Boole was born in Lincoln on 2 November 1815, son of a small tradesman interested in mechanics and mathematics. He attended the National School in Lincoln and then the small commercial school of Thomas Bainbridge. He engaged in teaching from the age of sixteen, then at twenty opened his own school in the village of Waddington. He devoted every spare minute to the study of Greek, Latin and the modern languages of French, German and Italian. In 1844, while applying the doctrine of the separation of symbols to the solution of differential equations with viable coefficients, he was led to devise a general method in analysis. This paper was printed in the Philosophical Transactions of 1844, and he was awarded the Royal Medal for it. His work had led him to consider the possibility of constructing a calculus of deductive reasoning. He found that logical symbols in general conform to the same fundamental laws which govern the laws of algebra in particular, while also subject to a certain special law. This led to his remarkable essay, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, published in 1847. This demonstrated the calculus of logic, upon the invention of which Boole's fame as a philosophical mathematician rests, and was followed by the publication An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities (subsequently known as 'The Laws of Thought') of 1854. In 1849 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in the newly formed Queen's University of Cork. He produced two highly regarded textbooks on 'Differential Equations' and 'Finite Differences', and published a number of highly original papers in various journals, including the Philosophical Transactions. In 1852 the University of Dublin conferred on him the honorary title of LL.D., in consideration of his eminent services to the advancement of mathematical science. In 1857 he was awarded the Keith Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in June of the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1859 at the Oxford Commemoration he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. In 1855 he married Mary, the daughter of the Rev T R Everest, by whom he had five daughters. He died on 8 December 1864 of a feverish cold and congestion of the lungs.
Born, 1775; Profession: Scientific instrument maker; Career: succeeded to his father's business, and extended it to scientific instrument making; invented apparatus, including a Eudiometer, and the Pepys Water gas holder; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1808; died, 1856.
Isaac Newton was born, 1642; Education: Grantham Grammar School; Trinity College, Cambridge; BA (1665), MA (1668); Career: Left Cambridge because of the plague and spent two years at Woolsthorpe, where he did most of the work later published in the 'Principia Mathematica' and 'Opticks' (1665-1667); Fellow of Trinity (1667-death); Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge (1669-1701); MP for Cambridge University (1689, 1701); Warden of the Mint (1696); Master of the Mint (1699-death); Commissioner for Assessment for Cambridge, Cambridge University and Lincolnshire (1689-1690); acknowledged throughout Europe as a great scientist, philosopher and mathematician, he was involved in bitter controversies with Robert Hooke (FRS 1663), with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (FRS 1673) over the calculus and with John Flamsteed (FRS 1677) over the publication of his astronomical observations; his body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster; Benefactor to the chapels of Christ's and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge and to Addenbrooke's Hospital; Fellow of the Royal Society, (1672); President of the Royal Society, (1703-1727); Royal Society Council (1697, 1699); died, 1727.
Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield was Born, 1919; Education: Magnus Grammar School, Newark; City and Guilds examination in Radio Communications; diploma from Faraday House Electrical Engineering College, London; Career: Builder's drawing office; volunteer reservist with RAF during WW2 - radar mechanic instructor working at Royal College of Science and then Cranwell Radar School, RAF Certificate of Merit (1945); joined research staff Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) Hayes (1951) working on first all transistor computer to be constructed in Britain (EMIDEC 1100, 1958), moved to EMI Central Research Laboratories where he developed the EMI brain scanner, first demonstrated at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon in September 1971; Head of Medical Systems Section, Thorn EMI Central Research Laboratories (1972-1976), Chief Staff Scientist (1976-1977), Senior Staff Scientist (1977-1985), Consultant to Laboratories (1986-2004); winner of MacRobert Award (1972) and many other honours including Lasker Award (1975); continued to work as a consultant for EMI after retirement until 2002 and also for National Heart and Chest Hospitals, Chelsea and the National Heart Hospital and the Brompton Hospital; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1994), received six honorary degrees and more than forty awards; Mullard Medal 1977; Nobel Prize (Physiology or Medicine) 1979; Fellow of the Royal Society (1975); died, 2004.
Born, 1892; Kt, 1960; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1941; Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, 1955-1960; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1959-1960; died, 1977.
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, 1630; Education: Charterhouse School; Felsted School (for 4 years); Peterhouse, Cambridge; Trinity College, Cambridge; BA (1648/9), MA (1652), BD (1661), DD (1666); Incorporated at Oxford (1653); tutor to Viscount Fairfax; Fellow of Trinity (1649); travelled abroad (1655-1659); Ordained (1659); Fellow of Eton College (1660); Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge (1660-1663); Professor of Geometry, Gresham College, London (1662-1663); Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge (1663-1669); Prebendary of Salisbury (1671); Chaplain to Charles II; Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1673-1677); Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge (1675-1676); died of an overdose of an opiate, 1677.
Born, 1813; Education: Belfast Royal Academy; studied under Thomas Thomson (FRS 1811) at Glasgow and under Jean Baptiste Andre Dumas (For Mem RS 1840) and L J Thenard (For Mem 1824) in Paris; Trinity College, Dublin studying classics and science; Edinburgh, MD (Edinburgh); Career: Practised medicine, Belfast (1836-); Professor of Chemistry, Royal Belfast Academic Institution; gave up practice (1845); first Professor of Chemistry, Queen's College, Belfast (1845-1879); Vice-President of Queen's College, Belfast (1845); MRCSE; MRIA (1849); Fellow of the Royal Society (1849); President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1867); FRSE (1870) President, British Association (1874); declined a knighthood (1880); died, 1885.
Born, 1616; Education: School at Ashford; James Mouat's School at Ley Green, near Tenterden, Kent; Felsted School (for 2 years); Emmanuel College, Cambridge; BA (1637), MA (1640); Incorporated at Oxford (1649); DD (Oxford 1654); Incorporated from Oxford (1656); Career: Ordained (1640); Chaplain to Sir Richard Darley (1640-1642) and to Mary, Baroness Vere (1642-1644); employed by Parliament to decipher intercepted dispatches (1642-1645); Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge (1644-1645); Secretary to the Westminster Assembly (1644); Original Fellow of the Royal Society; Rector of St Gabriel's, Fenchurch Street, London (1645-1647); Minister of St Martin's, Ironmonger Lane, London (1647); Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford (1649-1703); Keeper of the Archives at Oxford (1654-1703); Justice of the Peace; Decipherer to William III; opposed the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (1692).
Created by Robert Hooke as copies of papers read to the Society.
Colonel John Herschel was the son of Sir John Frederick William Herschel.
In 1821–1823 Thomas Colby was deputed by the Royal Society, with Captain Henry Kater, to work with the astronomers Arago and Matthieu of the Académie des Sciences to verify observations made forty years earlier connecting the triangulations of England and France. For cross-channel observations, Fresnel lamps with compound lenses 3 feet in diameter were used, and Colby's description of them influenced Robert Stevenson to adopt them in British lighthouses. ( Source: Oxford DNB).
Born, 1800; educated successively at private schools at Tooting and at Winchester; joined his elder brother, who was king's counsel at Tortola (Virgin Islands), 1815, and spent his time surveying and learning Spanish and French; served for some years on Simón Bolívar's staff, Colombia, as a captain of engineers, and ultimately attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel; granted permission to survey the Isthmus of Panama and report on the best means of inter-oceanic communication, 1827; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1830; employed, under the joint direction of the Board of Admiralty and the Royal Society, in determining the difference of level in the Thames between London Bridge and the sea, 1830-1831; colonial civil engineer and surveyor-general, Mauritius, 1831-1849; associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers and served on the council, 1849; special commissioner charged with organizing displays of manufacturing and industrial products for the Great Exhibition, 1851; British chargé d'affaires to Bolivia, 1851; died, 1854.
Born, 1790; educated at the Royal Military College, Marlow, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1805; joined the East India Company as a cadet, 1806; sailed for India as second lieutenant in the Bengal artillery, 1806; surveyed Java at the request of the lieutenant-governor, Stamford Raffles, 1814-1816; worked on improving the navigation of the rivers connecting the Ganges and the Hooghly; chief assistant on the great trigonometrical survey of India, 1818-1820; convalescence, 1820-1821; returned to the survey, 1821; superintendent of the great trigonometrical survey, 1823-1842; Surveyor-General of India, 1830-1843; returned to England, 1843; died, 1866.
Born 1800; entered the Royal Navy, 1812; served first on the BRISEIS under his uncle John whom he followed to the ACTAEON, DRIVER, and, in 1818, to the ISABELLA, in which the Rosses made their first Arctic voyage in 1818, searching for the north-west passage from Baffin Bay to the Bering Strait; appointed to undertake similar scientific work in the BECLA under William Edward Parry, 1819-1820; Arctic expedition, again under Parry in the RURY, 1821-1823; joined Parry's third voyage in the FURY, 1824-1825; second in command in the HECLA expedition on which Parry tried to reach the north pole over the ice, 1827; joined John Ross in the VICTORY to search for the north-west passage, 1829-1833; conducted the first systematic magnetic survey of the British Isles, 1835-1838; Antarctic, making geographical and magnetic observations, 1839-1843; expedition to search for Franklin, returning 1849; died, 1862.
William Hyde Wollaston: born at East Dereham, Norfolk, 1766; third son of the author Francis Wollaston and his wife, Althea Hyde; educated at a private school at Lewisham for two years and then at Charterhouse, 1774-1778; a pensioner of Caius College Cambridge, 1782; scholar of Caius College Cambridge, 1782-1787; appointed a senior fellow, 1787; retained his fellowship until his death; while at Cambridge, became intimate with John Brinkley and John Pond and studied astronomy with their assistance; graduated MB, 1788; on leaving Cambridge, worked as a physician in Huntingdon, 1789; subsequently went to Bury St Edmund's; became acquainted with the Reverend Henry Hasted, a close friend and lifelong correspondent; MD, 1793; elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793 and admitted, 1794; admitted candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1794; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1795; went to London and set up practice at no 18 Cecil Street, Strand, 1797; censor of the Royal College of Physicians, 1798; increasing devotion to various branches of natural science, including physics, chemistry, and botany, led him to retire from medical practice, 1800; looked to support himself by chemical research; took a house, no 14 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, and set up a laboratory, 1801; innovations relating to platinum including the discovery of palladium and of a process for producing pure platinum and welding it into vessels, c 1804; awarded the Copley medal, 1802; Secretary of the Royal Society, 1804-1816; Fellow of the Geological Society, 1812; suggested in evidence before a committee of the House of Commons the replacement of the various gallons then in use by the 'imperial gallon' (adopted in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824), 1814; served as commissioner of the Royal Society on the Board of Longitude, 1818-1828; a member of the Royal Commission on Weights and Measures that rejected the adoption of the decimal system of weights and measures, 1819; frequently elected a vice-president of the Royal Society; declined a proposal to be nominated president of the Royal Society, but consented to act as president until the election, 1820; elected a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences, 1823; elected to the Royal College of Physicians, 1824; suffered occasional partial blindness in both eyes from 1800; attacked by symptoms said to be signify a fatal brain tumour, 1827; set about dictating papers on his unrecorded work, many of which were published posthumously; transferred £1,000 to the Geological Society (which formed 'the Wollaston Fund' from which the society awards annually the Wollaston medal and the balance of the interest), 1828; transferred £2,000 to the Royal Society to form the `Donation Fund', the interest to be applied in promoting experimental research, 1828; awarded a royal medal by the Royal Society for his work, 1828; elected a member of the Astronomical Society, 1828; died, 1828; his house was afterwards inhabited by his friend Charles Babbage. Publications: fifty-six papers on pathology, physiology, chemistry, optics, mineralogy, crystallography, astronomy, electricity, mechanics, and botany, the majority read before the Royal Society and published in the Philosophical Transactions.
Thomas Young was born, 1773; Made pioneering contribution to the understanding of light by demonstrating interference patterns, known as 'Young's fringes' (1800) which led to the Young-Fresnel undulatory theory. He also formulated an important measure of elasticity, known as 'Young's Modulus'. First to explain the accommodation of the eye; discovered the phemomenon of astigmatism; and proposed the three colour theory of vision which was later known as the Young-Hemholz theory, and was finally confirmed experimentally in 1959. Appointed to a professorship of natural philosphy at the Royal Institution (1801). His lectures at Royal Institution (1802-1803) were described by Joseph Larmor as "the greatest and most original of all general lecture courses". Undertook seminal work on the Rosetta Stone, deciphering the second type of Egyptian script on the stone, known as demotic, though the credit for finally reading the hieroglyphs belongs to Jean-Francois Champollion. A major scholar in ancient Greek, and a phenomenal linguist who coined the term 'Indo-European' for the language family which includes Greek and Sanscrit. Also a distinguished physician at St. George's Hospital, adviser to the Admiralty on shipbuilding, secretary of the Board of Longitude, and superintendent of the vital 'Nautical Almanac' from 1818 to 1829. Contributed many entries to the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (1816-1825). Physician to and inspector of calculations for the Palladian Insurance Company (1824-1829).
Warren de la Rue was born, 1815; engineer who undertook research in chemistry and astronomy; FRS, 1850; Royal Medal, 1864; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1869-1870 and 1883-1885; died, 1889.
Originally set to the family trade of broadcloth weaving, his 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 (FRS 1843). Miles persuaded the 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, and 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 sulfur 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 revolutionalry 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.
John Aubrey was born, 1626; Education: Trinity College, Oxford (matriculated 1641); Middle Temple (admitted 1646); Career: Discovered the megaliths at Avebury, Wiltshire (1649); inherited estates in Wiltshire, Herefordshire and Wales from his father (1652) but dissipated them through law suits, selling the last of his property (1670) and his library (1677); formed topographical collections on Surrey and North Wiltshire; assisted Anthony à Wood with his 'Antiquities of Oxford'; wrote 'Brief Lives' of his notable contemporaries; Original Fellow of the Royal Society; died, 1697.
Alexander Pearson was surgeon of the East India Company at Canton.
Thomas Gold was born, 22 May 1920 in Vienna, Austria. He lived there for the first ten years of his life before moving with his family to Berlin for three years. When he was thirteen, he was sent to Zuoz College, a boarding school in Switzerland. At the age of eighteen, he left for England, where his parents had settled and, at the age of nineteen, just after the Second World War had started, he went to study engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge. In May 1940, he was interned as an enemy alien. During his internment he met Hermann Bondi, a cosmologist and mathematician (1919-2005) with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.
In August 1941, Gold returned to Trinity College and, in 1942, received a BA degree in Mechanical Sciences (an MA degree in Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge University followed in 1946. He became a Doctor of Science at Cambridge University in 1969). Gold then worked for a few months as a farm labourer and lumberjack. In the autumn of 1942, Frederick Hoyle, Director of the theory group (code named Section XRC8) at the British Admiralty's Signal Establishment, hired him, on Hermann Bondi's advice, as an Experimental Officer to work on radar research and development.
Gold worked at the British Admiralty until 1946 before returning to Cambridge University where he applied for a research grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to study ultra sound and its possible use for medical diagnostics. Although the MRC agreed to the grant, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, where he was going to carry out his research, had no space to accommodate him. Therefore his work could not go ahead. Instead, he found another position, also at Cavendish Laboratory, constructing a giant 21cm magnetron for accelerators.
After a few months, Gold went to carry out research into the mechanism of hearing in mammalian ears at the Zoological Laboratory, Cambridge, with Richard Pumphrey, whom he had met during the war. In 1947, he was awarded a prize fellowship from Trinity College for a thesis based on that research and married Merle Eleanor Tuberg, an American astronomer with whom he had three daughters. The marriage eventually ended in divorce. In the late 1940s, he, Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle developed the Steady State theory of the expanding universe. In 1949, he became a University Demonstrator in Physics at Cavendish Laboratory. In 1952, he became Chief Assistant to the Royal Astronomer (Senior Principal Scientific Officer) at Royal Greenwich Observatory.
In 1956, Gold moved to America and spent the autumn semester at Cornell University before settling at Harvard University where he became Professor of Astronomy (1957-1958) and then Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, Harvard University (1958-1959). In 1957, he received a Master of Arts degree, honoris causa, from Harvard University. In 1959, he returned to Cornell University to become Chairman of its Astronomy Department (1959-1968) and Director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research (1959-1981), which he founded. From 1963 until 1971, he was involved in the running of Arecibo Observatory, a facility operated by Cornell University, and home to the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. He was also Assistant Vice President for Research (1969-1971), John L Wetherill Professor of Astronomy (1971-1986) and John L Wetherill Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus (1987-2004).
During his time at Cornell University, his achievements included correctly identifying that pulsars are rotating neutron stars, predicting that the surface of the moon would be covered with a layer of fine-grained rock powder ('lunar regolith' or 'moon dust') and designing the camera that astronauts used to photograph the surface of the moon on the Apollo 11, 12 and 14 missions. Towards the end of his life, he was perhaps best known for his advocacy of the controversial theory that oil and gas deposits are non-biological (abiogenic) in origin. He also proposed that microbial life exists deep beneath the earth's surface, a theory that has been proved correct. These theories resulted in two books, Thomas Gold, 'Power from the Earth: deep earth gas - energy for the future' (London, Dent, 1987) and Thomas Gold, 'The deep hot biosphere - the myth of fossil fuels' (New York, Copernicus Books, 1999).
In 1972, Gold married Carvel Beyer with whom he had one daughter. He died in Ithaca, New York, on 22 June 2004 at the age of 84. By birth, he was an Austrian citizen. He was also a British citizen (through naturalisation in July 1947) and an American citizen (through naturalisation in 1964).
Thomas Gold also held the following academic and non-academic positions: Vanuxem Lecturer, Princeton University (1973); Henry R Luce Professor of Cosmology, Mount Holyoke College, whilst on leave from Cornell University (1975-1976); Commonwealth Lecturer, University of Massachusetts (1975); Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar (1978-1979); Visiting Professor, Niehls Bohr Institute, Copenhagen (1980); Welsh Lecturer, University of Toronto (1980); Alexander von Humboldt Professor, University of Bonn, whilst on leave from Cornell University (1982); George Darwin Lectureship, Royal Astronomical Society, London (1982). He was also a member of the Space Sciences Panel of the American President's Science Advisory Committee for seven years and a member of a number of NASA planning committees including the Lunar and Planetary Missions Board.
Thomas Gold was also a Fellow or Member of the following societies: Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, London (10 December 1948). Served on the Council of the Society from 1955 until 1957; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (8 May 1957); Member of the Cornell University Chapter of The Society of the Sigma Xi (15 May 1960); Fellow of The American Geophysical Union (April 1962); Fellow of the Royal Society (19 March 1964); Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1968); Fellow of the American Astronautical Society (1970). Member from 1970 until 1976; Member of the American Philosophical Society (21 Apr 1972); President of the New York Astronomical Society (1981-1986); Member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Thomas Gold received the following: John F Lewis Prize, American Philosophical Society (1972); Alexander von Humboldt Prize [1979]; Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society, London (1985). He was also given an Honorary Fellowship by Trinity College, Cambridge (1986).
Thompson was born in Wombwell, South Yorkshire, and educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield, and Trinity College, Oxford, where his tutor was C.N. Hinshelwood. He gained first class honours in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) in 1929. He then spent a year researching in Berlin with F. Haber before returning to Oxford to take up a Fellowship at St John's College. Thompson quickly established himself as one of the finest teachers in the university and many of his students went on to great scientific distinction and included F.S. Dainton, C.F. Kearton, J.W. Linnett, R.E. Richards and D.H. Whiffen, all of whom became Fellows of the Royal Society. Thompson's main research interest in Berlin had been gas reactions but on his return to Oxford he focused his research activity in the area of chemical spectroscopy and in particular work on the infrared. During the Second World War he worked for the Ministry of Aircraft Production in collaboration with G.B.B.M. Sutherland on the infrared spectroscopic analysis of enemy aviation fuels, and in 1943 he and Sutherland were members of a British scientific mission which visited the USA on behalf of the Ministry. After the war Thompson continued to play a major role in demonstrating how infrared spectra might be applied to a very wide range of chemical studies. He contributed to international science as Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, 1965-1971, when the Society's overseas activities were greatly expanded, and as President of International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), 1963-1966, and of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), 1973-1975. Throughout his life Thompson gave devoted service to football, from amateur player in his youth to Chairman of the Football Association, 1976-1981.
Thompson was elected FRS in 1946 (Davy Medal 1965) and was knighted in 1968.
Charles Henry Burden (1869-1957) was the first headmaster of Hyde Technical School from 1902 to 1912. He had served previously for five years in York and prior to that in Cheshire. In 1912 he became headmaster of Beverley Grammar School, Yorkshire, until his retirement in 1935. During this period he was Mayor of Beverley three times. He received two bachelor's degrees (in Arts and Science) and a certificate of education from the University of London. Between December 1906 and April 1907, Burden toured various schools in Canada and the USA as part of the Mosely Commission. His mission was 'to ascertain their methods of teaching and to make note of the resources available'. Alfred Mosely (1855-1917), formerly a businessman in South Africa, was concerned with the growing economic power of the United States and convinced that the reason for this advance could be found in their schooling and its abundant resources. With the help of the Ministry of Education, he set up a commission of enquiry which published a report in 1903. He organised another education commission in 1906.
The Committee of Inquiry into Reading and the Use of English, chaired by Sir Alan Bullock, was appointed by the then Secretary of State for Education, Margaret Thatcher, against a background of anxiety over falling standards. Its remit was to consider all aspects of teaching the use of English, including reading, writing and speech. It reported in 1974 and the final report was published in 1975 as A Language for Life (London, 1975).
Established in 1979 as the British Comparative Education Society, an offshoot of the Comparative Education Society in Europe, its main aims were to encourage the growth of comparative and international studies by organising conferences, visits and publications. In 1997 it merged with the British Association of Teachers and Researchers in Overseas Education to form the British Association for International and Comparative Education.
The College was formed as the Society of Teachers in 1846, by a group of private schoolmasters from Brighton who were concerned about standards within their profession, and was incorporated by Royal Charter as the College of Preceptors in 1849. It pioneered a system for the formal examination and qualification of secondary school teachers and many teachers have acquired the qualifications of the College: ACP (Associate), LCP (Licentiate) and FCP (Fellow). It was also one of the first bodies to examine and provide certificates for secondary school pupils of both sexes, from all over England and Wales, at different levels, and in a wide variety of subjects. Through its publications, meetings, lectures and discussions, the College also participated in debates on examinations, standards and a wide range of professional and educational issues, particularly those affecting private schooling. Many influential educationists have been associated with the College, either as members of Council or as lecturers or advisers, including Joseph Payne (1808-1876), Frances Mary Buss (1827-1894), and Sir John Adams (1857-1934). The College continues to provide in-service qualifications for teachers and is now called the College of Teachers (since 1998).
Marguerite Elizabeth Cynthia Reynolds was born on 21 November 1928. She was educated at The Lady Eleanor Holle School, Hampton, Middlesex and trained as a teacher at The National Society's Training College of Domestic Subjects, also known as Berridge House from 1946. After qualifying in 1949, Cynthia applied to the London County Council for a teaching placement and worked at Chelsea Secondary School until 1952. After a brief interlude at Ilfracombe Grammar School, Devon, she returned to London to teach at the Kingsway Day College, teaching 16-18 year olds who were already in employment. In 1956 she became the domestic science teacher at Twickenham County School, where she taught both cookery and needlework up to 'O' level and was promoted to the Head of the department. While at Twickenham she was granted a year's secondment to attend a new course at Battersea College of Education for serving teachers which led to a Diploma in Education, with special reference to Home Economics, validated by the University of London. After qualifying for her diploma in 1966, Cynthia returned to Twickenham until 1967 when she moved to Stockwell Manor School in Brixton as the Head of Department.
By 1970 the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) had established Teachers Centres which provided in-service (INSET) education for ILEA teachers and had a team responsible for the development home economics. Maureen Walshe was the Staff Inspector of home economics and was responsible for 4 subject inspectors who were each responsible for a region of the ILEA, oversaw the wardens of the Teachers Centres and were responsible for a subject area of home economics comprising needlecraft, special education, health education and child development. Patricia Searle, North and North West Inspector, was responsible for child development and oversaw the warden of Essendine Teachers Centre. Advisory teachers were also appointed to work with each subject inspector to help develop the different subject areas.
In the early 1970s there was a concern at government level over the cycle of deprivation and the need to educate the next generation of parents. In January 1971 Reynolds was appointed, with Honor Mason, as an ILEA Advisory Teacher, under the direction of Patricia Searle, to develop child care courses as part of Home Economics curriculum. Reynolds was based in the Essedine Home Economics Teachers Centre in West London while Mason was based in the Pitfield Street Home Economics Teacher Centre in East London.
Their first task involved making contacts by visiting schools outside London which were already running child care courses; contacting people working with children under 5 and visiting playgroups and nurseries. They each worked under a home economics inspector and with colleagues in health education. They also to made contacts with experts in child development at the Institute of Education and the Tavistock Institute. Two strands of work emerged from their initial research, firstly the development of the curriculum and a syllabus combined with practical experience, and secondly the creation in-service (INSET) education for teachers embarking on such courses.
By September 1971 they had set up several 'Child development and the family' pilot courses in ILEA schools. After surveying the existing materials it was decided there was a need to create a completely new course. Reynolds and Mason contacted Peter Weiss, Director of the Media Resources Centre (MRC), for help in creating teaching material, initially on the subject of child's play. They arranged a two-day workshop for teachers who were already teaching child development to discuss and decide the basic aims and format of the materials they needed. The first pack of teaching materials was introduced in 1972. Soon Reynolds was building up contacts with experts in the field of child development and pre-school education and wrote articles and gave talks to teachers. The ILEA was the first local authority to run courses in this scale, but later other authorities appointed similar advisory teachers. Her work was recognised as part of the Education for Parenthood project by the Department of Education and Skills.
The ILEA ran a number of INSET courses in the early 1970s located at London Teachers Centres which brought teachers in contact with experts in the 'under 5s' fields. They also provided weekend residential courses at The Manor House in Stoke D'Abernon; Dartford College of Education and the University of Kent.
By the late 1970s Reynolds became involved in other home economics projects those she continued to support the child development work. Other projects included a project to develop guidelines for home economics teaching pupils in the first two years of secondary education; other in-service courses for home economics teachers; and the development of the home economics curriculum for pupils at the end of their secondary education.
In 1974 Reynolds studied at the Department of Education, University of Southampton for a MA (Ed.) course. She wrote her dissertation on the history and development of the teaching of home economics, using her previous work experiences. After completion of her course, Reynolds returned to the ILEA. She continued to work for the ILEA until she retired in December 1983.
Publications: Teaching Child Development (London, 1973).
Educational Certificates
The certificates were framed for display purposes, probably in the 1980s and probably before arrival at the Institute.
Between 1950 and 1960, four national conferences were held involving organisations and individuals representing a wide range of social work organisations and activities. The 1957 conference was held in Edinburgh and was entitled 'Children and Young People'. Regional study groups met prior to the conference to discuss questions raised in a 'Guide to Studies'. Members of these were drawn from many different types of organisation and included voluntary and local government social workers, academics, school teachers, church workers, doctors, education officers, and local councillors. They discussed a very wide range of issues and local concerns based on the five main chapters of the 'Guide to Studies': children at home; children at school; young people at work; leisure; and homemaking. Each local group drew up a report on their discussions and many were included in the published conference handbook.
Dorothy Ellen Marion Gardner (1900-1992) had a long career as a nursery and primary school teacher, lecturer and researcher in education and child development. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College where she took a Froebel course in child development. After a short period of teaching in Edinburgh she came to London and worked at the Rachel Macmillan Nursery School, the Norland Institute and the Francis Holland School in Baker Street. She was then appointed as a lecturer in Infant and Junior School Education at Bishop Otter College, Chichester. She was among the first intake of students to the new Department of Child Development at the Institute of Education, University of London from 1934 to 1936 where she became a close personal friend of Susan Isaacs (1885-1948). She then moved to the City of Leeds Training College as a lecturer in methods of education before succeeding Susan Isaacs as Head of the Department of Child Development in London in 1943. She lectured widely in the United Kingdom and abroad and was vice-chairman of the Nursery Schools Association. Her publications included Testing Results in the Infant School (1942), Longer Term Results of Infant School Methods (1950), Education of Children Under Eight (1949), The Role of the Teacher in the Infant and Nursery School (1965) and Experiment and Tradition in Primary Schools (1966). Dorothy Gardner retired in 1968 and completed a biography of Susan Isaacs which was published in 1969.
The The Dave O'Reilly Experiential Learning Archive was formed in 1998 at the instigation of Ed Rosen, who was concerned to collect and preserve a record of the development of experiential learning since its beginnings in the USA in the 1970s.
Isabel Fry (1869-1958) was an educationist, social worker and reformer. She was born in March 1869 into the famous reforming Quaker family, as the daughter of Sir Edward Fry (1827-1918), jurist, and Mariabella Hodgkin. She was one of nine children. Her siblings included Joan Mary Fry (1862-1955), a leading Quaker; Agnes Fry (1868-1957), author; (Sara) Margery Fry (1874-1958), penal reformer and Principal of Somerville College, Oxford; Roger Eliot Fry (1866-1934), artist and critic; and Anna Ruth Fry (1876-1962), pacifist and Quaker activist. In around 1885 Isabel attended school at Highfield and in 1891-1892 went to teach at Miss Lawrence's School in Brighton [later named Roedean] with Constance Crommelin [later Mrs John Masefield]. In around 1895 she moved to London with Constance and coached small groups of children in their own homes, including at Harley Street, and also at private schools in London, including at a school she founded in Marylebone Road. In 1908 Isabel Fry met the Turkish educational and social reformer Halidé Edib and visited Turkey for the first time. In 1912 she began to take deprived children to her summer cottage at Great Hampden, for holidays and teaching. Between 1913 and 1915 she held classes in Gayton Road, Hampstead and at other schools in London, in 1914 she paid her second visit to Turkey and in 1916 she worked as a welfare supervisor in a factory in the Midlands. In 1917 she founded The Farmhouse School, Mayortorne Manor, Wendover, Buckinghamshire, an experimental school in which training in farm and household duties were emphasised. It was here that she made a close personal friend of Eugénie Dubois, who taught French at the Farmhouse School. In 1930 she left Mayortorne Manor and worked in settlements for unemployed miners in Wales and Durham with her sister Joan, and in the Caldicot community in Maidstone, Kent. In 1934 she opened a new experimental school for deprived children and refugees at Church Farm, Buckland near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Isabel Fry died in 1958. She published three books, Uninitiated (Osgood, Mcilvaine & Co, London, 1895), The Day of Small Things (Unicorn, London, 1901) and A Key to Language: A Method of Grammatical Analysis by Means of Graphic Symbols (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1925).
Gene Adams was a teacher who became a Museums Education Advisor. Adams received a BA in Fine Arts (Hons) from the University of Natal in South Africa in 1953. Soon after graduating she travelled to London and from 1956 to 1957 was employed as Assistant Curator at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. During her return to South Africa from late 1957 she worked at temporary experimental museum educational projects at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She moved to London permanently in May 1959 to take up part time educational work at the Geffrye Museum.
After qualifying as a teacher in 1963 at the Institute of Education, Gene Adams taught at various London schools as an art teacher. In 1970-1974 Adams was seconded to the Geffrye Museum as a part time teacher and became the Teacher in Charge of the Art Room. After a series of activities at the Geffrye in 1974 looking at the history and architecture of the Spitalfields area, Adams helped formed the 'Save our Spitalfields' group who created an independent exhibition in 1979 promoting the Spitalfields area and highlighting the architecture which was at risk of demolition. The exhibition later toured museums in the south east.
In 1975 Gene Adams was appointed the Art and Museum Education Advisory Teacher at the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Here she developed educational activities in museums and art galleries, including school visits, holiday activities, in-services training courses for ILEA teachers, and general information leaflets for teachers on museums education mostly based at the historic houses of the Greater London Council (GLC). In 1978 she became the ILEA Museum Education Advisor.
When the ILEA was abolished in 1990 there was no place for her role in the new London authorities and she became a freelance museums education advisor. She was also a member of the education committee of Museum of Moving Image (MOMI), (later the NFT/MOMI education committee/South Bank Education Committee.) Adams also wrote articles on museums education for 'Questions' magazine, and ran a course for staff at the Museum Department of Kraftangan, a Malaysia crafts organisation, to help them establish an education service.
As well as her career in museum education, Gene Adams was also actively opposed corporal punishment in schools. She was a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties and in 1968 formed an anti-corporal punishment pressure group, known as the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment (STOPP). She also served on the NCCL Executive and its Children's Rights Committee for several years. In 1973 Gene Adams resigned from the STOPP Committee.
The Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) is an independently run but centrally supported group of schools initially created in 1872 to advance the education of women. By 2007 the GDST was running 29 schools located across England and Wales. The motto of the trust was 'Knowledge Is Now No More a Fountain Sealed'.
The History of Education Society was founded in 1967, 'to further the study of the history of education by providing opportunities for discussion among those engaged in its study and teaching'. The Society sponsors the publication of two peer-reviewed journals: History of Education and History of Education Researcher.
Horace Panting trained at the Institute of Education, University of London in 1934-1935. He was an East London science teacher holding posts at Holborn Boys' School, 1935-1940, and later at Stratford and Plaistow Grammar Schools and West Ham College of Technology. He retired in 1977. Throughout his teaching career he took a keen interest in school sport, both within the schools in which he taught and through involvement with associations such as West Ham Schools Sports Association and the London Schools Cricket Association.
Harry Rée (1914-1991) was a student at the Institute of Education, University of London, from 1936-1937. He went on to become a language master at Bradford Grammar School and, after gaining a distinguished war record for his activities with the French resistance, was headmaster of Watford Grammar School. He then became the first Professor of Education at York University, 1961-1974. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a strong proponent of comprehensive education and was actively involved in a number of pressure groups, including the Society for the Promotion of Educational Reform through Teacher Training and the Programme for Reform in Secondary Education. In 1974 he left his professorship to return to classroom teaching in Woodberry Down Comprehensive School, London, where he remained until his retirement in 1980. In his retirement he continued to campaign for comprehensive education, for exchanges between young workers within the European Community and the reform of the 1988 Education Act. He was particularly influenced by Henry Morris (1889-1961) who, as Chief Education Officer for the County, had pioneered 'Village Colleges' in Cambridgeshire in the 1930s, and Rée became Morris's biographer and a strong advocate for community education.
Composed of individuals from adult education, voluntary agency and broadcasting backgrounds, this group met on an ad-hoc basis in 1983, organised its first conference in March 1984 and adopted a formal constitution in June 1985. Its aims were to promote adult learning through personal networks such as self-help groups. It wound up its activities in 1990.
1943-46 : University of Bristol. Hons. 1st. Cl. Physics
1946-47 : Oxford, L.S.E. and S.O.A.S. Colonial Officers' Course
1948-50 : District Officer, Tanganyika ( now Tanzania )
1950-51 : Operative, Fry's Chocolate Factory, Bristol
1951-52 : University of Bristol. P.G.C.E. ( Dist.)
1952-55 : Asst. master, Bristol Grammar School
1955-59 : Head of Science, Sir Thomas Jones Comprehensive School, Amlwch, Anglesey
1959-67 : Founding Headmaster, Vyners Grammar School, Ickenham, Mddx.
1967-70 : Lecturer, Exeter University Dept. of Education
1970-74 : District Inspector, Camden-Westminster ( ILEA )
1974-79 : Senior Staff Inspector Secondary ( ILEA )
1979-85 : Chief Inspector ( Schools ) ( ILEA )
1985-90 : Gen. Sec., Quaker Social Responsibility and Education, Friends House
The aims of the London History Teachers' Association were: to promote meetings of interest to history teachers in secondary schools; to further the interests of history teachers by exchanging experience of syllabus and method, by attempting to place the results of research and revision at their disposal and by providing opportunity for them to meet each other informally and socially; to experiment in liaison work between university and school; to investigate the problems, scope and content of history teaching and to organise a body of opinion, to collaborate with other interested groups and to consult with examining boards. Membership was open to anyone interested in the teaching of history in secondary schools. In 1975 it was felt that the pioneer role of the Association in encouraging in-service education and been increasingly pre-empted by other bodies, that there were increased pressures on teachers in terms of time and energy, and difficulties in public transport which all resulted in poor attendance. The Association therefore decided to cease formal meetings and instead to continue for social activities only. During the course of its activities, it held lectures and meetings on a wide range of subjects and its records give an insight into the opinions and concerns of history teachers during the period. Guest speakers addressed a variety of practical, philosophical and political issues affecting the teaching of history. Topics ranged from 'What is a good textbook?', 'The training of a history teacher', 'Archaeology in schools' and 'The use and production of television programmes for history' to '"A world outlook": its educational implications'. The Association was chaired by Margaret Bryant and Jim Henderson of the University of London Institute of Education.
Bruce Martin (b 1917) studied at Cambridge and then with the Architectural Association. Following World War Two he worked in the Architects' Department of Hertfordshire County Council. The County Architects Department was formed in 1946 with C.H. Aslin as County Architect and Stirrat Johnson-Marshall as his Deputy. On the instigation of the County Education Department and under the influence of its famous Education Officer, John Newsom, it immediately embarked on what became known as 'The Hertfordshire experiment': a large building programme designed to provide many new primary schools for the County. In order to meet this challenge The Architects' Department used many pioneering techniques, including the pre-ordering of building materials, and the use of prefabricated construction. It also employed innovative educational ideas, which were associated with the move to 'child-centred' schools. The programme received widespread coverage in the architectural press. As part of the team responsible for the design and construction of primary schools in the County, Martin worked alongside Mary Crowley, A.R. Garrod, W.D. Lacey, David Medd, Oliver Carey, Anthony Cox and W.A. Henderson. Many of this group went on to become influential figures in the 'new school building' movement. The 1947 Primary School Programme of the County Council included the design of ten new primary schools: The Burleigh School, Blindman's Lane, Cheshunt; Essendon; Mill Lane Junior Mixed Infants School, Bushey; Strathmore Avenue Infant School, Hitchin; Bedford Road Junior Mixed Infants School, Letchworth; LCC Estate Junior School, Oxhey; Oliver Road Junior Mixed Infants School, Hemel Hempstead; and Little Green Lane Junior School, Croxley Green. In the following years he was also involved in the design and construction of Morgans Road Junior Mixed Infants School, Hertford.
The Reverend Michael Burden (b 1936) attended Banks Lane Council School and Stockport School; schoolmaster at Prestatyn and Heaton Moor College, 1954-1956; attended Selwyn College, Cambridge University, where he changed his course from Natural Sciences to Theology, 1956-1959. Ridley Hall Theological College, 1959-1962; Assistant Curate at Ashton-upon-Mersey, 1962; Chaplain at St Peter's Junior School in York, 1965-1970; Head of Religious Education and Careers at Beverley Grammar School, 1970-1974; Rector at Walkington, 1974-1977; Head of Community Studies at Sir Leo Schultz High School in Hull, 1977-1982; Priest-in-charge of Holy Trinity, Berwick upon Tweed, 1982-1992.