Tag Archives: Intelligence

Godfrey and Hector Thomson

(Coll-1310/1/2/2 Family Photographs)

With father’s day coming up this weekend, I thought it would be interesting to blog about the father/son relationship between Godfrey and Hector Thomson. When Hector was born in 1917, it was clear that Godfrey had a new test-subject in his infant son!

Immediately after Hector was born, Thomson began to keep a journal recording his son’s development from his birth until the age of ten (ref: Coll-1310/1/7), a copy of which is among the records of the Godfrey Thomson collection. This journal is fascinating in its level of observation and detail about young Hector, and shows the depth of Godfrey’s commitment to understanding childrens development and intelligence. Who knows what Hector thought about the in-depth analysis of his behaviour and speech throughout his childhood, but the entries give a great insight into what it must have been like in the Thomson household.

(Coll-1310/1/7 Papers Regarding Hectors Development)

The many photographs in the Thomson family albums illuminate the family further, and contain several charming pictures of Hector and Godfrey together.

The first entry records Hectors appearance as a new-born on the 18^th of February 1917. Godfrey notes that he “has blue eyes, brown hair, long thin limbs and a large triangle head”! Less than a month later, it is recorded that “he looks at bright objects and turns his head about when a noise is made. Finds bright objects better than he finds noises however. Smiled twice today. His eyes are much darker than when he was born and perhaps they are changing from blue to brown.”

Frequent diary entries contain details about Hector’s early years, including his thumb-sucking, his ability to see his mother in the mirror, picking up items, first words, illnesses and learning to walk. As the years went by, quotes from the rather amusing Hector were also recorded in the journal, as well as stories he made up, dreams he recounted for his parents and several drawings. Despite early attempts by his parents to make him write with his right hand, his natural tendency to left handedness won out in the end! Interestingly he had a propensity to write in mirror image, which is shown in some of his drawings.

Godfrey was obviously very interested in Hector’s intellectual development and the scientific conclusions he could draw from his observations; but this file is also a testament of the affection, pride and amusement he felt while watching his son growing up.

Earlier blog entries have told about Hector as an adult, his wide ranging travels and his marriage to Andromache. Rather touchingly, even as an adult he always referred to Godfrey as “Daddy”. He followed in his father’s footsteps into the field of education to become a popular and well respected teacher in Nicosia and later at the University of Aberdeen.

Neasa Roughan, Godfrey Thomson Project Intern

The disgruntlements of old age…

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Disgruntlement. The archives are full of it – though I should stress I am referring to the contents of our records rather than our lovely readers (or indeed my lovely colleagues)! This week’s letter is a wonderful example of disgruntlement from the eccentric and brilliant zoologist and classicist, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). The youth, he tells us, simply aren’t what they used to be:Thompson wrote the letter to Thomson in 1946 to congratulate him on his Galton Lecture, ‘the Trends of National Intelligence’, which explored the idea that as a nation, our intelligence was in decline.

While he acknowledges that he may well be ‘biased by the disgruntlements of old age’, he assures Thomson:

I still believe that my students are inferior to those of thirty or forty years ago, and to my own companions of 60-70 years ago. They have less ability, much less diligence, and hardly any of the old enthusiasm and joy and happiness in their work.

And that, according to Thompson, isn’t even the half of it!:

There is something, something very subtle and mysterious, which brings the Golden Ages and the Dark Ages; which gives one, in literature, the Elizabethan, the Queen Anne, and the Victorian periods; and in Art the great and shortlived glories of Greece, Italy, Holland and our English school of Reynolds, Turner, Constable and the rest. All gone!

Indeed. And according to Thompson, who finishes on a wonderful note of pessimism, its only going to get worse:

I judge from the young people I have to do with, that we are going to be worse before we are better.

D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson

But despite appearances, Thompson loved teaching – he was a renowned speaker whose lecture halls were packed, and he encouraged his students to exercise their enquiring minds. Even while he lay on his death bed, Thompson’s students visited and livened up his last days with discussion and debate. Any disappointment hinted at in his letter to Thomson could be attributed to his own brilliance, which perhaps caused him to expect similar levels of extraordinariness in those he taught.

Thompson’s love of biology was awakened by his Grandfather, who, along with Thompson’s Aunt, brought him up in Edinburgh. This was due to the death of his Mother and his Father’s appointment as professor of Greek in Queen’s College, Galway. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge – gaining a first, naturally, and was appointed professor of biology in University College Dundee.

The importance of artefacts in teaching was clear to Thompson from the outset. Under his guidance a rich museum of zoology was created, helped by the Dundee whalers. Thompson himself was deeply interested in whaling, visiting the Pribylov Islands as a member for the British–American ‘inquiry on the fur seal fishery in the Bering Sea’. This interest would continue throughout his life, seeing him speaking at international conferences; appointed CB (1898); becoming a member of the fishery board for Scotland; and becoming a British representative for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. In 1917, Thompson accepted the post of senior chair of natural history in the United College of the University of St Andrews.

Thompson’s published output was vast, and included papers on biology, oceanography, classical scholarship, and natural history. He had several honours bestowed upon him, including his election as fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1885); his election as fellow of the Royal Society (1916); the Linnean gold medal (1938); the Darwin medal (1946); and his knighthood (1937). Despite his description of himself as a ‘disgruntled old man’, Thompson encouraged the youth surrounding him to think, to enquire, and to explore – something he did right up until the end of his life.

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

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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.

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]

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!

A man of excellent repute

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A pet hate of Thomson’s was his name being spelled ‘Thompson’. Any correspondent who did so was wont to find a rather amusing peculiarity in Thomson’s reply. Whatever their name, placed in the middle of it would be the offending ‘p’!

One can only hope that the following letter didn’t provoke the same response:

Letter to Thomson from Karl Pearson, 1919

Those in the statistical know will recognise the signature of Karl Pearson, often referred to as the founder of modern statistics. The first thing we notice about the letter is that Thomson has crossed out the ‘p’! The second, that Pearson is offering Thomson a job at the Francis Galton Laboratory, University of London, despite never having met him before. Such was Thomson’s reputation.

The collection boasts a further two letters from Pearson around the same time. Pearson has misspelled Thomson’s name in all three, so we can only assume Thomson thought better of correcting him!

The second letter offers Thomson more money, and the third graciously accepts Thomson’s decision not to accept the post. In this letter, Pearson tells Thomson ‘I think you have done the wise thing, although it is my loss as I am not likely to get as good a man’.

Thomson treasured the letters his whole life, and they were a great source of pride to him. His son found them after his death, along with other letters which held significance to Thomson, including letters from Edward Thorndike, Derrick Lawley, and Pearson’s son, Egon Pearson.

In the coming months, we will be looking at some of these letters, and the fascinating stories behind them, in more depth.