Irene Rose Hasler trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital from 1929-1931, gaining General Nursing Council registration in 1931.
Joan Hobbs trained initially as a kindergarten teacher, and taught for a number of years, before training as a midwife and general nurse at King's College Hospital between 1934 and 1937, gaining General Nursing Council registration in 1937. She later trained as a Nurse Tutor, and was involved in establishment of King's College Hospital unit at Horton during World War Two.
Hobbs held the post of Matron at Warwick Hospital before retiring to Worthing. She died on 21 Jul 2003, aged 95.
Kelly trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital [1947-1950].
Mead was educated at Holy Trinity College Bromley and Bromley County Technical School. She entered nurse training at King's College Hospital, London in 1954.
Mrs Rogers, was the widow of an employee at King's College Hospital, and mother of Frank Rogers, also an employee of King's College Hospital.
Trained at King's College Hospital 1929-1932. Obtained General Nursing Council registration, 1932
Deptford Hospital, Avonley Road, Deptford, was opened on 17 March 1877, by the Metropolitan Asylums Board for admission of pauper patients with smallpox. By 1881, the epidemic was over, but it remained a fever hospital up until 1941. It became the South Eastern Fever Hospital in 1885 and then New Cross General Hospital in 1949. Since c.1964 it has been known as New Cross Hospital. It closed c.1991.
The Nightingale School of Nursing (St Thomas's Hospital, London ) amalgamated with Thomas Guy and Lewisham School of Nursing, 1991, to form Nightingale and Guy's College of Nursing and Midwifery. In 1992 it was renamed the Nightingale and Guy's College of Health.
Thomas Guy and Lewisham School of Nursing was formed in 1985, by the merger of Guy's Hospital School of Nursing with Lewisham School of Nursing. In 1991, this school merged with the Nightingale School of Nursing (St Thomas's Hospital) to form the Nightingale and Guy's College of Nursing and Midwifery.
Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) was Professor-Superintenden of the Brown Institution, which specialised in research into diseases of domestic animals. The Institute was situated in Wandsworth Road, South West London and was destroyed by bombing in 1944. Sherrington was later Professor of Pathology, University of London, and Lecturer on Physiology at St Thomas's Hospital.
Leonard Stanley Dudgeon was born in London, 7 Oct 1876, the son of John Hepburn Dudgeon of Haddington, East Lothian, and his wife Catherine Pond. He was educated at University College London, and St Thomas's Hospital, and qualified in 1899.
Close association with Louis Leopold Jenner and S G Shattock led him to become one of the earliest workers in pathology and bacteriology as specialized subjects. After acting for a short period as a pathologist at the West London Hospital, he returned in 1903 to St. Thomas's Hospital, where he spent the rest of his life, and became superintendent of the Louis Jenner Clinical Laboratory. His collaboration was constantly sought over obscure cases in the wards, and under his direction the clinical laboratory became one of the most important departments of the hospital. He was appointed Director of the Pathological Laboratory and Bacteriologist (1905), Professor of Pathology in the University of London (1919), Curator of the Shattock Museum (1927), and Dean of the Medical School (1928).
During World War One Dudgeon served in the Near East as a Temporary Col, Army Medical Services, and carried out valuable investigations of infectious diseases prevalent among the troops. For his war services he was thrice mentioned in dispatches and was appointed CMG in 1918 and CBE in 1919, and awarded the Order of St Sava of Serbia.
During his term of office as Dean the medical school was largely rebuilt and modernized. He was for many years honorary secretary of the Voluntary Hospitals Committee, chairman of the Deans' Committee, and a member of the senate of London University. He was an active member of the Sankey commission on voluntary hospitals which reported in 1937. In these positions he exerted considerable influence on the course of medical education and hospital policy, and in particular took a leading part in securing co-operation for teaching purposes between the voluntary and the London County Council hospitals.
During the latter years of his life he developed a technique by means of smears for the rapid diagnosis of tumours and for the detection of malignant cells in bodily secretions, which has found wide application. At the Royal College of Physicians, of which he was elected a fellow in 1908, he was Horace Dobell lecturer (1908) and Croonian lecturer (1912). He gave the Erasmus Wilson lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1905 and 1908, and was president of the section of tropical diseases of the Royal Society of Medicine (1923-1925).
He married in 1909 Norah Orpen, of Kenmare, co. Kerry. He died in London 22 October 1938.
Publications: with Percy William George Sargent, Bacteriology of Peritonitis, Archibald Constable & Co.: London, 1905; Bacterial Vaccines and their Position in therapeutics, Constable & Co.: London 1927; edited - Studies of Bacillary Dysentery occurring in the British Forces in Macedonia, London, 1919; Articles on Malaria and Blackwater Fever; Bacillus Coli infection of Urinary Tract; on Intestinal Infection, 1924; and numerous other scientific contributions to medical literature.
Ellen V Gatter is thought to have been a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital.
Born, Basford, near Nottingham, 1790; educated by the Rev J Blanchard of Nottingham; placed with a chemist at Newark, 1804, and studied chemistry and anatomy; medical student at Edinburgh University, 1809; Senior President, Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, 1811; graduated M D, 1812; resident house physician, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1812; gave a course of lectures on diagnosis, 1813; visited the medical schools of Paris, Göttingen, and Berlin, 1814-1815; practiced at Bridgewater, 1816; settled and practiced in Nottingham, 1817; published his work on 'Diagnosis'; Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1818; Physician, Nottingham General Hospital, 1825; moved to London and set up practice, 1826; studied circulation of the blood in the minute vessels, and read several papers to the Royal Society in 1831; Fellow, Royal Society, 1832; lectured at the Aldersgate Street School, 1834-1836; Webb Street School and Sydenham College, 1836-1838; worked on the theory of reflex action, later denounced as the propagator of 'absurd and idle theories' and his papers read before the Royal Society in 1837 and 1847 refused publication; helped found the British Medical Association, and delivered the oration on medical reform, 1840; Fellow, Royal Society of Physicians, 1841; lectured on nervous diseases, St Thomas's Hospital, 1842-1846; delivered the Gulstonian lectures, 1842 and Croonian lectures, 1850-1852; retired from practice, 1853; studied restoration of persons apparently drowned and devised a system and rules adopted by the National Lifeboat Institution; continued to publish his research in the Lancet; died, 1857.
Publications include: On Diagnosis, in four parts ... The phænomena of health and disease. ... The diagnosis of the diseases of Adults. ... Of local diseases. ... Of the diseases of Children 2 volumes (London, Nottingham [printed], 1817); A description, diagnostic and practical essay on disorders of the digestive organs and general health, and particularly on their numerous forms and complications, contrasted with some acute and insidious diseases (London, Nottingham [printed], 1820); Cases of a serious morbid affection, chiefly occurring after delivery, miscarriage ... from various causes of irritation and exhaustion; and of a similar affection unconnected with the puerperal state (London, Nottingham [printed], 1820); Medical essays ... on the effects of intestinal irritation ... On some effects of loss of blood ... On exhaustion and sinking from various causes (London, [Nottingham printed,] 1825); Commentaries on some of the more important of the diseases of females (London, 1827); On a morbid affection of infancy arising from circumstances of exhaustion, but resembling hydrencephalus (London, Thames Ditton [printed], 1829); Introductory Lecture to a course of lectures on the practice of physic, etc (J Mallett, London, [1830?]); An Essay on the Circulation of the Blood; especially as observed in the minute and capillary vessels of the Batrachia and of Fishes (London, Thames Ditton [printed], 1831); Lectures on the nervous system and its diseases (London, 1836); Observations on bloodletting, founded upon researches on the morbid and curative effects on the loss of blood (London, 1836); Principles of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, including a third edition of the Author's work upon Diagnosis (London, 1837); Memoirs on the Nervous System (Sherwood, Gilbert & Piper, London, 1837); Medicine, its divisions, its rewards and its reforms: being the annual oration delivered at the British Medical Association, Oct 8th 1840 second edition (London, [1840]); On the diseases and derangements of the Nervous System (London, 1841); Practical observations and suggestions in medicine (London, 1845); On the Threatenings of Apoplexy and Paralysis, etc. (London, 1851); Prone and postural respiration in Drowning, and other forms of Apn?a, or suspended respiration edited by his son M Hall (London, 1857); contributed many articles to the Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.
Lee attended St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, 1939-1944. He was awarded MD London, FRCP, MB, BS. He also workrd at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and Oxford District Health Authority.
Lowndes was born in Staffordshire, 1892. His first job was as a Laboratory Assistant in the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Stafford Technical School. In 1909, he moved to Canada where he worked with Prof R B Macallum in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto. On the outbreak of war, he joined the 1st Canadian Expeditionary Force, after being taken prisoner at Ypres, 1915, he spent three years as a prisoner of war in Germay. After his release in 1918, he studied Chemistry in Delft, Holland, under Jan Boesekin. He married C A V Broydon. Lowndes was for some time Science Master at Rugeley Grammar School, Staffordshire, before taking up a position in 1921 as Research Assistant to Huia Onslow. In 1923, he was appointed Demonstrator in the Department of Chemistry at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, subsequently becoming the Senior Lecturer in Chemistry. He retired in 1957.
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.
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.