Category Archives: People

‘Encounters of a mathematician’…

For the last few weeks, I have been cataloguing the papers of mathematician, Walter Ledermann (1911-2009).  The collection largely composes of highly mathematical letters from Thomson to Ledermann.  Having the somewhat dubious distinction of failing mathematics twice, its fair to say I had misgivings!

My failure as a young mathematician was due in part to my ready dismissal of mathematics as a dull, dry, monotonous subject (but in the main, a serious lack of talent!).  I remember somewhat haughtily telling my long-suffering teacher that I liked subjects about people.  Mathematics, as far as I was concerned, lacked any humanity and any discernible art.  How wrong I was.

DSCN0118

Ledermann as a young man, from his autobiography

Ledermann, a German-Jewish refugee, was more than used to such criticism being levelled at the subject – the art form – of his choice.  In fact, he opens his autobiography, Encounters of a Mathematician, with the following:

Mathematics is a soulless occupation devoid of feeling and human values.

But that, Ledermann tells us, was never his experience:

I feel strongly that mathematics can and should form part of human relationships.

Ledermann grew up in Berlin, proving himself a talented violinist and mathematician from an early age.  He loved music, and despite growing up in the midst of the depression, attended concerts regularly by any means possible.  By the 1930s, the Berlin that Ledermann called home had changed rapidly, and he and his family were no longer welcome.  It was his love of mathematics that gave him hope – despite the anti-Semitism he encountered, Ledermann’s ability, talent, and enthusiasm could be neither denied nor quashed.  In fact, Ledermann’s talent for mathematics quite literally saved his life.

On completion of his degree at the University of Berlin in 1934, Ledermann won a scholarship created by students and citizens of St Andrews to support a Jewish refugee.  He received a warm welcome from his fellow students, his lecturers, and the local community at St Andrews, and tells us: ‘it is no exaggeration to affirm that I owe my life to the people of St Andrews’ (Encounters of a Mathematician).

Ledermann completed his PhD after just two years, and found himself at the University of Edinburgh.  This would be the start enduring friendships between Ledermann and the brilliant and troubled mathematician, A C Aitken, as well as Professor Godfrey Thomson.

DSCN1808.jpg

Professor Sir Godfrey Thomson

100_1474

Alexander Craig Aitken

Ledermann quickly became Thomson’s mathematical assistant (or ‘tame mathematician’, as he puts it!), assisting him in writing The Factorial Analysis of Human Ability.  Thomson and his contemporaries used Factorial Analysis to understand human differences (mathematics and humanity again!), and this is still a technique used by psychologists today.  Thomson spoke to Ledermann in fluent German at their first meeting, much to Ledermann’s delight, and the working relationship was a successful one:

My work with Godfrey Thomson was inspiring, creative, and intimate.  We met daily during the morning break at Moray House, where the Department of Education was situated.  After we had briefly surveyed the progress of our research on the previous day, Miss Matthew, his charming and highly efficient secretary, brought in the coffee and some delicious buttered ginger bread.

The very intensity with which he pursued his ideas, was a great stimulus for me to solve the mathematical problems he had passed on to me.  Godfrey Thomson did not claim to be a mathematician.  Although he understood mathematical formulae when they were presented to him, he preferred to verify his ideas by constructing elaborate numeral examples from which the theoretical result could be guessed with some confidence.

Sadly much of Ledermann’s replies to Thomson are absent.  Thomson sends Ledermann pages and pages of calculations with explanatory notes, then his next letter will be one thanking Ledermann for the brief formula he has sent in return (Thomson at one point refers to Ledermann’s formulae as ‘very pretty’!).  The letters also show the warmth of feeling between the two, with Thomson frequently enquiring of Ledermann’s family, many of whom were still in Germany, and telling Ledermann about his own family.

blog

An example of the small postcards Thomson sent Ledermann

Ledermann treasured the letters.  In a letter to Lady Thomson, who was attempting to write Thomson’s biography, he writes:

I have over a hundred letters from Sir Godfrey, written between 1937 and 1946, some of them short notes, others carefully worked out in the form of a research paper, with many interesting questions and illustrations.  I greatly treasure the correspondence, not merely on account of its considerable scientific, and, may I add, aesthetic value, but also because it contains so many typical examples of that human warmth and sympathy for which Sir Godfrey finds a place even at the beginning or at the end of a mathematical letter.

Letter from Ledermann to Lady Thomson, Coll-1310/1/1/1/17

Ledermann returned to St Andrews after working with Thomson, and would go on to accept teaching positions at the University of Manchester, and the University of Sussex.  His love of mathematics continued to endear him to students and fellow lecturers, and he continued to undertake revision lectures for students for years following his retirement.  His wife, Ruth, was a social worker and therapist, and they retired together to London, where Ledermann passed away in 2009.

For Ledermann, the beauty of the equations passed between himself and Thomson were no different to the music of his violin – each displayed ingenuity and art.  His love of mathematics was the source of the most satisfying ‘human encounters’ he had throughout his lifetime, and the correspondence between himself and Thomson serves as a reminder of the beauty and humanity of mathematics.

Sources: Walter Ledermann’s autobiography, Encounters of a Mathematician

‘Who is that chap with the terrific head?!’

Robert Heriot Westwater’s most famous portrait is probably that of Christopher Murray Grieve (more widely known by his nom de plume,  Hugh McDiarmid!).  But Westwater also painted two very different portraits of Sir Godfrey Thomson in honour of his retirement in 1951:

presentation

Formal presentation of Thomson’s portrait at Moray House, 1951, with Lady Thomson on the right

Westwater’s first encounter with Thomson was as a student training as a teacher of art at Moray House:

I remember very clearly my first sight of Professor Thomson as he passed a group of us students in the corridor.  “Who”, I demanded, “Who is that chap with the terrific head?”.  For the rest of my course at the training college I vainly tried to screw up courage to approach him – the art students, alas, had no class under him – to ask him if he would sit for me.  But I never quite succeeded.  And in the intervening years I lamented this somewhat uncharacteristic lack of “brass neck”

Moray House Magazine, March 1951

Westwater was delighted several years later on being commissioned to paint the-chap-with-the-terrific-head’s portrait!  The main portrait was to be a formal one in the striking red and white academic dress of the University of Durham DSc:

Thomson's formal portrait by Westwater

Westwater had some concern with regards to Thomson’s clothing outshining him in the painting:

With most other sitters such a garb would almost inevitably lead to a “portrait of robes with head attached.”  But in Godfrey’s case, not so.  When he arranged himself in the chair set ready, with complete dignity and composure, it was obvious at once that even such a gown could not compete.  The “terrific head” easily subdued it to its proper and subordinate place. 

Moray House Magazine, March 1951

magazine

Page with Thomson’s photograph from the Moray House Magazine, 1950

Westwater commented on the many and varied conversations he and Thomson had during Thomson’s sittings, informing the reader that they were even prone to a sing song now and again (Thomson’s secretary and students were quite used to him playing, singing, and humming Gilbert and Sullivan whenever the notion took him!).  But my favourite passage by far is when Westwater gets rather verbose for his own good and waxes lyrical about the shape of Thomson’s head!:

The very bone structure of his skull begins the puzzle, for it is at once positive, virile, and yet almost frail in its delicacy.  The eyes have an imperious authority and penetration, but the mouth under the forceful nose astonishes by its nearly feminine gentleness.  it would be easy to cite another score of complexities, more subtle and more difficult from the painters point of view.

Moray House Magazine, March 1951

Quite!  Westwater’s second portrait of Thomson was more informal, and was Thomson’s gift from Moray House :

portrait

This remained with the Thomson family for many years after Thomson’s death, eventually being donated to the University.  Ever keen to see paintings around the university rather than in store, we are delighted that Thomson now hangs proud in the office of his greatest advocator!  He is frequently seen and admired by a host of students and visitors.

Westwater clearly enjoyed painting Thomson, and likely he and Thomson would derive great pleasure from knowing his other portrait hangs in Moray House to to this day, reminding everyone, as Westwater put it, ‘of he whom they and I will always think of from different angles as “A Terrific Head”‘!

‘I am a better man for loving him, and having had his friendship’

Thomson described education as ‘the food of the Gods’, but he might well have described friendship in the same way.  The many letters of grief sent to Lady Thomson following his death attest to how he cultivated and valued friendship throughout his life.  But of all the friendships present in his papers, the one which I have found the most touching is that between himself and the delightfully named Sir James Fitzjames Duff, who was knighted on the same day as Thomson.

album11der

Thomson and Duff after being Knighted – Duff is situated on the right hand side behind Thomson, 1949

An eternal bachelor who had his widowed Mother, and later his equally wonderfully named unmarried sister, Hester, live with him throughout his adult years; who refused to learn to drive; and who was gloriously and unapologetically dreadful at golf, Duff sounds like he might just have had all the ingredients of the quintessential British eccentric!

Duff’s friendship with Thomson spanned from his employment at Armstrong College in 1922, when Thomson gave him a job as lecturer.  Duff continued to work in Durham University, having been promoted to Warden of the Durham colleges in 1937, until his early retirement in 1960, as well as the various educational commissions and Committees he devoted his time to.  He was enthusiastic about his career throughout his life, and very much enjoyed his work at Durham.  In a letter to Thomson upon hearing the sad news of his illness, Duff writes:

Its just upon 33 years since you chose me for the vacant lectureship at Armstrong College; and I regard that as about the most fortunate day of my life, partly because it shaped my career in a way that has given me great happiness and more than adequate success, but partly because it led to my friendship with you.  Considering that I was only on your staff for a very short time, its surprising how close and, to me at least, delightful the friendship has been.  Part of that joy has been that I always looked up to you, as a younger man to a wise and kind elder.  And at my age there are few indeed left to whom I can look up in that way.  So don’t leave us yet, if you can help it.  And if you can’t help it, let me tell you while I can that so long as I live, my admiration and affection for you, and my gratitude for your friendship, will not die. [Coll-1310/1/1/25]

DSCN2579

 DSCN2582

Duff was not short of friends – he was renowned for his conversational skills, and could hold an audience rapt with his stories.  One might say he seemed an odd companion for the more quiet, considered, Godfrey, but the two quickly became friends.  They worked together on pioneering intelligence test work in Northumberland during which time Duff was seconded to Northumberland county council as educational superintendent.  In particular, they were trying to ensure that clever children who suffered from a lack of education due to living in rural areas, would not miss out on secondary school places.  Several items of correspondence survive from this time in the Duff papers held in Durham University.

From an affluent background, Duff had had many of the advantages Thomson had lacked, attending the prestigious Winchester College, then Cambridge.  Duff much admired Thomson’s achievements in light of his relatively humble background:

Godfrey’s was really was a wonderful life.  Personal affection apart, I can think of nobody whose whole life was so filled with happy beneficent actions as his.  And the triumph over the handicaps and poverty of his boyhood adds a special sort of lustre to it all. [Coll-1310/1/1/25]

It was Duff who would write Thomson’s obituary, though the copy in the collection with Lady Thomson’s annotations attests that she thought his accounts of Thomson’s impoverished background greatly exaggerated, and gave him a jolly good telling off!

Following Thomson’s death in 1955, Duff kept in touch with Hector, and later edited Thomson’s autobiography, Education of an Englishman, ensuring its publication in 1969 much to the delight of Hector.  Many items of correspondence survive between himself and Hector, which exchange anecdotes of Thomson many years after his death.  Lady Thomson features as a topic rather than a correspondent, since by this time she was suffering from ill health herself, and spent a great deal of time in hospital.  Rather touchingly, Hector tells Duff of his Mother’s removal to hospital, and her insistence, in her confused state, that the drive would have to be swept and cleaned because ‘Mr Duff’ was coming.  Throughout this period, Duff continues to write to Lady Thomson, addressing her as ‘My dear Jennie’.

Upon his sudden death at Dublin airport in 1970, his beloved sister, Hester, writes to Hector Thomson, expressing her gladness that Duff managed to finish editing Thomson’s biography and telling Hector about the manner of his death:

As for the manner of James’ going, I do not think he would have wished it otherwise.  he had a slight heart attack while on holiday in Ireland, made an excellent recovery, and was passed fit to go home, then collapsed and died quite suddenly (of a coronary thrombosis) at Dublin Airport.  Although I miss him more than I can say, I could not wish him a long illness and old decline.[Coll-1310/1/1/28]

Fifteen years after Thomson’s death, Hester tells Hector that he still has Thomson’s photograph on his mantelpeice:

There is a photograph of your Father on James’ study mantelpiece…He is standing with his hands on a desk, wearing glasses, aged perhaps 40. [Coll-1310/1/1/28].

It is clear that Thomson’s friendship meant a great deal to Duff – in a letter to Lady Thomson following his death, he writes, ‘I am a better man for loving him, and having had his friendship’.  But equally, it is clear his friendship too meant a great deal to Thomson, and indeed the Thomson family.  True to his word, Duff’s admiration and affection for Thomson did not die.

* Any stories of friendship (or romance!) from your historical research? Tweet me about it at @emmaeanthony using the #makehistoryhuman!

 

Catching the spirit of the thing

Last week, we were pleased to welcome Professor Peter Fenton from Otago University, New Zealand, who was researching the work of A C Aitken.  A deeply troubled and brilliant mathematician, Aitken was a phenomemal human calculator, with a photographic memory which could recall Pi to 1000 decimal places. His work impacted algebra, numerical analysis, and statistics.   Additionally, he was a polyglot, a poet, a writer, and a violist.

100_1474
Aitken in his later years

My interest was immediately piqued – always a fan of historical gossip, I had been intrigued when I discovered this letter from Aitken, who helped Thomson during the writing of his book Factorial Analysis of Human Ability, in Thomson’s collection:

Aitken1derAitken2der

Who was this lady who possessed ‘just about every quality of combined physique, charm, character, and intelligence as would enrich any nation possessing her type in good proportions’?!  Aitken continues ‘valuable as her chosen career may prove to the nation, in the end, there was a still more valuable career of which the nation was being defrauded, partly, of course, through the blind crassness of men younger than ourselves’.  I can forgive Aitken’s comments which suggest a woman’s biological capabilities should be valued over any others, since he is also rather unfair to his own sex!  But I can’t help but wonder who this nameless, charming lady is – or just what Aitken and Thomson ‘mentioned’ about her in their previous discussion!

Alexander Craig Aitken (1895–1967) was born in Dunedin, in Otago, New Zealand.  He was an exceptional student, winning several class prizes and graduating top of his class.  His Father, who was a shopkeeper, allowed Aitken to do the accounts from an early age – this he enjoyed, and often credited his later mental arithmetic skills as stemming from this period.  In 1913, he was awarded a full scholarship to attend Otago University, studying mathematics and languages (Latin and French).  His experience of mathematics at University was unpleasant, although he met his future wife there, a brilliant botanist credited with establishing the Botany department at Otago.

100_1484Winifred Aitken

Aitken’s studies were interupted by the First World War, and he enlisted in 1915 at the age of 20.  He documented his experience of the War in his book, Gallipoli to the Somme.    It was first drafted in 1917, but Aitken’s published version was re-edited in 1962.  Aitken’s account is at once harrowing and moving, as can be seen when he describes a friend’s death:

Two or three yards beyond this pair we found Harper lying, his thigh badly fractured, but calm and in full possession of his senses.  We asked if it was very bad.  He simply said: ‘I think I’m done for’…he spoke quietly, with the same high calm, far beyond his years – he was, I suppose, my own age, twenty-one, perhaps twenty-two – and he knew better than we, for he had lost too much blood and died of wounds a week later.  He was of very heavy build and we could not move him an inch without causing him pain; but at that moment I caught site of a group of men, carrying a stretcher with them, coming through the gap and towards the trees.  It was a volunteer party lead by Captain Hargrest, always the first to think of his men, and including Sergeant-Major Howden (killed at the Somme, 27th September 1916), Sergeant Carruthers (killed at Paschendaele, 12th October 1917), and Sergeant Frank Jones (died of wounds received at the Somme, 22nd September 1916).  These men laid Harper on the Stretcher and carried him in, I following as dawn was breaking.

Gallipoli to the Somme p.103

100_1502

Aitken c.1915

Throughout the war, Aitken carried a cheap violin, deriving comfort from the art he had learned as a child from a blind violinist who guided his playing through touch and ear.   Such luxuries were prohibited – space in the trenches was extremely limited, but Aitken’s comrades took it in turns to hide the contraband instrument.

100_1490

Aitken’s music manuscripts, many of which are his own compositions

Aitken sustained wounds to his arm and foot in 1917, which ended his army career.  He returned to Otago, completing his studies, and becoming a mathematics master at his old school, Otago Boys High School.  In 1923, he gained a postgraduate scholarship to study under Sir Edmund Whittaker.  During his studies, his wife fell pregnant with their first child, and Aitken, feeling the full weight of his financial, familial, and academic responsibilities, began to feel physically and mentally ill.

His research was not prospering, and he feared he would be unable to submit his thesis on time.  Months of frenzied calculations followed, cultimating in weeks of illness Aitken describes as being ‘like food poisoning’.  Following his recovery, Aitken set about his thesis, and found the solution to the problem instantameously, submitting his thesis (by his own admission) hurredly.  The thesis was awarded the DSc rather than PhD, an honour which AItken modestly describes as ‘a surprise’.

A fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the age of thirty followed, as well as the society’s highest honour, the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize.  In 1936, Aitken became a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1936; and in 1946 the chair of Pure Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.  For a short time during World War II, he also worked at Bletchley Park, though this part of his life remains a mystery.

100_1498

Some of the many cuttings showing Aitken’s achievements

These achievements were overshadowed by his breakdown in 1927.  Aitken, who had had something of a prepensity for mysticism from an early age, had been subject to hallucinations throughout his life.  These began to intensify:

Clermiston Road, which leads up Corstorphine Hill to Clermiston Avenue, would suddenly twist in front of me; the branches of trees, full of the foliage of June, would suddenly become drenched with the heaviness of some further dimension, arresting, symbolising something, apocalyptic.  The world “apocalyptic” is the only one by which I can describe the moonlight, the sycamore tree at nightfall, the further Pentlands, the edge of the skyline at Curriehill, which often seemed fringed with fire; and I could not see that this fire was the fire of my own nerves.

To Catch the Spirit, p.90

‘The fire of his own nerves’ would plague him throughout the rest of his career, ordinary women would look like angels and he would see indescribable colours.  His wife, who had long since given up her distinguished work, devoted herself to looking after Aitken.  This, according to their daughter, Margaret Mott, she did not grudge, fully believing in Aitken and his abilities.  He spent much time towards the end of his career campaigning against decimilsation, his zeal eventually attracting ridicule, and died in 1967.

In his excellent introduction to Aitken’s memoirs, compiled from papers in the possession of his daughter Margaret Mott, Fenton tells us the title derives from ‘a letter taken up with the proof of a certain theorem, which Aitken signed ‘Q.E.D and A.C.A’ (ad captandam animam=to catch the spirit of the thing)’ (To Catch the Spirit, p.7).  The title is a wonderfully evocative one, especially fitting in light of the following passage:

I believe we are surrounded the whole time by marvellous powers, are immersed in them, closer than breathing,and I think that all great music, poetry, mathematics, and real religion come from a world not distant but right in the midst of everything, permeating it. 

To catch the spirit, p.23

Numbers, and Aitken’s intrinsic gift of understanding them, were ‘the spirit of the thing’, allowing Aitken to view the world around him in a way no one else could.  In his review of Aitken’s memoirs, Wimp asks if any of us would choose to have such an incredible gift in light of the terrible price it comes with.  I end with what I would imagine Aitken’s reply to be, from a passage regarding his breakdown:

It is customary to pass quickly over such an experience, as an illness,a regrettable pathological interruption in a career otherwise uniform, a passing spasm of suffocation.  When I consider the great gain of experience, the widening even of personal sympathies, the sudden openings onto a hundred vistas unsuspected before, the emergence of new standards in literature music and painting… I could not but regard my own breakdown of importance…for since that time, there is not a tree, not a turn in a road, nor a hilltop, not even a swaying reed, but speaks of the beauty, the at first terrible beauty and mystery of the world.

To Catch the Spirit, p.94

Sources:

Aitken, A C, To Catch the Spirit,  with an introduction by Peter Fenton, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995)

Aitken, A C, Gallipoli to the Somme, (London: Oxford University Press, 1963)

Wimp, Jet, accessed 27/09/2012

Oxford DNB

 

 

A letter from ‘Dear old Rack’!

As mentioned previously, Thomson’s collection features a great many interesting letters, and I’ll be sharing these throughout the course of the project.  One  which I found particularly touching was a letter from Thomson’s friend, Marjorie Rackstraw (1888-1981), to Lady Thomson shortly after Thomson’s death.

Rackstraw is an excellent example of the interesting people drawn to the Thomsons.  One of a five-daughter family, with no brothers, Rackstraw’s Father encouraged all of his daughters educationally, and gave them a small proportion of his fortune to afford them independence.  Her collection features slides, photographs, and several letters – many  of these are rather charmingly addressed to ‘Dear old Rack’!

letters

Some of the many letters in Rackstraw’s collection with correspondents throughout the world

driving

Rackstraw’s international driving documentation, 1930s-1940s

The Thomsons met Rackstraw at Edinburgh University, where she was warden of Mason Hall from 1924 to 1937.  Before then, Rackstraw had studied history at Birmingham, found herself at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, and worked as a relief worker in Russia during the famine.

Marjorie

Rackstraw’s International Driving Permit photograph, 1939

As Lady Thomson’s annotations on the letter [below] suggest, Rackstraw’s particular concern was for the care of the elderly – particularly the poor, and she was Chair of the the Hampstead Old People’s Housing Trust until she was 80.  She was a firm socialist throughout her life, a member of the Fabian society, and a Labour councillor.  Her aid work did not end in Russia, she also volunteered for with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration throughout World War II.  Rackstraw had suffered from spinal difficulties as a result of contracting polio as a child, which impaired her movement somewhat, but she refused to allow this to get in the way of her humanitarian work, or indeed any other aspect of her life.

DSCN2222DSCN2226

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readers might remember my earlier blog about the partnership of Thomson and Lady Thomson, and Rackstraw’s letter gives us more insight into this:

What a wonderful partnership it has been, something that has made one believe in the beauty and goodness of human nature.

I think you know how much joy it has brought me to have shared with you two so many wonderful things in life, the wonderful holidays at Glenapp, your dear house in Edinburgh, and oh so many jaunts

The Thomson’s had a great many friends who frequented their house, and Thomson himself often chose to work from home, so its unsurprising Marjorie comments on the warmth of his home.  Most touchingly, she calls Thomson ‘a rare plant in God’s garden’.

Many of the letters sent to Lady Thomson laud Thomson’s achievements and his intellect, but Marjorie’s letter simply remembers the man.  Her warmth and her kindness are evident, as are the love and esteem she felt for the family.

Within Marjorie’s collection, we also have a letter from Thomson, sent a few short months before he died, which further shows the intimacy and friendship between the two:

letter 1letter 2

Letter 3

letter 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the letters of condolence sent to Lady Thomson show, his death was a surprise to many, since Thomson, perhaps unsurprisingly for his generation, did not mention his health troubles to his friends and acquaintances.  However, he does share them with Rackstraw, telling her her that a specialist visited him, and hinting at how he is struggling to be cheerful.

Unbeknown to Rackstraw, Thomson’s ‘tummy troubles’ were down to cancer, and he would pass away a few months later in February 1955.  It is likely Thomson and his family were unaware of this too – particularly since his son Hector, as Thomson mentions in the letter, had taken to shouting ‘Goodbye, Daddy, don’t die till I come back!!’!

DSCN2380

Rackstraw with Thomson’s son, Hector, from one of the Thomson family albums, c1940s

Collections like Thomson’s and Rackstraw are fascinating not only because they tell us something of the creators’ work, but because they offer the researcher a slice of 20th century life, and an example of the colourful personalities, networks, and friendships abounding – Thomson’s collection informs the user of his work, but also of himself as an individual, his family, his friends, and the people he surrounded himself with.

Many of the letters in Rackstraw’s collection – which I confess I have merely scratched the surface of – are surprisingly candid, discussing marriages that happened too soon, regrettable career decisions, and the odd bit of scandal!  In other words, all the components necessary to make the historical human. (Or at the very least, to make some deliciously salacious discoveries!).

Sources: Papers of Marjorie Rackstraw, Oxford DNB.

 

‘Never mind, dear, I didn’t want a competitor, only a wife!’

Behind every great man is that truly awful platitude reserved for the woman in his shadow!  Researchers and archivists often despair about the absence of women – and not only women, but that’s several other blogs! –  found in the margins of the papers of great men.  What was their part in the story, other than that of a dutiful wife neglected in the pursuit of greatness?

Comparatively little is known about Thomson’s wife, Jennie (or to give her full title, Lady Thomson!).  She is admittedly rather absent from his autobiography, The Education of an Englishman.  This may be pardonable in some respects as it is largely about his education and career, though indeed one might say what is marriage if not an education?!  Thomson tells us that he married his ‘younger colleague’ and settled down to ‘happiness and careful budgeting’.  We know they met at Armstrong College, where Jenny was also teaching, and that they had one child, Hector.  We know that Thomson’s many influential friends, including Carlos Paton Blacker, thought very highly of Jennie and enjoyed her company – but why?  Was she witty?  Good humoured?  Or did she simply bake a mean scone as the annotations to Thomson’s recipe book would attest?!

Jennie Thomson

Thomson credited Jennie for winning the Urban Prize with him, saying that she carried out the mathematical calculations, but Jennie’s story is somewhat different:

One night, sitting as usual in his study with Crelle’s Rechaud Tafel on my knee I said to him ‘You know Godfrey, although I can do these calculations, I haven’t the faintest idea of what it is really all about.

He said ’Never mind, dear, I didn’t want a competitor, only a wife!’

However, from Thomson’s papers it is entirely clear just how much his Jennie meant to him, and how much her Godfrey meant to her.  Its telling, for instance, that Thomson kept so many photographs of Jennie, that on one of the photographs of her in full costume for an amateur production at Durham University, Thomson has written ‘Jane Hutchinson, (now my wife), in what I like to imagine was a proud and steady hand!

Jane Hutchinson (‘Jennie’), right, and Beatrice Buckley, left

Thomson’s notes on reverse

We can see Jennie in the papers of James Fitzjames Duff, in a letter from Thomson’s friend, G R Goldsborough, who recalls how Thomson informed him of his marriage:

I wrote back a congratulatory letter saying how fortunate she was to have a man of such fine qualities; which I was sure would lead to a happy union and future prosperity.  He immediately replied saying that it would please him very much if I would write and say the same to Jennie!  I felt it a pecuiliar request, but I did as he asked and got what I deserved for my pains – a cool reply with a plain hint that such an unsolicited testimonial was not required.

Jennie clearly knew that Thomson, for all his ‘fine qualities’, was jolly lucky to have her!

Jennie (right) and her sister on their graduation, Durham University

Nowhere is the love between Thomson and Jennie more apparent than her biographical notes.  Thomson died 14 years before Lady Thomson. Sadly, Jennie never finished the biography, perhaps because she suffered from poor health following Thomson’s death until her own.  However, the notes she left behind give an insight into the man she knew better than anyone.   She describes Thomson’s characteristics – his humour, his kindness, his egalitarian nature:

He possessed a strong sense of humour, a ready wit and considerate personal charm which made him a perfect host at his own table.  His tasks were simple, he loved his fellow men…He had what all great people had – humility.

Lady Thomson’s notes regarding Thomson’s death are particularly poignant:

I have said earlier that Godfrey sought truth and was not afraid of it when he met it.  He was not afraid when he met it at the last.

He asked me two days before he died if the doctors had told me he was going to die.  He said “I am not afraid to die, but I am afraid of the pain and anguish to you”. 

Through my barely hidden tears, I said “Yes dear, I know you are very ill, but I am your old sweetheart you know – and I am coming to you soon”.  He said “Some things are certainties”

Thomson died in the afternoon of the following day.  Jennie, or Lady Thomson as she was by then, was flooded with letters of sympathy telling her how much the sender admired and loved Thomson, from many of the world’s leading statisticians and psychometricians including Charles Paton Blacker and David Glass, as well as several letters from past students.  Almost every letter states Jennie should not answer, she should rest, etc., and almost every letter is marked ‘answered’, with the date Jennie replied.

We will likely never know terribly much about Jennie other than the traces dotted around Thomson’s papers – the photographs of her, the book about Durham she gave him for Christmas 1914 – but Thomson treasured these traces.  He referred to them throughout his life, often annotating them in hindsight.  Jennie wasn’t ‘just’ a wife to Thomson, and she wasn’t ‘just’ a figure in the background of his achievements.  She was his partner, his friend, and the person he trusted the most, and he was all those things to her.

 

A brief history of Godfrey Thomson!

In 1932 and 1947, every 11 year old child in Scotland was given an intelligence test, known as the ‘Moray House Test’, as part of the Scottish Mental Survey.  Additionally, they were the subject of a questionnaire which gleaned information about their social and familial background.  All of this was in response to the idea that as a nation, Scotland’s intelligence was decreasing due to a supposed differential birth rate.  The resulting data, which proved this hypothesis wrong, survives to this day.  It is an entirely unique and rich source of information, which has allowed current researchers at the department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh to undertake pioneering research exploring cognitive ageing.

The creator of these tests (and chairman of the second Scottish Mental Survey) was none other than Professor Sir Godfrey Hilton Thomson.

So just who was Thomson- and why do we think him so important?!

Thomson was a pioneer in the interloping fields of intelligence, statistics, and education. He was the first person to the Bell Chair of Education at the University of Edinburgh, and the Directorship of Moray House School of Education simultaneously; published prolifically on the topic of psychometrics; debated voraciously with eminent statistician Charles Spearman for almost 30 years, and last, but by no means least, was a Knight of the Realm thanks to his considerable services to Education.  More than this, Thomson was an egalitarian from a humble background, a ‘lad o’ pairts’ who achieved greatness thanks to his talent and determination, and who believed deeply in equality and fairness.

DSCN18081.jpg

Godfrey Thomson, c1920s

The ‘Moray House Tests’ which the children sat in 1932 and 1947 actually had their origins in Newcastle in 1921.  The local authorities, who at that time provided bursaries for secondary school education, were concerned by a lack of applicants from rural backgrounds.  Thomson was conscious of the fact that rural children were often absent from school, so he wanted to create a test which would allow children to demonstrate ‘native wit’ or innate intelligence, rather than a test which would rely upon past learning.

DSCN1837

Example of a question from the Newcastle tests

This striving for equality was typical of Thomson, and perhaps in part a result of his own humble background.  Born in Carlisle in 1881, his Mother left his Father, taking the infant Thomson with her, to return to her childhood home in Tyneside.  His Mother and he lived with her three sisters, and she earned a very modest income from working with a sewing machine firm in Newcastle.

Thomson had plans to become a ‘pattern maker’, a specialist joiner who made wooden models of steel castings for engineering works, after leaving High Felling Board School.  However, after sitting a scholarship examination, Thomson found himself at Rutherford College, where he discovered various interests in mathematics, music, and etymology.  Rutherford College was supported largely by the students entering and winning examinations as part of a government scheme, and Thomson soon became a veteran in these examinations, obtaining prizes for English and Mathematics amongst others.

DSCN1817

Thomson as a young boy

At 16, he sat the London Matriculation exam, and returned to High Felling Board School as a pupil teacher.  During this time, he took additional evening classes, studying chemistry, physics, botany, and zoology.  In 1889, aged 18, Thomson sat the Queen’s Scholarship, an all-England competition, and came third, continuing his studies in what would become Armstrong College, and later King’s College, at Durham University.  Thomson studied for his teaching diploma and a joint Mathematics and Physics degree simultaneously, and graduated with distinction.  He went on to study at Strasbourg under the Nobel prize winning physicist, Professor Ferdinand Braun, and graduating Summa cum Laude following his work on Herzian waves.

After his three years in Strasbourg came to a close, Thomson returned to Newcastle, attaining the post of assistant lecturer at Armstrong College in order to fulfil the obligation of his scholarship.    It was here he met his wife, Jennie Hutchinson, a fellow lecturer, and here he gained an interest in Educational Psychology. In 1916 he published a paper which would ignite a 30 year debate with the eminent statistician, Charles Spearman.

Essentially, the debate centred around Spearman’s Theory of Two Factors regarding intelligence.  He believed that performance in each subject was down to specific abilities linked to each, and general ability linked to all.  Thomson provided an alternative for this in his bonds model, in which he hypothesised that any mental task requires a number of ‘bonds’, some of which are more closely related to others in ‘pools’ (Thomson made a link between these bonds and the neurons of the brain).  Thomson had no wish to discredit Spearman’s theory, rather to show that his provided an alternative, and he showed good sportsmanship in holding off publication during the war years to enable Spearman, who was serving, time to respond. However, the debate would continue until Spearman’s death in 1945.

In 1925, Thomson accepted his position in Edinburgh and his family (by now including his son, Hector) moved to Edinburgh.  It was here in what became the Godfrey Thomson Unit that Thomson and his team would formulate the Moray House Test.  The test, which included questions on verbal reasoning, English, and mathematics, was also used by local authorities throughout the UK for School selection.  Thomson was not wholly comfortable with this, but concluded testing was preferable to nepotism, and worked on making the tests as fair as possible.  Thomson could have made a considerable fortune on the tests, but instead insured all royalties were transferred into a research fund to facilitate their continual improvement.

On his retirement in 1951, Thomson, who had proved highly popular amongst staff and students, was presented with 2 portraits of himself by RH Westwater, one of which hangs in Moray House to this day.  He passed away in 1955.

These are just some of the many reasons why we think Thomson is incredibly important, and has been unfairly neglected from the history of psychometrics.  This neglect is, in part, due to scholars having no primary material to consult – the archive itself was only discovered in 2008, and it is no exaggeration to say it was rescued.

It is our task to catalogue his papers, and to ensure he finally receives the recognition his work deserves.  In the coming months, we will be blogging about Thomson, his collection, and the people he came into contact with throughout his life and career.  We hope you will enjoy!