Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
Sir Everard Home was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1756. He was educated at Westminster School, and became a surgical pupil of his brother-in-law John Hunter (1728-1793), surgeon at St George's Hospital, London. Home qualified through the Company of Surgeons in 1778 and was appointed assistant surgeon in the new naval hospital at Plymouth. In 1779 he went to Jamaica as staff surgeon with the army, but on returning to England in 1784 he rejoined Hunter at St George's as assistant. He was elected FRS in 1787, and in the same year he became assistant surgeon at St George's Hospital. In 1790-1791 Home read lectures for Hunter and in the following year he succeeded Hunter as lecturer in anatomy. Home joined the army in Flanders in 1793, but returned just before Hunter's sudden death in 1793. He then became surgeon at St George's Hospital and was also joint executor of Hunter's will with Matthew Baillie, Hunter's nephew. In 1793-1794 they saw Hunter's important work, On the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-Shot Wounds, through the press and in 1794 Home approached Pitt's government to secure the purchase for the nation of Hunter's large collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. After protracted negotiations the collection was purchased for £15,000 in 1799 and presented to the College of Surgeons. In 1806 the collection was moved from Hunter's gallery in Castle Street to form the Hunterian Museum at the new site of the college in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Home was chief curator and William Clift, who had worked with Hunter since 1792, was retained as resident conservator. Clift also had charge of Hunter's numerous folios, drawings, and accounts of anatomical and pathological investigations, which were essential for a clear understanding of the collection. In the years following Hunter's death Home built up a large surgical practice and published more than one hundred papers of varying quality, some very good, mainly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The society awarded him its Copley medal in 1807. He gave the Croonian lectures fifteen times between 1794 and 1826. As Hunter's brother-in-law and executor he had great influence at the Royal College of Surgeons where he was elected to the court of assistants in 1801, an examiner in 1809, master in 1813 and 1821, and its first president in 1822. Having, with Matthew Baillie, endowed the Hunterian oration, he was the first Hunterian orator in 1814, and again in 1822. He became Keeper and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in 1817 and was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the college from 1804 to 1813, and again in 1821. His Lectures on Comparative Anatomy were published in 1814 with a volume of plates from drawings by Clift. A further volume of lectures followed in 1823 accompanied by microscopical and anatomical drawings by Bauer and Clift. Two more volumes appeared in 1828. This work, although lacking in structure, is an important record of Hunter's investigations, especially the last two volumes. Home drew heavily on Hunter's work in the papers and books which he published after Hunter's death. Before the collection was presented to the Company of Surgeons in 1799 Home arranged for Clift to convey to his own house Hunter's folio volumes and fasciculi of manuscripts containing descriptions of the preparations and investigations connected with them. He promised to catalogue the collection, refusing help, but, despite repeated requests, only a synopsis appeared in 1818. B C Brodie says that Home was busily using Hunter's papers in preparing his own contributions for the Royal Society. Home himself later stated that he had published all of value in Hunter's papers and that his one hundred articles in Philosophical Transactions formed a catalogue raisonée of the Hunterian Museum. Home destroyed most of Hunter's papers in 1823. After his death in 1832, a parliamentary committee was set up to enquire into the details of this act of vandalism. Clift told this committee in 1834 that Home had used Hunter's papers extensively and had claimed that Hunter, when he was dying, had ordered him to destroy his papers. Yet Home, who was not present at Hunter's death, had kept the papers for thirty years. Clift also declared that he had often transcribed parts of Hunter's original work and drawings into papers which appeared under Home's name. Home produced a few of Hunter's papers which he had not destroyed and Clift had copied about half of the descriptions of preparations in the collection, consequently enough of Hunter's work survives to suggest that Home had often published Hunter's observations as his own. Although the full extent of Home's plagiarism cannot be determined, there is little doubt that it was considerable and this seriously damaged his reputation.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
Thomas James Poole was born in Bridgwater, in 1809. He was apprenticed as a surgeon to Anthony Huxtable and Henry Clark in 1825. He went on to receive his medical education at St Bartholemews hospital, and passed his LSA in 1830, and his MRCS in 1832. Poole practised around the Somerset area and was Medical Officer to the Bridgewater Union, fl 1847. He died in 1881.
Anthony Huxtable MRCS, was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier apprenticed to John Ball in Williton, Somerset, in 1797. He was practising surgery in Bristol in 1825, and his address given as Union Street, King Square, Bristol in 1826.
Henry Clark was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier practising in Bristol, in 1825.
Samuel Crompton was born in Berry Fold House, Over Darwen, Lancashire, in 1817. He was apprenticed to his uncle Samuel Barton, an opthalmic surgeon in Manchester (possibly 1790-1871; MRCS 1811 and FRCS 1844; surgeon to the Manchester Eye Hospital from 1815). He received his medical education partly at the Manchester School of Medicine, Pine Street, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, from 1838. He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a Licentiate of the Apothecaries Society in 1839, and later MD St Andrews, in 1862. He returned to Manchester to practice in 1840. He became surgeon to Henshaw's Blind Asylum, Old Trafford, c 1849. He was Consultant Physician at Salford Royal Hospital and Dispensary. He published a treatise entitled Results of an Investigation into the Causes of Blindness, with Practical Suggestions for the Preservation of the Eyesight, in 1849. He retired to Cranleigh, Surrey, in 1881. He died in 1891.
Hugh Owen Thomas was born in 1834. He came from 7 generations of bone-setters, originally from Anglesey in North Wales. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Dr Owen Roberts, at St Asaph in North Wales, in 1851. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and University College London. He become a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1857. He went to Liverpool in 1858, to help his father, and set up his own practice in 1859. He spent most of his working life in the slums of Liverpool treating the poor. From 1870, he ran a free clinic on Sundays, where he treated dockers, shipyard workers and seamen. In the treatment of tuberculosis and fractures, he strongly advocated the use of rest which should be 'enforced, uninterrupted and prolonged'. His ideas were published in Diseases of the hip, knee and ankle joints, with their deformities (1875). This was at a time when it was often suggested that excision or amputation were the solution for chronic bone disorders. In order to achieve rest and immobilisation he invented several types of splints that were manufactured in his own work shop by both a blacksmith and a saddler. He also invented a wrench for the reduction of fractures and an osteoclast to break and reset bones. He was elected a member of the Liverpool Medical Institution in 1876, published many works on orthopaedic surgery, and was given an honorary degree by the University of St Louis. He died in 1891.
Sir Anthony Carlisle was born in Stillington, Durham, in 1768. He was sent to his maternal uncle, Anthony Hubback, in York, for medical training. Following his uncle's death Carlisle transferred to a Durham surgeon, William Green, in 1784. Carlisle went to London in the late 1780s, and attended lectures by John Hunter, Matthew Baillie and others. He became the house pupil of Henry Watson, and on Watson's death succeeded him to the post of surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, in 1793. He began offering lectures on surgery in 1794, hoping to establish a formal medical school there. He advocated the systematic collection and publishing of hospital statistics. He was active in securing the collections of John Hunter for the Royal College of Surgeons, during the 1790s. He was one of the original members of the College in 1800. He sat on Council and the Court of Examiners. He served as Vice-President and twice as President (1829 and 1839). He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1820. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. With William Nicholson, he electrolyzed water into its constituent gases and communicated this to the Royal Society in 1800. He secured the post of Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1808, and also studied art there. He was appointed surgeon to the Duke of Gloucester and then surgeon-extraordinary to the Prince Regent (later King George IV). He was investigated but exonerated for three cases of neglect in 1838. He opposed male midwives on the grounds of modesty and incompetence. He died in 1840.
Sir Charles Blicke was born in 1745. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and was elected assistant surgeon in 1779. John Abernethy became his apprentice in 1779. Blicke became surgeon in 1787. He was a member of the Court of Assistants at Surgeon's Hall and in 1803 was knighted and became Master of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Court of Assistants gave their thanks to him in 1811, for his work as Treasurer during the building of the College. He died in London, in 1815.
William Sharpe was a former member of Court but no further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Richard Phillips Jones was born in c 1797. He was educated at St George's Hospital. He entered as a 12 month pupil of Sir Everard Home, in 1817. He became MRCS in 1819. He obtained his MD from Glasgow, in 1821. He was a member of a Medical Board attending those dying of cholera in Wales, in 1832. He was appointed Honorary Physician to the Chester General Infirmary, in 1835. He became Physician to the Denbighshire General Dispensary and Asylum for Recovery of Health. He was appointed JP for the City of Chester and County of Denbigh, in 1845. He was Mayor of Chester, 1846-1848 and 1852-1853. He became FRCS in 1858. He also became Consulting Physician and Honorary Governor of the Chester General Infirmary, in 1861. He died in 1867.
Berkeley George Andrew Moynihan was born in Malta, in 1865. He moved with his mother to Leeds, in 1867. He was educated in Leeds, and then at the Blue Coat School, Newgate Street, London from 1875-1881. He studied at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, from 1881-1883, and then proceeded to the Medical School of Yorkshire College, in Leeds. He graduated MB at the University of London in 1887, and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the same year. He passed the examination for the Fellowship in 1890, and for Master of Surgery in 1893, being awarded the gold medal. After serving as house surgeon at the Leeds General Infirmary in 1887, he acted as demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School from 1893-1896. He was elected assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1896, was surgeon from 1906, and consulting surgeon from 1927 until his death. He was lecturer in surgery from 1896-1909, and from 1909-1927 he was professor of clinical surgery in the University of Leeds. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Moynihan was appointed an examiner in anatomy on the board of examiners in anatomy and physiology for the Fellowship in 1899. He gave three lectures as Arris and Gale lecturer in 1899, and three lectures in 1900. In 1920 he gave a lecture as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology, and in the same year delivered the Bradshaw lecture. He was Hunterian Orator in 1927. He served on the Council of the College from 1912-1933, and was elected President, 1926-1931. During World War One, he held the rank of major à la suite attached to the 2nd Northern General Hospital of the Territorial RAMC, with a commission dated 14 Oct 1908. He was gazetted temporary colonel, AMS, in 1914, and served in France. On demobilization in 1919 he was holding the rank of major-general. He had been chairman of the Army Advisory Board form 1916, and chairman of the council of consultants 1916-1919. He died in 1936.
Alexander Monro, secundus, was born in Edinburgh in 1733. He was the third son of Alexander Monro, primus, (1697-1767), Professor of Medicine and Anatomy at Edinburgh University. From an early age Alexander was designated as his father's successor as Professor of Medicine and his father took his education very seriously. Monro secundus' name first appears on his father's anatomy class list in 1744. The following year he matriculated in the Faculty of Arts at Edinburgh University. He began attending medical lectures in 1750. In 1753, still a student, he took over the teaching of his father's summer anatomy class and at his father's instigation was named joint Professor of Medicine and Anatomy in 1754. He graduated MD in 1755, and then went on an anatomical grand tour, studying in London with William Hunter, and in Berlin with Johann Friedrick Meckel. He matriculated on 17 Sep at Leiden University and became friends with Albinus. His tour was interrupted when his father's recurring illness brought him home to take up the duties of the professorship in 1758. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1759. In the 50 years he taught at Edinburgh University Monro secundus became the most influential anatomy professor in the English speaking world, lecturing daily from 1 to 3pm, in the 6-month winter session. He spent every morning preparing for his class anatomical specimens from his own extensive collection. When the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh attempted to institute a professorship of surgery Monro acted vigorously to protect his chair, protesting to the town council against such a step. He succeeded in 1777 in having the title of his own professorship formally changed to the Chair of Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery, preventing the establishment of a course of surgery in Edinburgh for thirty years. The anatomical research which secured Monro's posthumous medical reputation was his description of the communication between the lateral ventricles of the brain, now known as the foramen of Monro. He first noted it in a paper read before the Philosophical Scoiety of Edinburgh in 1764. Monro was a member of the Harveian Society (a medical supper club), secretary to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, a manager of the Royal Infirmary, and district commissioner for the city of Edinburgh. He married Katherine Inglis on 25 September 1762, and they had two daughters and three sons. The eldest son Alexander Monro tertius (1773-1859), succeeded his father as Professor of Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery. Monro secundus died in 1817.
Allen Thomson was born in 1809. He was the grandson of John Thomson (1765-1846), Professor of Military Surgery, and of General Pathology at the University of Edinburgh. He was also the first Professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Allen Thomson was educated in Edinburgh, graduating MD in 1830. He then travelled to Europe, visiting Amsterdam, Strasbourg and Berlin, where he studied anatomical and pathological museums before returning to Edinburgh in 1831, as Lecturer in Anatomy and Physiology. He set up a teaching partnership with William Sharpey, where he taught the physiology, and Sharpey taught anatomy. The partnership lasted until 1836 when Sharpey was appointed Professor of Anatomy at University College London. Thomson became a Fellow of the Edinburgh College in 1832. He travelled to London and Europe for further anatomical study in 1833. He became Private Physician to the Duke of Bedford and his family in 1837, before being appointed to the Chair of Anatomy in Aberdeen in 1839. He returned to Edinburgh to become a teacher of anatomy in the extramural school in 1841, and then became Professor of Institutes of Medicine (Physiology) at the University of Edinburgh. One of the innovations that he introduced on his return to Edinburgh was to use the microscope in the teaching of anatomy. He became Chair of Anatomy at the University of Glasgow in 1848, until his retirement in 1877. By the time of appointment to Glasgow he had amassed a large collection of material for anatomical and physiological teaching which was added to the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1838, and of London in 1848, later becoming President of that Scoiety. He became President of the British Association in 1876, and was honoured with the degrees of LLD from the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He died in 1884.
George Porter was born in Stainforth, Yorkshire, in 1920. He was educated at Thorne Grammar School 1931-1938, and was Ackroyd Scholar at the University of Leeds, 1938-1941. He served as a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Radar Officer in the Western Approaches and the Mediterranean from 1941 to 1945. In 1949 he married Stella Jean Brooke and they had two sons, John Brooke and Andrew Christopher George. In 1945 he went to the University of Cambridge to research chemical kinetics and photochemistry. He stayed at Cambridge until 1954 when he became Assistant Director of the British Rayon Research Association in Manchester. He studied the problems of dye fading and phototendering of fabrics. He was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sheffield from 1955 to 1963 and became Firth Professor of Chemistry there from 1963 to 1966. He was also Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) from 1963 to 1966. In 1966 he became Director of the RI as well as Fullerian Professor of Chemistry of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI. He researched into applying flash photolysis to the problem of photosynthesis and extended it to the nanosecond and picoseocnd regions. He remained Director of the RI until 1985 and during this time, he gave many lectures including several broadcasts on television. He published many papers and also books such as Chemistry for the Modern World, 1962 and Chemistry in Microtime, 1996. He received many awards for his work, gaining the Davy medal in 1971, the Rumford medal in 1978, the Michael Faraday medal in 1991 and the Copley medal in 1992. In 1967 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with M. Eigen and R. G. W. Norrish. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960 and became President of the Royal Society in 1985 until 1990. He became Chairman of the Centre for Photomolecular Sciences, at Imperial College London in 1990. He was knighted in 1972, awarded the Order of Merit in 1989 and made a life peer in 1990.
William Crookes was born the son of Joseph Crookes, tailor, and Mary Scott in London, in 1832. His education was irregular but eventually he attended A W Hofmann's Royal College of Chemistry in London in 1848. In 1850 he became Hofmann's assistant until 1854. He attended lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) given by Michael Faraday (1791-1867). In 1854 he was Superintendent of the Meteorological Department of the Radcliffe Astronomical Observatory in Oxford. In 1854 he worked with John Spiller on the collodion process of photography and improved it. In 1855 he taught chemistry at the College of Science in Chester. In 1856, he researched into photography and compiled a Handbook to the Waxed-Paper Process in Photography (Chapman and Hall, 1857). He also undertook the editorship of the Liverpool Photographic Journal in 1856, and in 1857 he became Secretary of the London Photographic Society, a position he held until 1858. He was also the editor and proprietor of the weekly Chemical News journal from 1859. In 1856 he married Ellen Humphrey and they subsequently had ten children. Crookes researched into spectra and in 1861 he discovered a new element which he called thallium. In 1863 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (RS). In 1865 he discovered the process of extracting precious metals from ores, however it had already been discovered in America and Crookes had to negotiate half rights over patents for using sodium amalgam, only to be superseded by the discovery of potassium cyanide as the best solvent of gold. From 1867 he became interested in spiritualism, which affected his views on science. By 1870 he decided to investigate spiritualism as a scientist and prove the existence of psychic force, an investigation which caused him to lose some respect as a scientist. Despite this, he developed the technique of determining the atomic weight of thallium. In 1873 he wrote the paper `Attraction and Repulsion resulting from Radiation' published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; this resulted in his invention of the radiometer in 1875. In 1876 he researched into radiant matter and found that molecular pressure was the result of radiant matter being affected by magnets. In the 1880s he worked on incandescent lamps for electricity. He became Director of the Electric Light and Power Company in 1881 and patented his designs on incandescent lamps, however he sold these as newer and better designs developed. In c1891 he became Director and later Chairman of the Notting Hill Electric Light Company which prospered in its time. In 1890 he was elected President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In 1897 he was elected President of the Society for Psychical Research and in the same year he was knighted. He gave lectures on making diamonds at the RI in 1897 and became its Honorary Secretary in 1900 a position he held until 1912. In 1908 he was elected Foreign Secretary of the RS until 1913 when he was elected President of the RS, a position he held until 1915. He published papers in journals such as Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as Proceedings of the Royal Society and in Chemical News. He died in 1919.
William Hasledine Pepys was born the son of W H Pepys, cutler and maker of surgical instruments, in London, in 1775. His educational background is not known. In 1796 he founded the Askesian Society, which led to the foundation of the British Mineralogical Society, the Geological Society and the London Institution, in Finsbury Square, London. He was an original manager of the London Institution and was Honorary Secretary from 1821 to 1824. He became the Treasurer and Vice-President of the Geological Society. He worked on soda-water apparatus in 1798 and also researched into using mercury contacts for electrical apparatus and tubes coated in India rubber to convey gases, inventing the mercury gasometer as a result. In 1807 he invented a type of eudiometer, and in 1808 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He extended his father's business into making instruments for the philosophical discipline. He was active in the management of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and was its Vice-President in 1816. He published papers of his work in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and in Philosophical Magazine with William Allen (1770-1843). He was a Quaker and he died in Kensington, London in 1856.
William Lawrence Bragg was born the son of William Henry Bragg, physicist and Gwendoline Todd, in Adelaide, Australia, in 1890. As a child, he attended Queen's preparatory school and St Peter's College in Adelaide. He went to the University of Adelaide at the age of 15 in order to study mathematics and graduated in 1908 in physics and chemistry. In 1909 he came to England with his family and went to study at Cambridge. In 1910 he gained first class honours in part one of the mathematical Tripos and subsequently gained a first in part two of the physics Tripos in 1912. In 1914 he became a Fellow and lecturer in Natural Sciences at Trinity College Cambridge. He began researching under J. J. Thomson and worked on the reflection of x-ray waves by planes of atoms in crystals, in order to reveal the position of atoms thus developing crystal analysis. The relationship between the angle of incidence and wavelength, and between parallel atomic planes is known as Bragg's Angle' orBragg's Law'. He worked on crystal structure and its arrangement in sodium and potassium. He also worked with his father, William Henry Bragg, particularly on the structure of diamond, resulting in a joint publication in 1915 called X-Rays and Crystal Structure. It was for this work with his father that he jointly won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915, and at 25 years old, he remains the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize. During the First World War and until 1919, William Lawrence (he was known as Lawrence in order to distinguish him from his father) primarily served in the Royal Horse Artillery until he became Technical Adviser to the Map Section in order to research into sound ranging to locate enemy guns. In 1919 he became Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester, a position he held until 1937. He set up the School of Crystallography at Manchester and introduced the study of atomic radii, x-ray diffraction, scattering atoms, analysing structures, branch of optics, order-disorder changes and metals, alloys and silicate. He developed quantitative crystallography and worked on the structure of minerals and later, protein. In 1921 he married Alice Hopkins and they had four children, Stephen Lawrence, David William, Margaret Alice and Patience Mary. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1921. In 1937 he became Director of the National Physics Laboratory, but only until 1938 when he became Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge. He held this position until 1953 having reorganised the Cavendish Laboratory into separate branches of physics. It was split into nuclear physics, low temperature physics, radio physics, crystallography and metal physics. Whilst at Cambridge, he realised the potential of using crystal analysis on living cells, after Max Perutz had shown him an x-ray photograph of haemoglobin. In the Second World War, Lawrence became a consultant to the sound ranging section of the army, and also to the Admiralty on underwater detection using sound waves (known as asdic or sonar). He was also on the Ministry of Supply Committee and assisted the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1941 he went to Ottawa, Canada as a scientific liaison officer for the war effort. In 1941 he was knighted. From 1939 to 1943, he was President of the Institute of Physics, whereby he promoted x-ray research and also became the first President of the International Union of Crystallography. In 1947 he helped set up what became the Medical Research Council Laboratory of molecular biology at the Cavendish laboratory, Cambridge. Under his direction, Francis Crick and James Watson determined the double helix structure of DNA. In 1953 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). In 1954 he became Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI, and developed it into a major centre for x-ray analysis. He was the first person to be denominated Director of the RI. He introduced corporate membership to the RI and performed lectures on television for the first time. He worked closely with Max Perutz and John Kendrew at Cambridge (who gained a Nobel Prize for their work on proteins) and under his guidance David Phillips (later Lord), determined the structure of lysozyme in 1965 which was the first enzyme to have its structure identified. Lawrence was Chairman of the Frequency Advisory Committee from 1958 to 1960. He retired from the RI in 1966, but continued to lecture there until 1971. He gained several medals in his career including the Hughes medal in 1931, the Royal Medal in 1946 and the Copley medal in 1966 from the Royal Society. He published many articles and books such as `The Diffraction of Short Electromagnetic Waves by a Crystal' in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1912; The Crystalline State in 1934 and others in journals such as Philosophical Magazine, Transactions of the Faraday Society and Proceedings of the Royal Society. Lawrence died near Waldringfield, Suffolk in 1971.
Bawden was born in North Tawton, Devon, and educated at local grammar schools and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1926-1930, where he read for Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos and the Cambridge Diploma in Agricultural Science. After graduating from Cambridge he worked as Research Assistant to R.N. Salaman at the Potato Virus Research Institute in Cambridge. In 1936 he moved to Rothamsted Experimental Station, Hertfordshire, as Virus Physiologist, and became successively Head of the Plant Pathology Department, 1940-1958, Deputy Director, 1950-1958, and Director from 1958 to his death. Bawden served on many committees, and on the Council of the Royal Society of which he was also Treasurer. He lectured and travelled widely and was frequently invited to advise on overseas agricultural projects. He was elected FRS in 1949 (Leeuwenhoek Lecture 1959) and knighted in 1967.
Blagden was born at Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and received his M.D. in 1768. He was elected FRS in 1772 and served as a medical officer in the British Army from about 1776 to 1780. He was Henry Cavendish's assistant from 1782 to 1789, from whom he received an annuity and a considerable legacy. Blagden succeeded Paul Henry Maty as Secretary of the Royal Society in 1784 (while the Society was divided over the efficacy of its President, Sir Joseph Banks, a close friend of Blagden's), serving until 1797. Both in this capacity and as Cavendish's assistant he became involved in the prolonged 'water controversy' - who had priority in discovering the composition of water, claimed by both Cavendish and James Watt in England and A L Lavoisier in France. Blagden admitted responsibility for conveying, quite well-meaningly, word of the experiments and conclusions of both Cavendish and Watt to Lavoisier; and he overlooked errors of date in the printing of Cavendish's and Watt's papers. His experiments on the effects of dissolved substances on the freezing point of water led to what became known as 'Blagden's Law', where he concluded that salt lowers the freezing point of water in the simple inverse ratio of the proportion the water bears to it in the solution. In fact Richard Watson had first discovered the relationship in 1771. Blagden spent much of his time in Europe, particularly in France, where he had many friends among French scientists such as C L Berthollet. He died in Arcueil in 1820. He was knighted in 1792.
The Royal Society King Charles II Medal was instituted by Council in 1997. It is awarded at the discretion of Council only to foreign Heads of State who have made an outstanding contribution to furthering scientific research in their country. The Medal is awarded only in exceptional circumstances and is normally presented on the occasion of a State Visit. The first medal was awarded in 1998 to His Majesty Emperor Akihito of Japan, the second to the Prime Minister of India in 2007.
Born, 1845; Education: Owens College, Manchester; Heidelberg University, Bonn University. PhD (Heidelberg); Career: Professor of Chemistry, Andersonian Insitute, Glasgow (1870); Professor of Chemistry, Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds (1874-1885); Professor of Chemistry, Royal College of Science, London (1885); Director, Government Laboratories, London (1894); President, British Association (1921); keen yachtsman; FCS; FRSE; FChemSoc, FRS, 1876; Royal Medal, 1889; Secretary of the Royal Society, 1899-1903; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1894-1895; died, 1925.
Born, 1844; Education: Old Trafford Grammar School; Career: Assistant to John Tyndall, Royal Institution (1863-1866); taught at International College and the Royal School of Naval Architecture; Professor of Experimental Physics in the Royal College of Science for Ireland (1874-1910); chief founder of Society for Physical Research (1882), later became President; FRSE; MRIA; MIEE; Fell Phys Soc; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1899; died, 1925.
Born in Zurich, Switzerland, 1672; Research Fields: Medicine, natural history, mathematics, geology, geophysics; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1703; died, 1733.
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.
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.
Born 11 July 1857 in Magheragall, County Antrim, Ireland, Larmor attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, then Queen's University Belfast, where he received his BA and MA, and entered St John's College, Cambridge University, in 1877. He was Senior Wrangler in the mathematical tripos in 1880, was awarded a Smith's Prize and elected Fellow of St John's. He was Professor of Natural History at Queen's College Galway, 1880-1885, then returned as a lecturer to St John's. He became Lucasian Professor in 1903 after Sir George Gabriel Stokes, retiring in 1932. He was concerned with geometrical and physical aspects of a problem rather than the analytical, described in his 'Address on the Geometrical Method' of 1896. The researches for which he is chiefly remembered took place mainly between 1892-1901, a transition period in physics by the end of which X-rays, electrons and radio-activity had again set experimental physics in feverish progress, followed by revolutionary changes in the foundations of physical theory. Of those who brought classical physics to the point where new methods became inevitable, H A Lorentz and Larmor were the most prominent, preparing the old physics for the advent of the new. Larmor's major contribution to this was his book Aether and Matter, published in 1900, which began as a memoir published initially in the Philosophical Transactions between 1894-1897 and which to the student of the period was the gateway to new thought. He was concerned with numerous other subjects, such as the bending of radio waves round the earth (1924), with E H Hills producing a new kind of analysis of the irregular motion of the earth's axis of rotation as given by the determinations of latitude variation at the chain of International Latitude Observatories (1906 and 1915), protection from lightening (1914), and geomagnetism, on which he was a leading authority. His intense feelings over the Irish Question led him to enter Parliament, representing Cambridge University as a unionist from 1911 to 1922. His most important work outside the university was in the responsible and influential post of secretary of the Royal Society, 1901-1912.
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.
Nicolas Fatio de Duillier was born, 1664; educated in Geneva; Enrolled a citizen of Geneva (1678); originally intended to enter the Protestant ministry but later left to his own devices; corresponded with Gian Domenico Cassini (FRS 1672); went to Paris (1682); was informed of a plot to kidnap the Prince of Orange, which he revealed to Gilbert Burnet (FRS 1664) and they both went to Holland to tell the Prince; offered a chair of mathematics by the Prince of Orange in The Hague, but instead went to England; Tutor to the eldest son of Sir William Ellis, with whom he went to Utrecht (1690); returned to London (1691) where he taught mathematics; in Switzerland (1699-1701); involved himself in the dispute over the calculus between Isaac Newton (FRS 1672) and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (FRS 1673); associated himself with the Camisards and was prosecuted for spreading 'wicked and counterfeit prophecies' (1707); went on an expedition to convert the world, travelling through Germany and into Asia before returning to England; retired to Worcester; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1688; died, 1753.
George Lindsay Johnson, MD, FRCS.
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, c 1637; Education: Westminster School; Christ Church, Oxford; BA (1658), MA (1660); Career: Began his travels before he had taken his Master's degree, captured by pirates and sold; returned to Oxford (c 1660); accompanied the Earl of Carlisle, Ambassador-Extraordinary to Sweden (1668); Secretary to the Embassy at Paris, where he acted as medium of communication between men of science in England and France (1669-1671); Fellow of the Royal Society, 1672; travelled through Venice, Dalmatia, Greece, Turkey and Persia, where he was murdered by some Arabs in a quarrel over a penknife, 1677.
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.
Born in Victoria, Australia, 1891; Education: MBBS (Melbourne, 1915); MD, DSc; career: Served in the Australian Army Medical Corps (World War One); Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne (1920); Medical Research Officer, Bombay; returned to Hall Institute (1927); Lecturer, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1929-1940); Consulting Physician, Australian Military Forces (1940-1942); Director of Medicine and Chairman, Combined Advisory Committee on Tropical Medicine, South Pacific Area (1942-1946); Professor of Tropical Medicine, London (1946); resigned on health grounds (1948); Fellow of the Royal Society, 1942; Buchanan Medal, 1957; died, 1966.
Born, 1882; Education: MA; PhD; Career: Professor of Mathematical Physics in the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1928; died, 1946.
Born, 1888; Education: BA (Camb); Career: Reader in Pure Mathematics, University of Manchester; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1924; Sylvester Medal, 1949; died, 1972.
The International Association of Academies (1899-1913) was an association designed for the purpose of linking the various Academies around the world, of which the first meeting was held in Paris, France, in 1900.
Thomas Henry Holland was born on 22 November 1868 at Helston, Cornwall, of John Holland and Grace Treloar Roberts, one of eight children. Educated first at a dame's school at Helston, he later studied under John Gill, a schoolmaster at Helston, who, recognising his promise, prepared him for a scholarship to the Royal College of Science at South Kensington which he won at the age of sixteen. He won a London Associate 1st Class with Honours in Geology in 1888, and the Murchison Medal and Prize. Thomas Henry Huxley was then the Dean, and Holland became a lifelong admirer. After a period as assistant to Professor Judd at the Royal College of Science, he became a Berkeley Fellow at Owens College Manchester in 1889. In 1890, at the age of twenty one, he was appointed Assistant Superintendent in the Geological Survey of India. He travelled there via the United States, Canada and the Far East, arriving in Calcutta in October 1890 where he was made Curator of the Geological Museum and Laboratory, holding the post until 1896. He soon established a reputation as a petrographer and one interested in the economic side of geology, his energy and organizing ability soon becoming evident to the Government of India, being appointed Director of the Geological Survey of India 1903-1909. His work put the Geological Survey into a position of prestige in India, both with the Government and public, which it never lost. His outstanding service in India was recognized by the award of KCIE in 1908. He was appointed to the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy at Manchester University in 1909, taking it up in 1910. With Rutherford and Elliot Smith he formed the dominant trio, while influencing heavily the interest in petrology, geodesy and mineral deposits, and revifying the rather moribund mining department. He returned to India in 1916 as President of the Indian Munitions Board, resigning his professorship in favour of membership of the Advisory Council of the University. He married Frances Maud Chapman (died 1942), daughter of Charles Chapman, Deputy Commisisoner in Oudh, on 23 December 1896, and had one son, Major General John F C Holland, and one daughter, Margaretta, widow of Colonel A G Shea. In 1946 he married Helen Eileen, daughter of Frank Verrall, of Bramley, near Guildford, with whom he took a house in Surbiton in Surrey. She survived him and was, from 1948 until 1954, an active member of Surrey County Council. Holland was awarded KCIE for scientific services in 1908; KCSI for war services in 1918; and elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1904.
Henri Victor Regnault was born in Germany, 1810; Foreign Member of the Royal Society, 1852; Copley Medal, 1869; Rumford Medal, 1848; died in Paris, 1878.
Born, 1872; educated King's College, Cambridge, 1893-1897; research at Cambridge Physiological Laboratory, 1897-; lecturer at King's College, Cambridge, 1899; junior demonstrator in the physiological laboratory, 1904; senior demonstrator, 1907; fellow of the Royal Society, 1910; assistant tutor King's College, Cambridge, 1910; expedition to Tenerife, 1910; expedition to Monte Rosa, 1911; CBE, 1918; reader King's College, Cambridge, 1919; high-altitude expedition to Cerro de Pasco in Peru, in order to study pulmonary gas exchange, blood biochemistry, and several other topics, 1921-1922; professor of physiology at Cambridge, 1925; Copley medal of the Royal Society, 1943; died, 1947.
Publications: The Respiratory Function of the Blood (1914, 2nd edition, 1925).
Born, 1834; Education: King's College, London; Royal College of Chemistry; Lincoln College, Oxford. MA (Oxon); Career: Professor of Chemistry, Agricultural College, Cirencester (1863-1879); Professor of Chemistry, Royal Academy of Arts (1879-1911); wrote on organic, physiological and mineralogical chemistry; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1888; died, 1915.
Born, 1848; Education: Brasenose College, Oxford. BA (1871), MA (1874); Career:
Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford (1871-1876); Professor of Physics, Yorkshire College, Leeds (1874-1885); Professor of Physics, Royal College of Science, London (1886-1901); Fellow of the Royal Society, 1884; Royal Society Royal Medal, 1891; Secretary of the Royal Society Council, 1896-1901; died, 1915.
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.