Tag Archives: Godfrey Thomson

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

A letter from Pip

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Some of the most interesting letters in Thomson’s collection were sent to his widow following his death in 1955. The following, from psychiatrist and secretary of the Eugenics society Carlos Paton Blacker (1895–1975), gives a good indication of the friendship between himself and Thomson:

It is not clear when Thomson and Blacker first became acquainted, but their research interests certainly overlapped. Thomson was the key figure in the two Scottish Mental Surveys, which tested the intelligence of almost every school child in Scotland born in 1921 and 1936 in 1932 and 1947 respectively. These were of direct interest to Blacker, who had helped establish the Royal Commission on Population.

The word ‘Eugenics’ is one which the 21st century audience is rather uncomfortable with. Unsurprisingly, following the holocaust and devastation of World War II, mid 20th century Britain wasn’t comfortable with the concept either. At best Eugenics was considered a mere pseudo-science (as it is to this day, despite Blacker’s efforts, widely acknowledged to be). But the eugenics of Blacker were more moderate than that of those preceding him. As Soloway argues in his Oxford DNB entry:

Under Blacker the Eugenics Society was transformed from an unfocused, amateur propaganda agency dabbling uncertainly in the newly emerging areas of birth control and genetics, into a quasi-professional research foundation committed to family planning and the serious study of population problems.

Blacker had experienced first hand the effects of a lack of access to, and information about, birth control throughout his time as a medical student at Guy’s hospital, where he encountered large numbers of deeply distressed female patients undergoing unwanted pregnancies they were powerless to avoid. However, it is undeniable that alongside this very human desire to help the women he encountered, Blacker viewed contraception as a tool to ensure what eugenicists saw as the least desirable echelons of society were not ‘out-breeding’ the more desirable.

PP-CPB-B.20AwardOfGaltonMedalToCarlosPatonBlackerWELLCOME1957

From the Wellcome Trust archives, Blacker being awarded the Galton medal, 1957 (ref: PP/CPB/B.20). Image Wellcome Trust

This was a concern that pervaded the first half of the 20th century – namely that of the perceived ‘differential birth rate’, the idea that the more educated (therefore the most desirable) sections of society were producing less offspring than the ill-educated working classes. Indeed, the second Scottish Mental Survey was undertaken in order to establish whether Scotland’s intelligence was declining (in fact, the results indicated a slight increase).

Thomson fought for a fair education for all that catered to each individual’s abilities regardless of their background, often in the face of eugenic principles which argued that such an approach would encourage the supposed ‘differential birth rate’. Similarly, Blacker faced criticism from fellow members of the Eugenics Society who believed availability of contraceptives to all would lower the birth rate of educated professionals even further. Both were men of strong beliefs, and the development of their friendship can be seen in records of the Eugenics Society held by the Wellcome Trust Library and available online.

The changes in how they address one another in the course of their correspondence are particularly telling. The surviving correspondence in the records of the Eugenics Society dates from 1946-1950 (though we know from Thomson’s papers that he and Blacker were in touch until Thomson’s death). At the onset, Thomson addresses Blacker ‘Dr Blacker’, then ‘Blacker’, then ‘My dear Blacker’. Eventually, in his letter of November 1948, Thomson begins:

(I would like to feel privileged to use the name you once told me was yours among your friends, but I can’t for the life of me remember it – Punch or Plug or something like that I think. Do tell me).

From SA/EUG/C.329, ‘Professor Sir Godfrey H Thomson’, Wellcome Trust Library

Blacker evidently signed his reply (of which only the typed copy survives) by this name, which was of course ‘Pip’. From then on, Thomson addresses Blacker as ‘Pip’, while Blacker moves from ‘My dear Thomson’ to ‘My dear Godfrey’. Their correspondence shows the value each placed on the other’s professional opinion, as well as the interest they took in one another’s lives and the enjoyment they derived from one other’s company.

When Blacker was awarded the Galton medal two years after Thomson’s death, Lady Thomson wrote to him (her letter can be found in Blacker’s personal papers, held by the Wellcome Trust Library and available online) in her typically touching fashion:

I can only say how delighted I am, and you know how proud of you Godfrey would have been.

I hope he knows about it in some way or other.

From PP/CPB/B.20, ‘Award of Galton Medal to Carlos Paton Blacker’, Wellcome Trust Library

Blacker’s career was varied, taking him from an heroic performance in World War I (where he was awarded the Military Cross), to a medical graduate (then psychologist) working in Guy’s hospital. Blacker went on to work as a psychiatrist in Maudsley Hospital, where he stayed to the end of his career, broken up only by his time as a field Doctor during World War II (where he was awarded the George Medal for gallantry), and a secondment to the Ministry of Health, where he was investigating the need for psychiatric care following World War II.

Blacker was certainly an interesting character. His views, moderate in their time, are open to criticism in ours. But then everyone is a product of the time from which they emerge. Blacker’s work, whether it be establishing the needs of soldiers during and after warfare, or working towards making contraception both available and socially acceptable, was both far reaching and forward facing, and the traces he has left behind are a fascinating glimpse of the turbulent and changeful 20th century from some of its most interesting and complex characters.

Wellcome Trust University Award Research Fellow Dr Edmund Ramsden will be speaking about Eugenics and intelligence testing in the 20th century at a seminar titled ‘Gathering Intelligence: the work of Professor Sir Godfrey Thomson’, which will be held at Edinburgh University Library on the 16th May, 9-3.30 (with an optional tour of Moray House in the afternoon). Dr Ramsden will be one of 6 speakers, each looking at Thomson’s work from a different perspective. The seminar is free to attend, however booking is required. Bursaries for travel and accommodation may be available. If you are interested in attending, please contact me at Emma.Anthony@ed.ac.uk for further information.

A few of my favourite things…III

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In his mid 20s, Thomson found himself studying for a PhD under the formidable talents of Nobel Prize winining physicist, Karl Ferdinand Braun, at the University of Strasburg. Today’s object is from this period, and likely held a great deal of sentimental value to Thomson:

Thomson’s watch fob

The watch fob bears the initials of Thomson’s student ‘verein’ or club, the M.N.St.V, (the mathematical and natural science student verein), which he described as a humble version of the expensive ‘Burschenschaften’, elite student clubs which exist to this day and often involve duals (or Mensur):

In the Mensur…the fighters are protected by goggles and nose-piece, by mattress-like chest and arm protection, must not move or flinch, hold the straight pointed rapiers above the head, touching and at the word…strike at each other’s head and faces. Two seconds crouch with drawn swords and at the first touch they strike up the combatant’s swords. this is repeated until the referee gives a decision, or for a given number of rounds. Often one man gets all the cuts, and the other none. they are mostly on the head, but also on the forehead and cheek and chin, a ‘Durch-zieher’ cutting across both cheeks almost horizontally. Then senior medical students give hasty and not very sterile assistance and stitchings, and the heroes drink beer and swagger (if well enough) through the next few days.

The Education of an Englishman, p.53

Physikalisches Institut, Strasburg, March 1906

The scarring resulting from the dual was, and is, seen as a badge of honour, and students often deliberately irritated the wound, packing it to ensure it was widened. In Thomson’s humbler club, duals were rare and usually in response to an insult or wrong doing. No uniforms were required, but members wore a watch fob with the verein’s arms. Thomson’s Leibbursch*, Carl Andriessen (whose name is engraved on the watch fob with Thomson’s) gave him his.

After World War I, Thomson lost contact with many of his German friends, many of whom were killed or missing. However, the inscription of one book in his collection, Das Deutschland Buch, shows he kept in touch with Andriessen:

Inscription from Das Deutschland-Buch

The book is inscribed with a message to Thomson and his wife Jennie, thanking them for their hospitality, and dated June 1931 – 25 years after Thomson left Strasburg. The more fluent among you might notice he refers to them as ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’, which made me wonder if the giver was in fact Andriessen’s son, though he refers to them as old friends, which would suggest otherwise. It contains many beautiful images of Germany, a country Thomson loved his whole life, despite the ravages of two World Wars:

I found the book rather touching – despite the remaining animosity of their prospective nations after World War I, the two clearly have a strong friendship, and Andriessen is able to give Thomson a book about the beauty of his own country, a country Thomson also loved.

For Thomson, the time he spent in Strasburg was one of the happiest periods of his life. It allowed him to indulge in his passion for research, undertaking intensive work on Herzian waves. His German became fluent, and he immersed himself in German culture. The watch fob, which he treasured for all those years, perhaps served as the perfect reminder of his life there, and a reminder of enduring friendship.

*’A second year student who adopts a freshman, shows him the ropes, and can claim services in return’

With many thanks to Sarah Noble, LHSA Conservation Intern, who patiently spent a morning showing me how to make bespoke museum boxes and made the lovely box for Thomson’s watch fob!

‘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!

Catching the spirit of the thing

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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.

: 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:

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.

: Winifred 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, 27^th September 1916), Sergeant Carruthers (killed at Paschendaele, 12^th October 1917), and Sergeant Frank Jones (died of wounds received at the Somme, 22^nd 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

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.

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.

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 few of my favourite things…II

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In the next instalment of interesting objects (chosen solely on the discerning basis that I rather like them!) are these intelligence testing blocks from the Godfrey Thomson unit:

Testing blocks were (and are) used in several intelligence tests, including the WAIS intelligence tests and Wechsler tests. The individual is presented with the blocks and cards with patterns on them, and tasked with replicating the patterns with the blocks against a timer. This measures spacial ability.

Sadly, the accompanying cards have not survived (though this is perhaps just as well, since they would have resulted in procrastination en masse here in the archives!).

However, purely for entertainment purposes are the following teasers for you to try your hand at:

Enjoy!*

* Before embarking on this endeavour, the reader is advised that we do not have the answers!

A letter from ‘Dear old Rack’!

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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’!

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

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.

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.

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:

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!!’!

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.

Education and the ‘Disconnected Mind’

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This week, I was lucky enough to have a good rummage through the Scottish Council for Research in Education collection, which is in Glasgow University Archive Services. The council, which began in 1928, spent much of its life situated in Edinburgh, until its latter years when its staff were moved to the faculty of education in Glasgow.

It was the Scottish Council for Research in Education (who shall henceforth be known as SCRE!) who carried out the Scottish Mental Surveys, with funding from the Population Investigation Committee, the Eugenics Society, and, with later follow on studies, the Nuffield Trust. The surveys tested every child in Scotland born in 1921 and 1936 in 1932 and 1947 respectively, and there were three follow on projects (the ‘Binet 1000’, the ‘6-day sample’, and the ’36-day sample’). Some of the children from the 1947 survey were still in contact as far as 1963, their achievements and social background being examined alongside their original results to see what bearing these had had on the rest of their lives.

The records of these surveys, including the completed test papers, compiled results, follow on studies, and sociological data, survive to this day within the collection, and have been utilised to great effect by psychologists at Edinburgh University who are working with participants of the surveys to explore why some individuals’ cognitive abilities decline more than others. Their work is part of the Disconnected Mind project, which aims to prevent an increasingly ageing population from losing their cognitive abilities, and is funded by Age UK. You can hear Prof Ian Deary discuss the project here:

Like Deary, SCRE were concerned with the ‘disconnect’ of the mind, though that of the child rather than the adult. Much of SCRE’s work involved the engagement of the child in their learning. They had various primary school committees including committees for handwriting, numbers, spelling, and bilingualism (of which Thomson was convenor), as well as committees looking at the needs of blind, partially sighted, and deaf children.

This is reflected in the SCRE published spelling list:

Dr Robbie reported that in preparing the spelling list which the panel is proposing to compile the panel had sought to discover the kind of subject about which children liked to write. he explained that the pupil’s spelling and vocabulary would be obtained by distributing the chosen topics to selected schools, from this, a spelling list compiled on the child’s need would ultimately be compiled [Council minutes, 21 June 1947].

This concern about the child’s interests was, in actual fact, highly forward thinking, and there are many artefacts and teaching aids surviving in Moray House which show how teachers at the demonstration school piqued the interest of the children:

Some of the artefacts from the Moray House cupboard/wunderkabinet! [photograph courtesy of Emma Smith]

Another of the Moray House demonstration school’s teaching aids [photograph courtesy of Emma Smith]

Today, SCRE is no longer in operation. However, the publications they produced as a result of their work were widely disseminated, surviving in many higher education libraries. These, along with their records, show SCRE to have been both a highly innovative and democratic organisation, exploring hitherto unexamined areas and keeping equality, as well as the abilities and potential of each child, at its core.

With thanks to Glasgow University Archive Services.

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

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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 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.