Cecil Henry Desch was born the son of Henry Thomas Desch in 1874. He attended the Birkbeck School in Kingsland as a child, and later went to the Finsbury Technical College. He studied at Würzburg University and also at the University College London. In 1902-1907, he worked at the Metallurgical Department of Kings College, London. In 1909 he married Elison Ann Macadam and they had two children. He was a lecturer in Metallurgical Chemistry at the University of Glasgow from 1909 to 1918. He then became Professor of Metallurgy at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow from 1918 to 1920. He was Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Sheffield from 1920 to 1931 and Superintendent of the Metallurgy Department at the National Physical Laboratory from 1932 to 1939. He was President of the Faraday Society from 1926 to 1928. From 1931 to 1932, he was the George Fisher Baker Lecturer at Cornell University. In 1936 to 1938, 1942 to 1944, 1946 to 1948 and 1949 to 1950, he was a Manager at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). He was also Vice-President at the RI in 1937 to 1938, 1942 to 1944, 1946 to 1948 and 1949 to 1950. He was President of the Institute of Metals from 1938 to 1940 and President of the Iron and Steel Institute from 1946 to 1948. He died in 1958.
Eric Rideal was born the son of Samuel Rideal, a public analyst and consulting chemist, and Elizabeth at Sydenham, Kent. He was educated at Farnham Grammar School and Oundle School as a child. In 1907 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge to read natural sciences. In 1910 he gained first class honours in part one of the Tripos, and subsequently gained first class honours in part two of the Tripos in 1911. A lecturer at Cambridge, Sir William Bate Hardy, steered Eric Rideal into studying surface chemistry. This resulted in him researching at Aachen and Bonn, Germany. He studied electrochemistry and graduated in 1912 and in 1913 he gained the gold medal of the Bonn Society of Engineers for his research. He returned to Westminster, England and in 1914, he worked with war supplies. He was under the Artists' Rifles and moved on to the Royal Engineers as Captain. He was invalided in 1916 and returned to scientific research namely nitrogen research at the University College London laboratory. In 1919 he co-wrote Catalysis in Theory and Practice with H. S. Taylor. He was a visiting professor of the University of Illinois in 1919 and in 1921, he married Margaret Atlee, widow of William Agnew Paton. In 1930 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He also became Professor of Colloid Physics (later Colloid Science) at Cambridge University in 1930, a position he held until 1946. During this period he worked on electrochemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, colloid and surface chemistry and kinetics spectroscopy. From 1939-1945 he worked on explosives, fuels and polymers for the war effort of the Second World War. In 1946 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). He left the RI in 1949 and became Professor of Chemistry at King's College London in 1950, retiring in 1955. In 1951 he was knighted and also gained the Davy medal of the Royal Society. From 1953 to 1958, he was Chairman of the Advisory Council on Scientific Research and the Technical Development of the Ministry of Supply. He was elected a Fellow of King's College London in 1963. He died in a nursing home in London in 1974.
Faraday was born the son of a blacksmith in Newington Butts, Southwark. It is not known where he was educated as a child, but the family moved north near Manchester Square. At 13, he worked as a newspaper boy for George Riebau of Blandford Street. He then became an apprentice for seven years in bookbinding under Riebau. In 1810 and 1811, he attended lectures on science given by silversmith John Tatum (1772-1858) in the city of London and took notes. These were shown to the son of a Member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) who in turn showed them to the Member who was so impressed he gave Faraday tickets to see Humphry Davy (1778-1829) lecture at the RI in 1812. After writing to Davy to ask for a job, he was appointed as a chemical assistant at the laboratory at the RI in 1813. In 1813 he travelled with Davy to France as an assistant, secretary and valet; subsequently visiting laboratories in Italy, Switzerland and Germany until April 1815. In 1816 he began his `Commonplace Book' and was elected Member of the City Philosophical Society from 1816 to 1819 giving lectures on chemical subjects. From 1816 to 1828, he published his work results in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Science, Philosophical Magazine and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1821 he was appointed Superintendent of the RI to maintain the building. In 1825 he was appointed Director of the Laboratory and in 1833 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the RI. In 1821 he discovered electro-magnetic rotations, the principle of the electric motor. In 1831 he discovered electro-magnetic induction; also in the early 1830s, he discovered the laws of electrolysis and coined words such as electrode, cathode, anode and ion. In 1845 he discovered the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism developing the theory of the electromagnetic field. In 1824 he was elected to the Royal Society. He gave lectures at the RI between 1825 and 1862, establishing the Friday Evening Discourses and the Christmas Lectures for the young. In 1827 he delivered a course of lectures on chemical manipulation to the London Institution and he also gave lectures for medical students from St George's Hospital from the mid 1820s onwards. In 1829 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Admiralty. In 1830 he was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich until 1851. In 1836 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the Corporation of Trinity House, the English and Welsh lighthouse authority, until 1865. During the 1850s and 1860s, he introduced electricity to lighthouses under this position. In 1844 he conducted an enquiry with the geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875), into the Haswell Colliery, County Durham, explosion.
Faraday was a religious man of Sandemanian belief; he married Sarah Barnard, also of Sandemanian faith, in 1821. He was Deacon in the church between 1830 and 1840, an Elder between 1840 and 1844 and again between 1860 and 1864. He was given the Grace and Favour House at Hampton Court by Queen Victoria in 1858 where he retired to in 1861 and later died in 1867; he was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Thomas Webster was born in the Orkney Islands, Scotland in c 1772. He was educated in Aberdeen, Scotland before travelling to England and France, making architectural sketches on his journey. He became an architect in London and in 1799 he was Clerk of the Works at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), employed to design the lecture theatre. He was also a geologist and in 1814 he wrote a paper called `On the Freshwater Formations of the Isle of Wight, with some Observations on the Strata Over the Chalk in the South East Part of England' in Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 2 (1814) 161-254. This study highlighted aspects of British geology not known before indicating upper secondary and tertiary strata, and was very important at the time. Thomas Webster became Curator of the Geological Society's museum and was Professor of Geology at University College London from 1842 to 1844. He died in London in 1844.
David Gregory of Kinnairdie (1627-1720), inventor: apprenticed by his father to a mercantile house in Holland; returned in 1655, and succeeded to the estate of Kinnairdie on the death of an older brother; highly regarded in medicine, having a large gratuitous practice both among the poor, and people of standing; first man in Aberdeenshire to possess a barometer, and his weather forecasts exposed him to suspicions of witchcraft; moved to Aberdeen and investigated artillery; with the help of an Aberdeen watchmaker constructed an improved model of a cannon, forwarding it to his eldest son David, and to Sir Isaac Newton, who held it was 'for the diabolical purpose of increasing carnage', and who urged him to break it up.
David Gregorie (1661-1708), astronomer: son of David Gregory (1627-1720); Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in 1683; first professor to lecture publicly on Newtonian philosophy, and enthusiastic promoter of Newton's 'Principia'; in 1691 went to Oxford where he was introduced to Newton, who became an intimate friend and who with John Flamsteed influenced his appointment as Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Oxford; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1692; his principal work Astronomiae Physicae et Geometricae Elementa in 1702 was the first text book composed on gravitational principles and remodelling astronomy in conformity with physical theory; approved by Newton, who had included in it his lunar theory, and for which he wrote a preface; Gregory was a skilful mathematician who left manuscript treatises on fluxions, trigonometry, mechanics and hydrostatics, and who was also known for his printing in 1703 of all the writings attributed, with any show of authority, to Euclid.
James Gregory (1638-1675), mathematician: younger brother of David Gregory (1627-1708); his scientific talent was discovered and encouraged by his brother, and in 1673 at the age of 24 he published his Optica Promota, containing the first feasible description of a reflecting telescope, his invention of it dating from 1661, and inspiring Newton to make his own reflecting telescope; studied mathematics in Padua, 1664-1667, publishing Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura in 1667, showing how to find the areas of the circle, elipse, and hyperbole by means of converging series, and applying the same new method to calculation of logarithms; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1668; friendly debate with Newton, 1672-1673, as to merits of their respective telescopes; from 1674 first exclusively mathematical professor at Edinburgh.
Charles Gregory was one of the 32 children of David Gregory (1627-1720) and brother of the second David Gregory (1661-1708).
Tansley (1871-1955) was educated at Highgate School, University College London, and Trinity College Cambridge (MA). He was Demonstrator and later Assistant Professor of Botany at University College London, 1893-1906; University Lecturer in Botany, Cambridge, 1906-1923; President of the Botanical Section, British Association, 1923; Fellow of Magdalen College and Sherardian Professor of Botany, Oxford, 1927-1937. He was founder, 1902, and editor, for 30 years, of the New Phytologist, and editor, for 21 years, of the Journal of Ecology; President of the British Ecological Society, 1913-1915 and 1938-1940; Chairman of the Nature Conservancy, 1949-1953; and President of the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies from 1947. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1915; received the Linnean Gold Medal in 1941; Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge from 1944; and knighted in 1950.
Tansley was secretary to the Scientific Research Association and also a member of the Cambridge Branch of the National Union of Scientific Workers (see AT/1/2/1). Due to Tansley's role as secretary, more administrative material relating to the Scientific Research Association is to be found in this collection than for the National Union of Scientific Workers. Two rival histories of the genesis of both organisations can be found in this collection at AT/2/4/3 and AT/2/6/1/34. The Scientific Research Association was officially founded in February 1918 with the aim of promoting pure scientific research. The National Union of Scientific Workers was founded in October 1918 and negotiations over a possible merger or accommodation between the two organisations are evident from the surviving correspondence in AT/2/6. Whilst a merger between the two organisations was rejected a federation of Associations was considered by the National Union of Scientific Workers (see AT/1/3/2). The 'Federation of Technical and Scientific Associations' at AT/3 is possibly the federation suggested by the National Union of Scientific Workers. It is unclear from the surviving material in this collection how long these organisations existed, although due to insufficient support from the scientific community the Scientific Research Association considered altering the constitution and organisation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and working through that body rather than forming a separate organisation (see AT/2/3/9 and AT/2/7).
The Roll proper ceased in 1940. It was superceded by the 'Personal Records', and subsequently the Sackler Resource (electronic database of Fellows).
Either sent to the Royal Society, presented at meetings of Fellows, or commissioned by the Society. Final papers concerning trade in Cl.P/25 and those on the same subject in Cl.P/3(i) date from the first half of the 17th century, and were acquired from a different source. The present 25 volumes (bound as 31 volumes) may have originally been bound as 39.
The origins of the Royal Society lie in an "invisible college" of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found 'a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning'. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker. The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. At first apparently nameless, the name The Royal Society first appears in print in 1661, and in the second Royal Charter of 1663 the Society is referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'. The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was not until 1710, under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand. In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn's Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society's Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication. From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows. The Society moved again in 1780 to premises at Somerset House provided by the Crown, an arrangement made by Sir Joseph Banks who had become President in 1778 and was to remain so until his death in 1820. Banks was in favour of maintaining a mixture among the Fellowship of working scientists and wealthy amateurs who might become their patrons. This view grew less popular in the first half of the 19th century and in 1847 the Society decided that in future Fellows would be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work. This new professional approach meant that the Society was no longer just a learned society but also de facto an academy of scientists. The Government recognised this in 1850 by giving a grant to the Society of £1,000 to assist scientists in their research and to buy equipment. Therefore a Government Grant system was established and a close relationship began, which nonetheless still allowed the Society to maintain its autonomy, essential for scientific research. In 1857 the Society moved once more, to Burlington House in Piccadilly, with its staff of two. The Royal Society Building Over the next century the work and staff of the Society grew rapidly and soon outgrew this site. Therefore in 1967 the Society moved again to its present location on Carlton House Terrace with a staff which has now grown to over 120, all working to further the Royal Society's roles as independent scientific academy, learned society and funding body .
Son of a London businessman, Dale was educated at Tollington Park College, London; The Leys School, Cambridge; and Trinity College, Cambridge. He received first class honours in the natural science tripos in 1898, and succeeded Ernest Rutherford to the Coutts-Trotter studentship at Trinity. He was influenced by the physiologists of the 'Cambridge School', Michael Foster, W.H. Gaskell, J.N. Langley and H.K. Anderson. He began his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital (1900-1903), receiving his B.Chir. in 1903 and his M.D. in 1909. He was George Henry Lewes Student and then Sharpey Student with the department of physiology of University College under Starling and Bayliss (1902-1904).
In 1904 he accepted the offer of a research post in physiology from (Sir) Henry Wellcome at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, where he worked for eighteen months as pharmacologist and the remainder of his ten years there as Director. In 1936, on the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, he became a trustee of the Wellcome Trust, becoming its chairman 1938-1960 and continuing as scientific advisor to 1968. In fact he continued to give advice until his death at age ninety three.
In 1914 he became Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Institute for Medical Research, which in 1920 became the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead. In 1923 he became chairman of the Committee of Departmental Directors, and in 1928, the first director of the Institute, a post he held until 1942, when he retired and became Director of the Royal Institution as well as Fullerian professor of chemistry until 1946.
While secretary of the Royal Society (1925-1935) he changed the form of publication of the obituary notices so they were published annually in one volume, and while president (1940-1945) he not only held a meeting of the Royal Society outside Britain for the first time, in India, but also raised the number of Fellows elected to twenty five, and enabled the revolutionary concept of admitting women as Fellows from 1945.
Hinshelwood was born in London and educated at Westminster City School. He won a Brackenbury Scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, but was unable to take it up immediately because of the First World War and from 1916 to 1918 he worked at the Department of Explosives, Queensferry Road Ordnance Factory. In 1919 he went to Balliol to do the foreshortened postwar honours course in chemistry and he made his career in Oxford until his retirement in 1964. He was Fellow of Balliol, 1920-1921, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, 1921-1937, and Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry and Fellow of Exeter College, 1937-1964, in succession to F. Soddy. He was Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College, London, from 1964 until his death. Hinshelwood's scientific research was in chemical kinetics, and bacterial growth. He was President of the Chemical Society, 1946-1948, at the time of its centenary celebrations and President of the Royal Society, 1955-1960, his tenure including the Tercentenary Year. In addition to his wide participation in scientific life, he was a linguist with extensive interests in the arts, and in 1959 had the unique distinction of being at the same time President of the Royal Society and the Classical Association. Hinshelwood was elected FRS in 1929 (Bakerian Lecture 1946, Davy Medal 1942, Royal Medal 1947, Leverhulme Medal 1960, Copley Medal 1962) and in 1956 he shared with N.N. Semenov the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their researches into the mechanisms of chemical reactions. He was knighted in 1948 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1960.
Walter Stoneman worked for J Russell and Sons, photographers. They were based firstly at 73 Baker Street, London, later at 63 Baker Street, London. They moved to 49 Queens Gate, Kensington, possibly retaining the premises in Baker Street, as photographs dated between 1946 and 1954 bear either address. Walter Bird joined the company at 49 Queens Gate by 1959; Godfrey Argent took over from Bird in 1967. The business was renamed Godfrey Argent Studio (around 1975). Argent moved to 33 Queen's Gate Gardens (around 1972), then to Holland Park, London (1978).
After a sound elementary education Smeaton was encouraged to follow a legal career and entered his father's legal practice, then was sent to London for further training in the courts. His inclination to mechanical arts prevailed, and with his father's consent he became a maker of scientific instruments, thereby providing scope for both his scientific interests and his mechanical ingenuity. In the 1750's he produced several technical innovations, including a novel pyrometer with which he studied the expansion of various materials. However, the pace of industrial and and commercial progress directed his attention to large scale engineering works. From 1756-1759 Smeaton was occupied with his best known achievement, the rebuilding of the Eddystone lighthouse, which confirmed his reputation as an engineer. He subsequently became a consultant in the more profitable structural engineering and river harbour works, and adopted the term 'civil engineer' to distinguish civilian consultants from the military engineers graduating from the Military Academy at Woolwich. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753, and in 1759 he published a paper on water wheels and windmills, for which he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. He was a member of the Royal Society Club, an occasional guest at meetings of the Lunar Society, and a charter member of the first professional engineering society, the Society of Civil Engineers founded in 1771; after his death it became known as the Smeatonian Society. Its founding reflected the growing sense of professionalism among British civilian engineers during the eighteenth century.
The origins of the Royal Society lie in an "invisible college" of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found 'a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning'. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker. The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. The Royal Society first appears in print in 1661, and in the second Royal Charter of 1663 the Society is referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'. The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was not until 1710, under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand. In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn's Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society's Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication. From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows. The Society moved again in 1780 to premises at Somerset House provided by the Crown, an arrangement made by Sir Joseph Banks who had become President in 1778 and was to remain so until his death in 1820. Banks was in favour of maintaining a mixture among the Fellowship of working scientists and wealthy amateurs who might become their patrons. This view grew less popular in the first half of the 19th century and in 1847 the Society decided that in future Fellows would be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work. This new professional approach meant that the Society was no longer just a learned society but also de facto an academy of scientists. The Government recognised this in 1850 by giving a grant to the Society of £1,000 to assist scientists in their research and to buy equipment. Therefore a Government Grant system was established and a close relationship began, which nonetheless still allowed the Society to maintain its autonomy, essential for scientific research. In 1857 the Society moved once more, to Burlington House in Piccadilly, with its staff of two. The Royal Society Building Over the next century the work and staff of the Society grew rapidly and soon outgrew this site. Therefore in 1967 the Society moved again to its present location on Carlton House Terrace with a staff which has now grown to over 120, all working to further the Royal Society's roles as independent scientific academy, learned society and funding body .
Marcello Malpighi was born in Crevalcore, Bologna, of Marcantonio Malpighi and Maria Cremonini. He entered the University of Bologna in 1646, where his tutor, the peripatetic philosopher Francesco Natali, suggested he study medicine. He graduated as doctor of philosphy and medicine in 1653, and from 1656 accepted the chair of theoretical medicine at Pisa, where his stay was fundamental to the formation of his science. He was influenced by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, then Professor of Mathematics at Pisa, through whom he entered the orbit of the school of Galileo. In 1659 he returned to Bologna, where with Carlo Fracassati he continued to conduct dissections and vivisections, in the course of which he used the microscope to make fundamental discoveries about the lungs. These he communicated to Borelli. His observations not only identified a structure for the pulmonary parenchyma, but also confirmed the theory of the circulation of the blood and ensured the theory's acceptance. In 1662 he returned to Messina where he held the chair of medicine, and enthusiatically continued his researches on fundamental structures, publishing his findings in treatises relating to neurology, adenology, and hematology. He established the capillary circulation and a mechanism to explain hematosis; he defined and systematized a nervous mechanism which included a highly accute sensory receptors; and performed an analysis of the blood, discovering the red corpuscles. He studied aberrations to cast light on normal organisms, and studied simple animals to understand more complex ones. He applied his methodological formulation in his work on the silkworm in 1669, and in the later embryological and botanical works edited by the Royal Society. In 1666 he went back to Bologna, and in 1667 he agreed to undertake scientific correspondence with the Royal Society of London, and the Society subsequently supervised the printing of all his later works. His study of plants, the Anatome Planatarum, appeared in London in two parts, in 1675 and 1679, and with Nathaniel Gre earned him acclaim as the founder of the microscopic study of plant anatomy. He was Chief Physician to Pope Innocent XII, 1691-1694. In his work on medical anatomy he shaped the work of at least two generations, Albertini and Valsalva being his pupils, and their pupil Mortgagni continuing Malpighi's work. He also made considerable contributions to vegetable pathology, as in plant galls, and wrote an important methodological work supporting rational medicine against the empiricists.
Founder member of the Royal Society, and one of the earliest Freemasons, Moray was devoted to the causes of the welfare of Scotland, loyalty to his monarch, and in promoting the new experimental philosophy. He was experienced in negotiating affairs of state, and an intimate friend of King Charles II. The son of Sir Mungo Moray of Craigie in Perthshire, he was educated in Scotland and in France, probably a member of the Scottish regiment which joined the French army in 1633. He made a considerable reputation for himself and was favoured by Cardinal Richelieu. In 1641 he was recruiting Scots soldiers for the French, later becoming Colonel of the Scots Guards at the French court. He was knighted in 1643 by Charles I. He was captured by the Duke of Bavaria in November 1643 whilst leading his regiment into battle for the French, and whilst in prison until 1645 was lent a book on magnetism by Kircherus, with whom he entered into correspondence. He tried unsuccessfully to arrange the escape of Charles I in 1646, and in 1651 was engaged in negotiations with the Prince of Wales to persuade him to come to Scotland, thus beginning his long friendship with the future Charles II. After a failed Scottish rising in the Highlands in 1653, his military career was over and he went into exile, in Bruges in 1656, then Maastricht until 1659, where he led the life of a recluse but spent his time in scientific pursuits. It was at this time that many of his letters to Alexander Bruce were written. Late in 1659 he went to Paris and did much, by correspondence, to help prepare for the return of the King to England, especially in relation to religious matters. After the return he was active in promoting the best interests of Scotland and was given high office. He was also provided with rooms at Whitehall Palace, the King's London residence, which included a laboratory, as the King shared his scientific interests. It was Moray who was the chief intermediary between the Royal Society and the King, and other highly placed persons at the Court such as Prince Rupert and the Duke of York. More important than his scientific work for the Society were his powers of organisation and firmness of purpose in establishing it on a sound and lasting basis, including his efforts in obtaining the three founding Royal Charters and his attempts to put the Society on a sound financial footing. In 1670 he and Lauderdale quarrelled, leading to Moray withdrawing from politics. On his death in 1673 he was buried in Westminster Abbey by personal order and expense of the king.
Eldest son of Martin Folkes, a solicitor, and Dorothy his wife; attended University of Saumur, France; entered Clare Hall Cambridge to study mathematics, 1706; matriculated, 1709; MA, 1717; interested in coins; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 1719; lost Presidency of Royal Society to Sir Hans Sloane, 1727; succeeded to the Presidency following Sloane's retirement, 1741; under his Presidency the Society's meetings became very 'literary', and the Society lost much of its professional character; Folkes's papers to the Philosophical Transactions concentrated on astronomy; despite the criticisms, Folkes was elected to the 'Academie des Sciences' in succession to Edmund Halley, 1742; following his publication Table of English Gold Coins published at his own expense, his Table of Silver Coins from the Conquest was published by the Society of Antiquaries, 1744; the Tables were much consulted by antiquaries; President of the Society of Antiquaries from 1750 until his death; his communications were on Roman antiquities and coins; when his health failed, he resigned from his office at the Royal Society; died, 1754.
John Frederick William Herschel was born on 7 March 1792, only child of William Herschel and Mary Baldwin Pitt, widow of a prosperous merchant. After Eton and Dr Gretton's private school at Hitcham and private tutoring in mathematics, Herschel entered St. John's College, University of Cambridge, in 1809, where his exceptional abilities were revealed. He became founding member and first president of the Analytical Society to promote study of continental mathematics at Cambridge. Other members were Charles Babbage (1792-1871), George Peacock (1791-1858) and William Whewell (1791-1866). In 1813 he became Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, was elected to the Royal Society, and became a Fellow of St John's College. He planned for a career in law, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1814, but in 1815 returned to Cambridge as sub-lector, though he found instructing undergraduates not to his liking. In 1816 he began to study astronomy, and left Cambridge to continue his father's observations. By 1820 astronomy had become his chief concern in science. He founded the Astronomical Society in that year, which in 1831 became the Royal Astronomical Society, becoming its President in 1827, 1839 and 1847. He took up the observation of double stars in collaboration with James South, their first catalogue being awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy and a gold medal from the Astronomical Society. His most important contribution to physics in the 1820's was his article 'Light' in 1827. From 1824 to 1827 he was Secretary of the Royal Society, an ideal choice both because of his effectiveness as a correspondent and because he knew personally many leading continental scientists through trips made during the 1820's. His contribution to the philosophy of science was in the publication of his much translated Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, which deeply influenced Charles Darwin and Willliam Whewell, and his Treatise on Astronomy in 1833, a highly successful presentation for the educated public. From 1834 to 1838 he was at the Cape of Good Hope with his family, involved in the detailed survey of the southern celestial hemisphere. In 1839 he made contributions to the development of photographic techniques, for which he was awarded the Royal Medal in 1840. He continued to make contributions to the philosophy of science, with his reviews of Whewell's publications, his role in John Stuart Mill's famous System of Logic of 1842 and his review of Adolphe Quetelet's Theory of Probabilities. Herschel also became involved in the discovery and arbitration of the controversy over the discovery of Neptune in 1846. In 1849 he published his authoritative Outlines of Astronomy, which like his earlier writings had concentrated on the two questions central to his father's researches - what is the structure of the Milky Way and what is the nature of nebulae. The great esteem in which he was held was shown by the honours and positions offered to him, including the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his Cape Results in 1847 and an obelisk erected on the site in South Africa where his telescope had stood. He was Master of the Mint from 1850 to 1854, then returned to writing, publishing Meteorology, Physical Geography and Telescope, originally as articles and then by 1861 as substantial books. During the last 6 years of his life he compiled a catalogue of all known double and multiple star systems, which appeared posthumously in 1874 with final editing by Charles Pritchard and Robert Main. Herschel died on 11 May 1871, being buried in Westminster Abbey next to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton. He had 12 children by Margaret Brodie Stewart, whom he married in 1829. His achievements were recognised with a knighthood in 1831, raised to a baronetcy in 1838.
The Royal Observatory was founded by Charles II in 1675. Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his first Astronomer Royal in March 1675. The Observatory was built to improve navigation at sea and 'find the so-much desired longitude of places'. This was inseparable from the accurate measurement of time, for which the Observatory became generally famous in the 19th century. The Royal Observatory is also the source of the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude 0° 0' 0''. The Prime Meridian is defined by the position of the large 'Transit Circle' telescope in the Observatory's Meridian Building. This was built by Sir George Biddell Airy, the 7th Astronomer Royal, in 1850. The cross-hairs in the eyepiece of the Transit Circle precisely define Longitude 0º for the world. Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the co-ordinate base for the calculation of Greenwich Mean Time. The Greenwich Meridian was chosen to be the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884. In 1960, shortly after the transfer of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) to Herstmonceux (and later Cambridge), Flamsteed House was transferred to the National Maritime Museum's care and over the next seven years the remaining buildings on the site were also transferred and restored for Museum use. Following the closure of the RGO at Cambridge in October 1998, the site is now again known as the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Boyle was born on 25 January 1627 at Lismore, Munster, seventh son of the notorious Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, thereby having high status and considerable wealth. His education began at home, then continued at Eton and with foreign travel from 1639. He visited France, Geneva - where he suffered a conversion experience which was to have a profound effect on him - and Italy, where he discovered the writings of Galileo. He returned to England in 1644, taking up residence at the family manor of Stalbridge, Dorset, from 1645. He visited Ireland in 1652-1653, then by 1656 moved to Oxford where he joined the circle of natural philosophers there which formed the liveliest centre of English science at that time. After the Restoration in 1660, many of them moved to London, where the Royal Society was founded (with Boyle among its founding Fellows), although Boyle did not move there until 1668, sharing a house in Pall Mall with his sister Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, until they both died in 1691. In the 1640's he became preoccupied with themes which were to continue throughout his life - vindication of an approved understanding of nature, in its own right as well as its utilitarian advantages; insistence on the importance of experiment in pursuing this aim, and the advocacy of spirituality. To these ends he became involved with other like-minded individuals known as the 'Invisible College', and subsequently the circle of intellectuals surrounding the Prussian emigré, Samuel Hartlib. He devoted his life to extensive and systematic experimentation, and to writing. His major scientific work on pneumatics, 'New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Air and its Effects', used the air pump as the key piece of equipment used to explore the physical properties of air, vindicated the possibility of a vacuum, illustrated the extent to which life depended on air, and proved that the volume of air varies inversely with its pressure (Boyle's Law). 1661 saw the publication of the 'Sceptical Chemist' and 'Certain Physiological Essays', the beginning of a series where he sought to vindicate a mechanistic theory of matter and to remodel chemistry along new lines, and where he crucially vindicated an experimental approach. In the 1670's his publications continued the previous themes, but also included theology. In the 1680's, his interest shifted to medical matters, such as 'Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood' (1684), or the collections of recipes in his 'Medicinal Experiments' (1688-1694). At the same time, he continued his work as a Christian apologist, his 'The Christian Virtuoso' appearing in 1690. His concern about the theological implications of the new philosophy can be seen in 'Discourse of Things above Reason' (1681) and 'Disquisition about the Final Causes of Things' (1688). On his death in 1691 he endowed a Lectureship to expound the Christian message. His significance to the development of natural philosphy was recognised in his lifetime, and his influence was particularly important for Isaac Newton, the leading figure in the following generation, whose work is seen as the culmination of the scientific achievement of seventeenth-century England.
The Food (War) Committee was founded in 1915 to act as a scientific advisory body to government bodies regulating food policy, trade and distribution, and rationing schemes in the food shortage of WWI. Composed of eminent biochemists, physiologists, agricultural scientists and economists, headed by William B Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society. Prominent members include physiologists A D Waller, D Noel Paton, E P Cathcart, F G Hopkins, and W M Bayliss; agriculturalists T H Middleton, and T B Wood, and economist William J Ashley.
The Committee undertook pioneering work in researching dietary requirements, arriving at the minimum calorie needs to maintain a body at rest, and investigating the calorie requirements of different classes of workers. They advised against rationing of bread and developed distribution schemes based on sound science. Most of the correspondence deals with these research interests and policy advice.
Topics addressed include diet and mental work, scurvy and beriberi, nitrogen in the diet, early work on vitamins, and investigation of alternate food sources such as soya beans, cocoa butter, banana chips, and saccharine [MS/527/2]. The most successful scheme involved a public campaign to collect horse chestnuts to use in producing acetone for munitions manufacture, so that cereals usually used for this purpose could be saved to increase the nation's supply.
Born, 1733; Education: Trinity Hall, Cambridge; LLB (1758); Incorporated at Oxford (1767); DCL (Oxford 1774); Career: Rector of St Mary, Newington, Surrey (1758-1793); Rector of Albury, Surrey (1774-1779); Rector of Thorley, Hertfordshire (1777-1782); Archdeacon of St Albans (1781-1788); Vicar of South Weald, Essex (1782-1793); Prebendary of St Paul's (1783-1794); Prebendary of Gloucester (1787-1793); Bishop of St David's (1788-1793); Bishop of Rochester (1793-1802); Dean of Westminster (1793-1802); Bishop of St Asaph (1802-1806); was active in the improvement of conditions of junior clergy RSActivity; Fellow of the Royal Society, (1767); Secretary of the Royal Society Council, (1773-1778); died, 1806.
Born, 1814; Education: Mus Doc (1867, Oxford); Career: Articled to an engineer; Consulting engineer, Westminster; Professor of Engineering, Elphinstone College, Bombay (1844-1847); returned to England and was Consulting Engineer to the Government and other bodies; Professor of Civil Engineering, University College, London (1857) Lecturer at the Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham; Member of the Government Commission on the use of Iron for War Purposes; was colour blind; wrote on the game of whist; Memberships: FRAS; FGS; MICE (1840); Fellow of the Royal Society, (1861); Vice President of the Royal Society Council, (1875-1876 and 1888-1889); died (1900).
Born, 1819; Assistant in the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (1835-1845), cooperated with Sir Thomas Maclear in the extension of Lacaille's arc; produced oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in Southern Africa with the help of John Herschel; Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Regius Professor of Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (1845-1888), introduced time service for Edinburgh with time ball on the Nelson monument and later a time gun fired from Edinburgh Castle (1861); resigned Fellowship on 7 February 1874 on the Society denying him the reading of his paper on the interpretation of the design of the Great Pyramid, published "The Great Pyramid and the Royal Society"; Became obsessed with the metre - he believed the decimal system was foreign, French, and atheist. Claimed if the pyramids were measured very accurately, it was possible to tell that they were based on the British yard, given by God and built by the Hebrews. Led expeditions to Egypt to measure them accurately to prove this. Use of the yard in the Pyramids proved there were common values between the founders of Egypt and the Anglo-Saxons, and so helped to justify the Conquest of Egypt in 1881-2; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1857; died, 1900.
The 1856 expedition to the rugged volcanic mountain of Tenerife in the Canary Islands was an accomplishment which transformed the relatively unknown son of a famous admiral into an international scientific figure. It was also the focus of important and extensive activity in photographic publishing. It was this trip to Teneriffe which gave Smyth his entry into the elite scientific community. It also marked a turning point regarding his use of photography, having been certainly almost the first to experiment with calotypes at the Cape of Good Hope, and received his instruction from Talbot, Herschel and Hunt. The major donation for the expedition came from Robert Stephenson, who had read Smyth's 1855 'Royal Observatory of Edinburgh Report' and offered Smyth passage to Tenerife aboard his iron hulled yacht, the 'Titania', handing it to him for his exclusive use for the expedition in 1856, which departed from Cowes on 24 June. Santa Cruz was reached on 8 July.
Born in Hampshire, England; physician; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1734; died, 1759.
William Dines was born on 5 August 1855, son of George Dines, inventor of a hygrometer and an active Fellow of the Meteorological Society. Never robust, he was the only son to survive childhood. He attended Woodcote House School in Windlesham. He learned engineering as a pupil at the Nine Elm Works of the South Western Railway, and after completing his apprenticeship went to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, taking his BA degree in 1881 as twentieth wrangler. In 1882 he remained at Cambridge as a mathematical coach. He continued to teach mathematics, first as assistant to an army coach, and then in correspondence classes, but subsequently his meteorological work absorbed all his time. The Tay Bridge disaster of 28 December 1879, when a train crossing the bridge was carried away with the bridge into the river by a squall of wind, claimed attention of both meterologists and engineers to decide what allowance should be made for wind force on engineers' structures. Dines became the most active member of a Wind-Force Committee appointed by the Meteorological Society in 1886, revising the equation for wind-force from three 'significant figures' with a tolerance for 40 per cent to a single figure with very little error. He also designed the pressure tube anemograph for measuring wind velocity, including a device for recording the direction as well as velocity, hence providing a record of wind indispensable for the study of dynamical meterology. In his investigation of the structure of the upper air, Dines was equally successful, being the prime mover in establishing a committee for the investigation of the characteristics of the free atmosphere by the Royal Meteorological Society and the British Association in 1901. Dines began with diamond shaped kites of his own design at Oxshott, and moved to the Chiltern Hills near Watlington. Here he developed the use of sounding balloons, maintaining the investigation with kites at the same time. He was helped by his assistant H W Baker, and other stations were set up by C J P Cave of Ditcham Park, Dr G C Simpson at the experimental station at Glossop Moor in Derbyshire, S H R Salmon with a kite station at Brighton, Captain C H Ley RE with sounding balloons at Ross in Herefordshire and subsequently at Bird Hill, Limerick. Later Mungret College in Limerick became a regular station for work in the upper air. By 1913 the scientific value of the use of sounding-balloons had been recognised, and in 1914 Dines acquired the property at Benson (Wallingford, Berkshire) with the assent of the Meteorological Office. During the war the various centres of meteorological activity co-operated through the Meteorological Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The work at Benson was significant both in experimental work and in co-ordinating and discussing results. After the war L F Richardson joined Dines, and they worked on investigating solar radiation. In 1922 Dines resigned the official charge of the observatory, his son L H G Dines becoming Assistant Superintendent to take charge of the official work, until in 1923 it was transferred to Kew Observatory. His main efforts of investigation were wind-measurement, investigation of the upper air, and solar and terrestrial radiation; but he was equally at home with the design of instruments, co-ordination and discussion of results, and consideration of current theory. He died in 1927.
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.
Samuel Holmes was Sergeant-Major of the 12th light dragoons.
The Philosophical Club was formed as part of the general movement to reform the Royal Society and was founded in 1847. It merged with the Royal Society (Dining) Club in 1901.
Born, 1731; Education: School at Nottinghamshire School, Chesterfield; St John's College, Cambridge; Edinburgh Medical School. MB (1755); MD (Edinburgh); Career: Practised medicine at Lichfield, Staffordshire; member of the Lunar Society; many inventions, including a vertical-axis windmill, used in Josiah Wedgwood's (FRS 1783) factory; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1761; died, 1802.
George Lindor Brown was born in Liverpool on 9 February 1903, son of George William Arthur Brown, schoolmaster in Warrington, and Helen Wharram. He attended Boteler Grammar School in Warrington, and entered the University of Manchester on a scholarship to study medicine, where A V Hill, the Nobel Prize winner, was his Professor of Physiology. He took an honours B.Sc. in physiology in 1924, then won the Platt Physiological Scholarship which enabled him to do research with B A McSwiney, earning an M.Sc. (1925). He qualified in Medicine in 1928 (MB, Ch.B Manch.), winning the Bradley Prize and medal for operative surgery. He joined McSwiney as lecturer in physiology at Leeds University in 1928, taking six months' leave to work in Sir C S Sherrington's laboratory at Oxford, and collaborating with J C Eccles. In 1934 Sir Henry Dale offered, and Brown accepted, a post at the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead, where he worked with (Sir) John Gaddum and W S Feldberg establishing the cholinergic theory of chemical transmission. In 1942 the Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee was established, and he became involved very successfully with diving and underwater operations, remaining Secretary to the RNPRC until 1949, and then its chairman until 1969. In 1949 he accepted the Jodrell Chair of Physiology at University College London, where he strenghthened the physiology and biophysics departments under (Sir) Bernard Katz and worked with J S Gillespie on adrenergic transmission. He served on various Royal Society committees, becoming Biological Secretary, 1955-1963. In 1960 he accepted the Waynflete chair of physiology in Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Magdalen. He also became a member of the Franks Commission of Inquiry into the working of Oxford University. In 1967 he resigned his chair to be elected Principal of Hertford College Oxford, although he continued with his research group in the pharmacology department. He was responsible for inaugurating the College's major apeal, negotiated two senior research fellowships, and dealt lightly with student restiveness. He married in 1930 Jane Rosamond, daughter of Charles Herbert Lees, FRS, Professor of Physics in the University of London and Vice-Principal of Queen Mary College, and had one daughter and three sons.
Born in 1803 at Rose in Vale, Cornwall, Henry James was educated at the grammar school in Exeter, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; and was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 22 September 1826. The following year he was appointed to the Ordnance Survey, on which he served mainly in Ireland. In 1843 James was appointed loal superintendent of the geological survey of Ireland under Sir Henry De la Beche. On 7 July 1846 James was transferred to Admiralty employment, and became chief engineer at Portsmouth with charge of the construction works in the dockard. On 8 September 1847 he was appointed to the commission investigating the use of iron in railway structures. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1848, and an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 1 May 1849. James returned to the Ordnance Survey in 1850, and had his divisional headquarters at Edinburgh. In 1854 James married Anne Matson, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. On 11 July 1854 James was appointed superintendent of the Ordnance Survey.
Whilst in charge of the Survey, one-inch and six-inch scale maps were retained for the whole of the UK and the 1:2500
scale was adopted in addition for populous, cultivated, and mining districts. Also, related scientific investigations were undertaken: in 1856, observations were made with Airy's zenith sector on the sumit of Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh, to determine the mean specific gravity of the earth by triangulation. In 1860 James was knighted in recognition of his services. Also, In 1864-5 James arranged for a survey of Jerusalem, with the aim to make the city's water system less hazardous to pilgrims.
James also advocated a new process of map reproduction for which he conied the name of 'photozincography' (a chromocarbon photographic print of a small drawing was prepared and then transfered to zinc). This process allowed the Survey to keep pace with demands for maps in a variety of scales.
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer was born in the Netherlands in 1881; Research Field:
Mathematics; Foreign Member of the Royal Society, 1948; died, 1966.
Born, 1820; Education: PhD; Career: Taught at Queenwood College, Hampshire (to 1853); in 1859, his labortory experiments showed that water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb infra-red radiation and that they could therefore affect the climate of the Earth. As soon as his paper was published in 1861 in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society', he put out a press release for the London newspapaers explaining that this result implied that all past climate changes were now understood and all future climate changes could be predicted simply from a knowledge of the concentrations of these 'greenhouse' gases. Tyndall restricted himself to describing his experiments and simply linking it to work of Fourier a few decades earlier. It took more than a century before the credible quantitative estimates of these effects and their influence on past and possibly future climates were made, along with good enough observations of the gases to know that they have (and continue) to change significantly. Fellow of the Royal Society, 1852; Rumford Medal, 1864; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1879-1880; died, 1893.
Born, 1759; Foreign Member of the Royal Society, 1819; died, 1829.
The British Empire Exhibition was an exhibition held at Wembley, Middlesex in 1924 and 1925. Its official aim was " to stimulate trade, to strengthen the bonds that bind the Mother Country to her Sister States and Daughter Nations, to bring all into closer touch, the one with the other, to enable all who owe allegiance to the British Flag to meet on common ground, and to learn to know each other. It is a family party, to which every member of the Empire is invited, and at which every part of the Empire is represented". It was opened by King George V 23 April 1924. Of the 58 members of the British Empire only Gambia and Gibraltar did not take part.
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.
Born, 1653; assistant to the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, 1684-1685, 1688 and 1690; clerkship in the King's shipyard at Portsmouth, 1691; returned to Little Horton, 1694, here he pursued mathematics, astronomy, and instrument making; died, 1742.
Born, 1685; Education: Educated at home; Secket's private school; St John's College, Cambridge; LLB (1709), LLD (1714); Career: Advocate in the Court of Arches (1714-c 1720); travelled to France several times; corresponded with Pierre Remond de Montmort (FRS 1715); worked on the application of calculus to various problems, including the refraction of light and the determination of the centres of oscillation and percussion and enunciated the principle of vanishing points; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1712; Royal Society Council: 1714-1717, 1721, 1723, 1725; Royal Society Secretary, 1714-1718; died, 1731.
Born 22 June 1903 in Poplar, son of Karl Henry and Ellen, (nee Biggs), one of five children. Childhood spent in Battle, Sussex. Educated at St Leonard's Collegiate School Hastings, then at Hastings Grammar School. Obtained an exhibition (£30) at the Royal College of Science London (later became part of the Imperial College of Science and Technology) and awarded his Associateship with first class honours in 1923, taking a London External B.Sc. with a different syllabus later in the year, again obtaining first class honours. Researched inorganic chemistry under H.B. Baker at the Royal College of Science, investigating some aspects of the luminiscent oxidation of phosphorus. Wrote initial paper with W.E Downey, and when the latter was killed while climbing in the Alps he continued the research alone, developing elegant experimental techniques. Awarded Dixon Fund Essay Prize in 1925 and degree of Ph.D (London) conferred 1926. He spent 1927-1928 at the Technische Hochschule, Karlsruhe, working at the laboratory of one of the greatest German exponents of preparative inorganic chemistry, Alfred Stock. With his assistant Erich Pohland they isolated and characterized decaborane fot the first time. In 1929 on his return to London he was awarded the D.Sc degree of the University of London, and with a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship spent 1929-1931at Princeton University with Professor (later Sir) Hugh Taylor. Here he also met his wife, Mary Catherine Horton of Lynchburg, Virginia. He came back to Imperial College, London, first as a demonstrator, then as lecturer and Reader (1931-1945). In 1945 he took up a Readership at Cambridge, and then a personal chair of inorganic chemistry, becoming a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and remained there for the rest of his life. He had a profound effect on the development of inorganic chemistry in Britain, and a lasting influence on the approach to the subject by research students from the UK, the Commonwealth, America and Europe. His book 'Modern Aspects of Inorganic Chemistry' (1938), co-authored with J S Anderson, revived interest in the subject. Subsequently in Cambridge he built up an internationally acclaimed school of inorganic chemistry which dominated the subject for several decades. Equally important was his influence on an astonishing number of students and collaborators who went on to distinguished careers and senior academic positions worldwide.
Born, 1744; 1760, he entered the navy. Served at the reduction of Martinique and St Lucia; on 17 March 1762 promoted to Lieutenant and took part in the reduction of Havana. In 1768 he was elected Member of Parliament for Lincoln, and from 1777 to 1784 Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, as well as one of the lords of the Admiralty. In 1773 he commanded the 'Racehorse', which with the 'Carcass' was fitted out to attempt to discover a northern route to India, although the expedition only sailed to the north of Spitzbergen because the sea was absolutely blocked with ice. In 1784 he became Member of Parliament for Newark on Trent. In the same year he was appointed joint paymaster general of the forces, a Commissioner for the Affairs of India, and one of the lords of 'Trades and Plantations'. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and instrumental in founding the 'Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture'; Baron 1790; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1771; Vice President of the Royal Society, 1778-1792; died, 1792.
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).