return to Britain he began work as a university extension (adult education) lecturer at Liverpool University in 1902. It was at Liverpool in 1907 that he founded the first School of Russian Studies at a British university. Pares was a regular visitor to Russia in the pre First World War period. After the outbreak of World War One he was appointed British Military Observer to the Russian Army and remained at the front for most of 1915-1917. Pares returned to Russia in January 1919 with a commission from the British Government to give lectures in Siberia then held by the White Admiral Kolchak. After Kolchak's defeat he made his way back to Britain in October 1919. While the British Government awarded him a KBE, the new Soviet Government prevented him from returning to Russia until 1935.
Pares returned to his academic career, becoming Professor of Russian Languages, Literature and History at the School of Slavonic Studies (now SSEES) at Kings College in 1919, a post he held until 1939. He was also involved more generally in the development of the School and served as Director of SSEES 1922-1939. In 1922, with Robert Seton-Watson (qv.), professor of Central European history, Pares founded and edited "The Slavonic Review". During the Second World War, Pares along with Robert Seton-Watson, worked for the Government for a short time as Russian specialist for the Foreign Research and Press Service. He then worked for the Ministry of Information, touring Britain to give public talks about Russia, also giving lecture tours in the United States. Pares remained in the United States for the remainder of his life, he died in 1949. He married Margaret Ellis in 1901. They had five children but later separated.